Events: Resident councils, MLK Day, and more

Jan 17

The last few weeks have been busy for me – attending the council and school committee swearings-in, taking trainings, getting set up with a work email and phone, meeting with city departments, touring Interfaith Social Services’ food pantry, and most recently getting the flu along with my son (boo).

Pictures of smiling volunteers packing food in carts and bags and bins and standing together beside shelves of diapers — Volunteers and staff at Interfaith Social Services, which provides food, eviction prevention help, and mental health support to our neighbors who need it. Interfaith is looking for a large space with ample parking and public transportation access in Quincy for a future grocery-store-like food bank where folks could come in and pick up exactly what they need. Please reach out to me if you have ideas for locations they could buy – I will collect and pass along the suggestions!

For Tuesday’s first real council meeting, I also wrote up four orders to undo and rethink the mayor’s and council’s raises and signed onto others’ orders that aim to bring a public comment period to every council meeting, return oversight power to our city auditor, and more.

The work is meaningful, the learning curve is steep, and I’m by turns overwhelmed and exhilarated. I will share as much as I can along the way so that anyone thinking of running for office someday (🤞🤞🤞) will have a better sense of what to expect. And now to business!

Upcoming events

Sunday, Jan. 18, 2 pm @ Main library (40 Washington Street): Resident council inaugural meeting! If you’re interested in acting as an informal adviser to the city council, please come to the big meeting room on the library’s ground floor to learn more! 如果您有兴趣担任市议会的非正式顾问，欢迎您于 1 月 18 日（星期日）下午 2 点前往主图书馆一楼的大会议室（地址：40 Washington Street）参加会议。
Monday, Jan. 19, 8:30 am @ Tirrell Room (254 Quarry Street): Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast. One of the last surviving Tuskegee airmen, Brigadier General Enoch “Woody” Woodhouse, will be the keynote speaker. Free, no registration required.
Monday, Jan. 19, 2 – 3 pm @ Presidents’ Church (1306 Hancock Street): MLK Jr. Standout and Reading. Bring your own favorite quote or passage from MLK or read one provided by organizers from United First Parish Church, March Forward/Indivisible, and StandOut Quincy 4 Black Lives. Event will be inside the church in case of bad weather.
Monday, Jan. 19: End of public comment period for the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT)’s Draft Quincy Route 3A/Hancock Street Transportation Improvements Study. View the draft study; email all comments to planning@dot.state.ma.us.
Tuesday, Jan. 20, 7:30 pm @ Old City Hall, 2nd floor: City Council meeting. The first real council meeting of the 2026/27 term! Proposals to be voted on or sent to committee for future discussion include: providing 20 minutes of public comment opportunity at every council meeting; requiring the city to upload supporting documents for council meetings when the agendas are posted (ie, at least 48 hours before the meetings); keeping spending and rainy-day funds in check; empowering the city auditor to do financial reporting and reviews; sewer, water, and stormwater management changes; raise re-dos; leasing solar energy for the new Squantum School; and asking for the city to report on the implications of a residential property tax exemption. Phew!

Other things to note

Citywide: Kindergarten registration is open for Sept. 2026 for any kids who will turn 5 on or before August 31st.
Wollaston: The proposal for a 300+-unit building in the parking lot beside the Wollaston CVS (42 Beale St) has been withdrawn and may be resubmitted in an altered form to the planning board in the coming months.
Wollaston: The would-be buyer for Eastern Nazarene College pulled out of the project in the fall after the mayor nixed his proposal for high-density housing at the center of campus. I know many in Ward 5 are very interested to learn more about potential plans for ENC (or even buy parts of it!), and I’m sure I’ll be meeting with the mayor on that in the next few weeks. I’ll keep you posted!
South Quincy: Ward 2 Councilor Richard Ash has been monitoring and working on a project in the southern end of Ward 5, near the border of Ward 2, for the better part of a year (4 South Street). He reported the following from last week’s planning board meeting, which you can watch here (I’m grateful for his rundown – I was flu-y that night):

“The team "opened" at Planning Board last night, meaning they presented the plans, heard questions from the Board, and listened to some public comment.

Highlights: 4 stories (including 1 level of parking), 7 units (4 - 2 bedroom units and 3 - 1 bedroom units), with 1 bedroom units (900 sq ft) on the first residential floor (second overall given the first floor parking), and 2 bedroom units (1100 - 2K sq ft) on the second and third residential floors (third and fourth overall). The developer presented pavers and the landscaping plan. Entrance on Elm Street only, not South. The public comment period for the proposal is still OPEN and will be continued to 3/11/26 at 6 PM.”

Free legal help: Lawyers Clearinghouse offers three legal clinics to help connect people with free legal help: (1) low-income and homeless clinic (they take a variety of cases but not immigration or family law); (2) record sealing and expungement (since people's records often keep them out of jobs and housing); (3) tax lien foreclosure (for people who are facing foreclosure by the city because they haven't paid their property taxes). If you or anyone you know could use their help, please contact Sean Thekkeparayil (sthekkeparayil@lawyersclearinghouse.org).
Snow-emergency rules: A tip of the hat to Councilor Ash for sending around the city’s rules around parking in snow emergencies, which run through April 6 and include:

Parking on the ODD side of non-emergency artery side streets ONLY. Residents who live on a street where parking is always prohibited on one side can continue to park on the legal side throughout the winter.
The following streets are designated as emergency arteries (towing at the owner’s expense):