Quincy mayor's City Council allies suffer huge election losses

Opponents of Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch are celebrating Tuesday’s City Council election results, with six candidates critical of Koch’s policies winning seats on the nine-member body.

Seven incumbents ran in an election that was widely viewed as a referendum on Koch’s leadership. Unofficial results suggest only two of the seven will return to the council.

In the at-large race, two incumbents and four newcomers vied for three seats. One of the mayor’s most vocal critics, Anne Mahoney, was the top vote-getter among at-large candidates. She left the council last year to challenge Koch for mayor, but lost by roughly 1,900 votes.

Councilor at-large Noel DiBona held on to his seat, as did Ward 2 councilor Richard Ash, who ran unopposed. Of Quincy’s six ward seats, all but Ward 2 were contested Tuesday.

Though the mayor was not on the ballot, the council election was a test of his support among voters.

As Quincy’s mayor of 17 years, Koch has generated multiple controversies since he began his seventh term last year. Behind closed doors, he dedicated roughly $850,000 of public money to commission statues of two Catholic saints for a new public safety building. He also proposed a wage hike that would have given him a 79% raise, and his city clerk discounted more than a third of the signatures submitted in a ballot initiative to rein in the pay raise. Both issues are tied up in litigation.

Koch would not receive the increased salary unless he won reelection 2027, and he says he hasn’t decided whether he’ll run for an eighth term. Koch pulled back on the raise days before the election, offering to lower the mayoral salary from the approved $285,000 down to $225,000. His current salary is $159,000.

The election results were enough to tip the balance of power on the council against the mayor, said Joe Murphy, founder of the group A Just Quincy. Murphy said he had expected three or four “change candidates” to win Tuesday — now he says the victory of six of those candidates will mean a “new day in Quincy.”

Critics say the City Council has failed to hold Koch accountable and current members have voted for his policies nearly 100% of the time, offering little pushback amid financial challenges and political controversies. The mayor’s pay raise ordinance — which also hiked councilors’ pay — passed 9-0. After the vote sparked scrutiny by the State Ethics Commission, the council and the mayor deferred the raises until after the next election cycle.

The array of issues at play in Quincy drove voters like Linda Lund to the polls.

“My main concern is high taxes … they do too much spending,” Lund said.

She added that Koch is a good mayor, but raised concerns about the statues, the pay raise and Quincy’s fiscal outlook.

“We’re at a very financially unstable time right now,” Lund said.

With additional reporting from WBUR's Rachell Sanchez-Smith.