On Thursday evening, 10/17, QCAN held their biennial candidate’s night. This is one of my favorite events of the campaign season. It gives me a rare opportunity to draw distinctions between me and my opponent.

I’m hoping to get video from the night soon so I can post it, but for now here is the play by play in text format. Paraphrased from my memory. I’ll update this post as more video and images become available.

Ward one was up first.

QCAN: Why should voters choose you instead of your opponent?
DM: Results. After the flood I did some stuff (paraphrasing).
Joe: Urgency. I see the problems in the environment as urgent and in need of more decisive action. After my last campaign, I joined QCAN to work on these problems, my opponent has refused to even meet with QCAN.
DM: False! Except for the part about refusing to meet with QCAN.

Another question that came up was over electric vehicles.

“Weymouth and Braintree both have electric vehicles within their fleets, yet here in Quincy the city fleet still has no EVs or even a hybrid vehicle, despite the council resolution passed roughly three years ago. Why do you think that is, and how would you approach this issue? “

I reminded everyone that I fielded this same question 2 years ago and nothing has happened since then. Let’s flash back sh

My take on electric vehicles. Same Question, Same Forum, 2 years earlier

As to why, nothing has happened?

DM: I think we may have added one gas/electric hybrid. (other words)
Joe: The administration is just not interested. We have seen how fast the administration can jump to action when it’s an issue they care about. If they want to block the building of a bridge or throw together a partially baked plan for a special education center, they can do it in no time. The reason we haven’t seen a single electric vehicle or hybrid is just a lack of urgency and interest.

Another question was on how to get Quincy’s recycling rate up, what to do about apartment’s that don’t have recycling for their tenants.

Joe: People want to do the right thing. When we have hazardous waste drop-off day, the line curls around Southern Artery back to Wendy’s. The textile bins outside my daughters’ school is overflowing at all times. We need to make recycling more available to people who don’t have the curbside option. Make drop-offs that they can hit before or after work, for example. Make them ubiquitous and easy.
For the city as a whole we need outreach. If our elected officials are willing to knock on your door to ask for a vote, they can knock on your door to tell you about the recycling program, find out if you have any needs that are preventing your recycling, etc. We need to utilize the schools. Kids care about this issue, I read a quote that the reason the Mayor changed his stance on plastic bags was because middle-schoolers wrote to him. We can educate the kids and those kids will keep the parents in-line. We can set recycling goals for each school, ward, etc. Make it engaging. We can get this recycling rate up.

Other thoughts on the night. I ended by saying:

Folks, if you think this is important, you need to send new city councilors to office. The change we need to see in Quincy is not going to come from the top down, we need to approach it from the legislative branch. We saw pictures of our police officers wading through six feet of water on Sea St. last year but that is still not enough to put some fire into this issue for our current leaders. It’s up to the voters to send a message by sending people to the City Council who are going to do something.