ONE STEP FOR DEMOCRACY
BUT
THERE ARE MORE STEPS AND QUESTIONS:
On Friday, we sent out the email "Breaking News!!! Fantastic News!!!" celebrating our first win- the mayor and councilors have announced they are deferring their unjust pay raises. Without the collective effort of each and every one of you, they would have pocketed that unfair money in just over two months, on 1/1/2025. We’ve bought ourselves some time!
Now that we have taken a small victory dance, we need to understand what deferring the Quincy City Council and Mayor raises means. An ordinance will need to be written in order to amend the ordinance for the raises passed in the Spring (MA GL,Part I, Ch 43, Section 21). You should ask–will that ordinance amend the preposterous salaries? By just deferring when the salaries go into effect, the issue of the amount of those salaries is kicked down the road. Do we want the city councilors to receive a 50% salary increase in about a year’s time? Do we want the mayor to receive a 79% increase in 3 years?
Deferring the raises until after the next election cycle brings us one step closer to being in compliance with our City Charter (Chapter C, Section 17A). The Charter also calls for a public vote. Will we see a public hearing? Will we see a public vote? On any future salary raises? In a statement to the Quincy Sun - “Koch and Cain both expressed their commitment to maintaining transparency and ensuring that any future salary adjustments are fair and thoughtful.” We hope so.
This positive announcement was tainted by our mayor noting that we are distractions. ‘“There’s a lot of important work ahead and we don’t need “distractions.” Koch said’
Excuse us–we are not distractions, we are the taxpayers, you are our representatives. It is a good thing for you to listen to us.
Yes, we will have the rally on October 15th at 5:30 PM in front of the City Hall—with t-shirts and masks. We moved the start time from 6 PM to 5:30 PM since there will likely be plenty of discussion about the deferred raises and our next steps. Also, the Halloween event is still on. Let’s be sure that the mayor and city council continue to listen.
Kathy and Susan
WeVoters.org
Two articles in the Quincy Sun got me thinking about republics and democracy. The first was a quote from Mayor Koch (9/19). His quote was about being in favor of shortening the time for the school committee public forum. “Speaking in favor of the change, Koch said while he had seen comments regarding democracy, the country is a republic with an elected form of government.”
The second was a quote from Councilor Cain (9/26) with regard to the unlikelihood that the city council would reconsider their eye-popping raises and the lack of a public forum on the topic. “Cain said Quincy’s form of government does not require such an open forum.”
Interesting. America is a representative democracy or democratic republic, meaning that we elect our leaders to govern on our behalf within the framework of our Constitution. But do we have a representative democracy in Quincy? The Mayor has been in office for 16 years. In the 2023 election, he became the Mayor, again, with 16.2 % of the votes from registered voters. He outspent his opponent by a ratio of close to 10:1. Does Mr. Koch really represent Quincy?
Councilor Ian Cain has been the Ward 3 City Councilor for 9 years. In the 2023 election, he became the Ward 3 City Councilor, again, with 22.2% of Ward 3 registered voters. Ian Cain ran unopposed, however, Blank (aka. No one) received a vote of 6.5% of Ward 3 registered voters. Does Mr. Cain represent Quincy Ward 3?
Now consider the phrase ‘within the framework of our Constitution’. A City Charter is considered a constitution for a city government. Quincy has a City Charter that called for a public vote on any raises for elected officials (Section 17A). Further, those raises could not go into effect until after the final term of that elected official. The Quincy City Solicitor found that the City Charter was superseded by a State Law requiring neither. Amendment XXVII of the U.S. Constitution states- “No law, varying the compensation for the services of Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.” The Quincy City Charter and our Constitution appear to be trying to protect its citizens from elected officials lining their own pockets.
We need term limits. We also need to take a lot more responsibility to vote. It is a precious commodity. We are only a democracy if we participate in elections. Without voting—we can’t have a representative democracy and our city will continue to be represented by few and neither be a republic nor a democracy.
Kathleen E. Thrun
WeVoters.org
The Quincy City Council wants to give the Mayor and themselves a 3% (estimated CPI) annual raise on top of the 79% and 50% they already gave themselves. What do you think? - Kathy