A petition to repeal large raises for Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch and the City Council failed to secure enough signatures to place the question on the November ballot, City Clerk Nicole Crispo said Monday.
The effort fell about 1,100 signatures short of the 5,673 needed, Crispo said, despite the delivery of hundreds of petition papers with more than 7,000 signatures to her office last week.
“There were quite a few that had signed it too many times, illegible signatures, or [were] not living at that household or in the wrong community,” Crispo said.
“It is what it is,” Crispo said. “We’re done, and if they want to bring it to court, they certainly can.”
Supporters of the petition drive had expressed outrage at a 79 percent raise for Koch — to $258,000 from $159,000, including a travel stipend — that would be higher than the $207,000 salary paid to Boston Mayor Michelle Wu.
Koch’s raise was approved by the City Council in 2024 but had been deferred to 2028 pending what city officials have said is an ongoing state ethics investigation. City councilors also voted to increase their own pay by 46 percent to $43,500.
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“He should have a raise, but the amount seemed to be so out of line with what other mayors make,” said Maggie McKee, a City Council candidate from Ward 5. “It just seemed to be self-dealing and pretty egregious self-dealing.”
Koch declined to comment. Petition organizers said the City Council held no public hearings on the raises, despite many requests to do so from the public.
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The pay-raise issue is the latest in a string of recent controversies for Koch, a seven-term mayor who is the longest-serving chief executive in this city of 102,000 residents.
Last week, Koch was widely criticized after an interview on WBZ radio in which he described the child sex-abuse crisis in the Catholic Church as having been mostly a homosexual issue instead of pedophilia.
Koch also said in the interview that teachers and coaches had abused children at higher rates than Catholic clergy, but that it was the Catholic Church that had been vilified by the “secular media.”
After being assailed by Quincy teachers, abuse survivors, and local LGBTQ groups, Koch told The Patriot Ledger that “if I offended anybody, I apologize.” He added that “I have gay friends and relatives and all. I treat everybody the same.”
The city also is facing legal action over Koch’s proposal to place two religious statues, costing $850,000, on the facade of Quincy’s new public safety headquarters. The saints depicted in the 10-foot-high statues, St. Florian and St. Michael the Archangel, are tributes to the city’s firefighters and police, he has said.
Under the failed petition, Koch’s salary would have been raised to $183,000, which represents a 2 percent increase for each year since 2014, when the mayor last received a pay boost.
In addition, the referendum would have limited all elected officials in Quincy to a 2 percent raise each year.
Brian MacQuarrie can be reached at brian.macquarrie@globe.com.
Ballot push to repeal Quincy Mayor Koch’s raise falls short
