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Come one, come all to our next members meeting on Zoom on Sept. 28 - plus: AJQ's executive committee visits QATV

Sep 23, 2024

Happy Fall, AJQ!

It’s been a busy few weeks, and we’ll have our next members’ meeting this coming Saturday. We hope you’ll join us!

Coming up:

Saturday, Sept. 28, 9:30 - 11 am: AJQ members meeting

We’ll meet on Zoom (use the link bit.ly/ajqzoom) to discuss/break into working groups, which might include:

AJQ slate: We want to find city council and school committee candidates to run in the 2025 city election. Need to organize trainings for potential candidates, discuss potential pledge for our slate to sign onto (hold x number of ward meetings per year, send out y newsletters per year, etc.)
Research: We need folks to help research the pension implications of the mayor’s and council’s pay raises, the city’s finances and budget, levers that residents have to affect city policies, etc.
Lawyer on retainer: A few AJQ members had a consultation with a municipal lawyer recently, as some issues related to the raises and general governance would benefit from legal expertise. The cost is nontrivial, so it would be good to discuss whether we think this is a useful avenue to pursue, and if so, who will help cover the cost.

Specialty skills: If you are a lawyer or finance expert, please reach out to us at info@ajustquincy.com.

What we’ve been up to:

QATV interview: Last week, AJQ’s executive committee, Joe, Maggie, and Spencer, visited QATV to discuss the Nine Nine rally, our research into how similar cities handle public comments at meetings, and our next steps. Watch the highlight reel below or the full interview.

Clarification on event sponsorship: In our last group email, we let you know that two community members were organizing a sit-in at the city council meeting on Sept. 16. Later that night, we posted this clarification on Facebook about that event:

At tonight's city council meeting, there was a protest / sit-in against the salary raises. This was not an AJQ-organized protest, but we did give it a plug in our latest newsletter. Understandably, this led some people to think this was an AJQ event, and we are sorry for the confusion. We are even sorrier to learn that some of the people attending this event did not treat members of Quincy For A Free Palestine, who came to support the raise sit-in, with the respect they deserve.
Understanding that personal feelings on Palestine might vary amongst our group members, I want to say that Quincy For A Free Palestine has been a steadfast model of stoicism and conviction, holding peaceful standouts almost every week and regularly attending city council meetings. AJQ supports their right to protest without harassment. Intimidation has no place in a just Quincy.
AJQ will be explicit in future communications as to which events are organized by us as opposed to those that we are just informing you about. To be clear, all official AJQ statements will come from info@ajustquincy.com or ajustquincy@substack.com (sign up for our emails at bit.ly/ajqlist). And official statements from our social media accounts will say "Message from the AJQ executive committee".