Team Koch once again took to the sand for the annual Wollaston Beach Volleyball Challenge. It was a great event for a great cause, and we were happy to participate as always. Oh, and our team won the title for the second consecutive year. They played with honesty, integrity, and treated all of their opponents with dignity and respect -- befitting their team name. Not quite sure how opponent's team fared. Click on the picture for more action shots.
Our Police Department and its Drug Unit has had a remarkable week, making three major busts within the span of less than seven days. Click here, here and here, for the Ledger stories.
These dedicated officers do a great job day-in and day-out, and they stand at the front-line in our fight against drugs in Quincy. I am proud that City Hall has joined them in that fight since we took office, a fact that has somehow managed to draw criticism from a select few in the political world. Any guesses?
Joining with members of the community who have been at this battle for a long time, our Drug Task Force has secured several hundred thousand dollars in grant money to prevent overdoses; our Police Departemnt now has its first-ever drug-sniffing dog unit; we are mounting a first-of-its kind awareness campaign through schools, public forums, and the Internet; and even while dealing with an economic crisis and cutbacks, we are increasing the Drug Unit’s resources.
This is not a fight that is going to be won overnight, nor one where tangible results are easy to quantify. But the simple fact is: The entire City now acknowledges this problem and we are all working together to find solutions. That’s a major change from the past.
The Mayor had a very frank discussion with officials from Honeywell International regarding the City and State investigation into inflated billing on the $32 Million Honeywell energy deal. Remember the $500 hammer at the Pentagon back in the 1980s? Well, it’s pretty much the same thing, only worse. Click here for the full story.
The Mayor’s “City View” show this week gets into some specific detail about the 2007 Honeywell debacle and the Administration’s efforts to protect taxpayers from this boondoggle. The show is airing Friday at 6 p.m. on Channel 8; Saturday at 10 a.m. and 9 p.m. on Channel 8, and Sunday at 2:30 p.m. and 6 p.m. on Channel 8.
There will also be airings on Government Access Channel 10, so check the schedule at www.qatv.org. QATV is very accomodating about accepting requests for replays if you miss one of the scheduled airings.
This is a VERY important issue and a perfect example of what Mayor Koch was left with when he took office and the work being done to correct those issues.
The Campaign will also air a new show, Straight Talk with Mayor Koch, on Channel 8 starting tonight at 7:00 p.m., tomorrow (Saturday) at 1:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m., and Sunday at 11:00 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. We will try to schedule it at the same time every week.
The numbers are in for the first year of “single-stream recycling” and our regional trash contract with Braintree and Weymouth, and they are excellent. Our residents recycled 700 tons more in waste this year than we did in the previous year and tossed out 2,000 tons less in garbage. Great work everybody. Here’s the full story.
We opened our campaign headquarters tonight, and we will be open from here through Election Day in November. Please feel to drop by, pick up some literature, volunteer to help, or just to chat. Click on the picture for more photos from tonight’s open house.
I strongly encourage everyone to take a few minutes and surf City of Quincy’s new official website, www.quincyma.gov. This kind of functional, informative, and, above all, useful site is long overdue, and the team from Cyclone Design of Quincy, Blue Note Technology and our IT staff all deserve a great deal of credit.
For the first time, you can perform transactions with the City online, keep up-to-date on meetings and events, and request services through a streamlined new platform. We have a text-messaging and e-mail alert system for school closings, construction issues, etc, and all of this is just the beginning.
It is our goal to have the best government site in Massachusetts, and I think we are well on our way.
Hi, we’ve been asked by a lot of folks to make available our latest flyer, so here it is. It lays out in specific detail what the Mayor faced when he took office, what he did to solve those problems, and why honest leadership has made such a positive difference over the last 18 months. Enjoy.
Our seniors who have contributed so much to our community have long deserved a place to call their own, and now they have one. The new Kennedy Center is a a great addition to the City, and I am very grateful to the many people who donated their time, treasure and talent to make this happen.
This is truly a grass-roots project, done entirely without an additional dollar of cost to taxpayers. We scrapped an existing financing plan for a insufficient DPW garage and used that money for renovations to the Myles Standish School. A number of local companies donated material and labor, and federal grants from our Planning Department will pay for a new kitchen. A job well done by all.
