‘We’re not getting anything done’: Discussion about downtown cleanup escalates into aldermen complaints about maintenance citywide

QUINCY — Comments about a cleanup contract the city has with a Quincy business mushroomed into a discussion among aldermen about the lack of manpower to clean and maintain each of the city’s seven wards.

The Quincy City Council approved a four-year, $128,000 plan with All-Phase Property Solutions LLC in March 2021 to maintain sidewalks, plant flowers in the medians and planter boxes to keep the planters free of weeds and litter. The plan spans 18 blocks from Third to Ninth and from Jersey to Vermont.

Bret Austin, co-owner of All-Phase Property Solutions, told aldermen during the public comment portion of Monday’s City Council meeting at the Quincy Public Library that he wanted to “clean up some misinformation” about the plan and the contract.

“(Past) speakers have mentioned that somehow I’m solely responsible for this project, and money is going in my pocket. That is not true,” Austin said. “We work this contract as a general contractor, and this contract has employed numerous young summer interns all the way up to professional landscaping companies over the years.”

Austin told aldermen All-Phase has occasionally cleaned the approach along Maine from the Memorial Bridge to Third Street, but that stretch is not part of the city contract.

“We covered that area today as part of our normal service routine because it did look like no one had addressed that area in some time,” he said. 

Austin said another area at Second and Kentucky that was “extremely overgrown” is not in the area covered by the city contract.

He said his business has received many comments of appreciation while handling similar work for the city since 2013. He also noted his appreciation for two cleanup days organized in The District — one which attracted more than 100 volunteers in May, and another scheduled for September.

Austin, however, noted the city’s downtown street cleaning schedule has been insufficient.

“I checked with the mayor (Mike Troup) last week, and he followed up with me to acknowledge that in the past five months, the street sweeper has only been downtown once,” he said. “Not sweeping the streets and getting debris out of the gutters is the number one factor for weed growth in those areas.”

Austin said he used to have summer interns walking around town while spraying with weed killer, but now he must hire contractors who charge a much higher rate to do the same work.

“We are not shirking these responsibilities, but we also think there must be some recognition that conditions have changed, and that has put a strain on resources and budgets,” Austin said.

Alderman Ben Uzelac (D-7) asked Austin why his company has cleaned areas outside of it is contracted to do.

“Because it’s the right thing to do,” Austin replied. “We covered from Ninth to 12th on Maine Street. If we didn’t do the rest of Maine Street, it would look awful, and I don’t want to look like that.”

Uzelac then asked if Austin plans to bid for the contract when it expires next year.

“No. I’ll never bid on this again,” he said. “The way people have treated my company and me personally about it, no, I would never do it again. I’ve never made money off this. I’ve gone thousands of dollars in the hole every year, and I can prove that. 

“Just because people want to come here and scapegoat, it doesn’t mean they have solutions … and they’re never here when the cleanups are going on. We’ve been doing this for a long time. I’m passionate about it, obviously, because I live here. But no, I would never bid on this again because of the reactions of some of the people who have come in here.  You’re going to have a real hard time finding any contractor to do it, and maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe the city needs to own it a little bit more. I’ve talked to city engineering and city planning. We’ve had discussions about what that transition will look like. I’m afraid the District will look like crap next year.”

Richie Reis (D-6), who once worked for the city as an assistant director of operations, said the city previously had two street sweepers.

“We covered the whole town. We did not leave any part of this town out,” he said. “The subdivisions got it as well as downtown.”

Steve Homan, who said Austin was pointing fingers at him, said Austin’s company wasn’t keeping clean the areas it was contracted to cover.

“So why are you working down where you come across the bridge? That’s not your area,” Homan said. “You can’t even keep the areas you’re supposed to keep clean clean. 

“Then he addresses about not making any money. Well, I’m sorry. That’s not my fault. I wouldn’t bid a job to do if I wasn’t going to make any at it. Common business smarts … I guess I have it.”

Homan then addressed the aldermen, noting the city once had 120 employees in its Central Services Department but now has 54.

“Maybe you guys need to figure out a plan in the budget to get more workers in this town so we can have our streets and everything else looking a lot better than what they are, and not have to bid it out to have somebody else get prevailing wages to do the job,” Homan said. 

“Bret wants to point his fingers at me. I point my fingers at him, because it’s my tax dollars, just like it’s everybody else’s tax dollars in here getting spent on stuff that’s not getting done. I’m tired of it. I’m tired of the waste. I’m tired of the jobs not getting done, and you guys should be too.”

Greg Fletcher (R-1) asked why the city has 150 cases of nuisance abatement that have yet to be handled. 

“We’ve got street cases out of the wazoo,” he said. “All the wards are just piled up for work. … That doesn’t sit well with me. Where are we at with new hires? We’re about six, seven, eight down. Are we hiring anybody?”

Kelly Japcon, director of human resources and risk management, said open positions in the city must first be offered internally to employees. After three days, those open positions can be made public.

“The hiring process is slow, but we have to go through union rules, through the contract, and then we open it up,” she said. “We’re pretty quick about getting interviews in and getting people hired.”

She said at least two jobs will be posted publicly on Tuesday.

Jeff Bergman (R-2) said he and fellow 2^nd Ward alderman Dave Bauer have been taking phone calls and answering emails about complaints and concerns.

“I’m looking at my iPad right here, and in the 2^nd Ward, we’ve got 27 streets turned in to fix potholes,” he said. “We’ve got 71 properties which are nuisance complaints, which is grass and garbage, and we have 46 trees on the list to get cut down. All we can do as aldermen is to listen to our neighbors, turn it in and pray it gets done as soon as possible.

“I apologize for the city. I apologize for Dave and myself. It’s frustrating because we’re elected to be the voice and to be the middleman for our neighbors, to get stuff done for them and to give them answers. I don’t have a good answer, so we’re not getting anything done.”

Kelly Mays (R-3) asked about improving the process to handle requests. Director of Public Works Jeffrey Conte said a “formal process” doesn’t exist. He said factors that help his staff determine which projects to tackle are length of time a request has been on the list and location “so we not skipping and jumping all across town.”

“It’s more of a manpower issue than anything,” Conte said.

Reis said nuisance abatements are “worse than they ever have been” citywide, and having only three people assigned to address them means “they’re never going to catch up.”

Uzelac said the city bought a software package a few years ago from Tyler Technologies to modernize the city. Tyler 311 is a website and app for both citizens and staff to report issues and check their status.

“Hopefully (the city is) able to actually make that happen, because I think we’ve been sitting on that piece for a while,” he said.

Uzelac then asked Conte to prepare a report that would explain how many employees are needed in Central Services.

“Is it four? Is it 20? And what’s the cost to the taxpayer? Where’s that money coming from?” he said. “I’ll be the one to say it. If we want to hire more people in Central Services, taxes are going up. That’s the bottom line. None of us want that, but that’s where we’re at. I think we need to have that report so we can have this discussion around here and also with the public to say, ‘Do you want us to raise your taxes so that we can start fixing things?’ Or are we going to have to figure out what dials we need to twist exactly to get it to a point where it’s usable for everybody?”

Conte said after the meeting that the complaints he heard Monday were valid.

“Right now, our staff is basically going from fire to fire to put out, and stuff always pops up unexpectedly,” he said. “I’m not to say that the process doesn’t need to be improved because it absolutely does. But you can have the best process in the world, and if you don’t have the staffing to get the work done, nothing’s going to happen.

“I would say we are weeks behind on catching up on nuisances. Trees, we’re probably more like months behind on getting trees down. Potholes, you can’t even measure how far behind we are. They just pop up, and they just keep coming up. That’s just the nature of the beast.”