The Real State of the City og
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 pro-Trump and 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 (you know, 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 – don’t actually believe that, right?
Most recently, we got a glimpse of the very affordable $850,000, 10-foot tall bronze statues that will flank the entrance to the new public safety building. Saint Michael the Archangel (representing the angel of death and the model of spiritual warfare in the Catholic tradition) and Saint Florian (patron saint of chimney sweeps, soapmakers and firefighters) are beloved figures in Quincy’s history, apparently. Never mind that most of the city council was totally unaware of these sculptural features. The designs evolved after the building’s plans were presented to the council, the mayor explained. “It seemed natural to do those images.”
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!
