Elections are finally over!

Well, last Tuesday the elections for Mayor and other positions took place. The choices for mayor were not the best in my opinion and I guess the most popular one ended up wining. The situation in Quincy is still not very well defined. With looming increases to property taxes and a proposed and very expensive project to revitalize, out of all places Quincy Center, all that the two mayoral candidates could talk about was the past deeds of each other. This was definitely a very disappointing race.

Quincy's infrastructure is deteriorating, we have a booming commercialization of areas that do very little to help the residents or improve their quality of life. On the contrary, these commercial projects such as the Lowe's and BJ's in south Quincy make things more difficult by cluttering neighborhood streets and over stressing an already decaying and faulty infrastructure. Yet, all they could do was point fingers.

The incumbent and winner of this election refuses to provide details regarding his proposed Quincy revitalization project much less on how exactly it would benefit the city. Note that a project like this is likely to get a lot worse before it gets better. What does Quincy Center really need?

I personally do not think that this is the time to spend billions of dollars on a project like this. Details are needed in order to get the people at ease, something along the lines of "transparency" in government.

There is dissatisfaction among the residents of the city, property tax increases and the increased commercialization of the areas in Quincy without regard to public opinion. I guess that the voters are not too bothered by this.

Anyway, I have reasons to be hopeful now that Jay Davis, ex councillor for Ward 4, was ousted by newcomer Brian Palmucci. Mr. Davis failed to support his constituents over and over again and I think it caught up to him. One time when asked about the value of the people's opinion regarding the proposed Lowe's store in South Quincy, he replied "I will do what's best for the city". That may be the case, but I think the people he represented deserved more merit, that is definitely not the way to respond to a constituent.

A long list of other issues clouded Mr. Davis', who until Tuesday was the president of the city Council, ranging from the unreturned phone calls and e-mails from his constituents to those that affected more people such as the famous billboard in West Quincy. The ire of his constituents in west Quincy was evident back then when they were blind sighted by this so called "monstrosity" and it is still evident now in the comments posted along with the election results published by some local newspapers. I guess we can call this billboard Mr. Davis' "hat rack" (the high point of his predecessor's tenure in the city council for Ward 4).

To the new councillor, congratulations, the expectations are high and I personally wish him all the best luck. Let's hope he ends the bad rep that ward 4 councils have had in the past years.