The Real State of the City
Blog post by AJQ executive committee member Spencer Henderson
Given the immaterial State of the City address and the recent city council meeting that was canceled due to ‘no business’, you’d be forgiven for thinking there were no pressing issues facing our city.
Sure, the roads are in horrible shape, but I’m sure we'll be getting freshly paved roads any day now. Sure, the mayor and city council were forced to delay taking their 79% and 50% raises in response to the state's ethics investigation, but they decided to leave the raises on the books and in the budget, so there must be no problems there. Also, that guy who stole all that city money from Quincy Elder Services? He was caught. Yes, he is a close friend of the mayor, who also happened to be a leader in the same local men’s-only prayer group, but you never really know who you can trust nowadays.
Sure that prayer group (the Men of Divine Mercy) has special guests such as Father Tom Hoar, who posts and reposts anti-climate change messages repeatedly on X/Twitter and who seems to believe quite literally that we are in a spiritual war between God and the devil. But surely the prayer group’s leaders – the mayor, his media director, the commissioner of public works (the guy in charge of the roads), the commissioner of natural resources, the chief financial officer, a city lawyer, and the former director of plant facilities – leave their personal religious beliefs at the door when acting in their professional capacities as government employees, right?
That’s what the mayor implied when asked about two 10-foot-tall bronze statues that will flank the entrance to the new public safety building at a cost of $850,000. According to The Patriot Ledger, “Neither statue carries strictly religious messages, Koch said, stressing instead their representation of bravery, courage and service, values which he said Quincy's first responders exemplify.”
The statues depict Saint Florian (patron saint of chimney sweeps, soapmakers and firefighters) and Saint Michael the Archangel (representing the angel of death and the model of spiritual warfare in the Catholic tradition). The latter is standing on the head and neck of the devil. “‘That's what the police are about in our community,’ Koch said, referring to St. Michael's symbolic representation of ‘good versus evil,’” reported the Ledger.
Most of the city council was totally unaware of these sculptural features until the Ledger’s story came out (and one, a retired Quincy police lieutenant, then objected to St. Michael’s “us vs them” symbolism), but the mayor had a ready explanation. The designs evolved after the building’s plans were presented to the council. “It seemed natural to do those images,” he said.
Speaking of things that have evolved over time, check out this chart of the city’s net financial position that I made using the city’s audited financial statements. “Net position” means just what you’d think – it’s the value of the city’s assets minus the value of its debts.
Data from the City of Quincy’s audited financial statements (Image: Spencer Henderson/AJQ)
When Koch won his first mayoral election in 2007, we were running a net positive $152 million balance sheet – we were “up” by $152 million. That climbed to a $175 million surplus in 2013 before dropping down to a deficit of $762 million in 2023 – a loss of almost $1 billion in a decade.
That is quite a feat, and the mayor’s unilateral decision to add ~$1 million of religious statuary to a $175 million public safety building (which, with interest payments, will ultimately cost taxpayers $320 million) is just the latest example of the kind of leadership that got us here. Amazing work!
This blog has been updated to include more context on the statues and on the parallels between the mayor’s comments about them and Father Hoar’s beliefs.
