'Quincy is for everyone.' Meet Jackie Carvey, candidate for at-large city councilor

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QUINCY ‒ Eight candidates for at-large councilor will face off in a Sept. 2 preliminary election, when voters will narrow the field to six hopefuls for three seats on the November ballot.
One of those candidates is Jackie Carvey, a former music teacher who now works for a healthcare nonprofit.
A first-time candidate for elected office, Carvey is campaigning on greater accessibility to information, transparency in government and community engagement. As councilor, Carvey said she'd work to bring more residents into the conversation and increase opportunities to participate in public life.
She grew up in Vermont and attended the University of Maine, where she studied vocal music education, and later received a master's degree in teaching from Bridgewater State. Carvey taught music at Randolph High School for 13 years. Though she has since changed careers, she continues to sing in the Quincy Choral Society.
For 11 years, Carvey has made Quincy her home. She now lives with her husband, Steve, and cat, Lucy, adopted from the Quincy Animal Shelter, in Ward 4.
Quincy School Committee candidate Jackie Carvey: Civic engagement is important
Carvey said she fell in love with Quincy and its various parks and neighborhoods while dog walking in between careers.
As she began to feel more rooted in the community, she said she tried get more involved in public life, only to experience frustration at the lack of information on public meetings and events.
"When you don't have the information you need, it's very easy to feel like you're not part of the conversation or involved in the community," Carvey said.
Knocking on doors has taught how much Quincy residents care about their community.
"They want to know more," Carvey said.
Quincy School Committee candidate Jackie Carvey talks about the mayoral and city council raises
One of the more contentious issues in recent years is the raises for mayor and city councilors proposed by Mayor Thomas Koch and approved by the sitting council in 2024.
The order raised the mayor's salary by 79% from about $159,000 (including a travel stipend) to $285,000, and the increase in councilors' salaries from just under $30,000 to $44,500.
After the State Ethics Commission launched a conflict-of-interest inquiry, Koch and the councilors deferred the raises until after the next elections. The raises take effect in 2026 for the councilors and 2028 for the mayor.
Or perhaps not for the mayor. A group of Quincy residents are working to put a citizen petition on November's ballot that would set the mayor's salary at $184,000 and take away elected officials' ability to increase their own salaries.
While Carvey said she lacks all the information surrounding the raises, she acknowledged that employees need salary adjustments over time to ensure just compensation for their work.
"That being said, a 79% raise is really high," she said. "It's also interesting to me that both the councilors' and the mayor's raises were combined."
On the councilors' raise, Carvey said that around $40,000 seems reasonable, especially given rates of inflation over the past several years. The mayor's $125,000 raise she said "seems significant" at first glance.
"That's not to say he's not working hard," she said. "It's worth having more conversations about it. It would have been helpful to offer public hearings."
Quincy School Committee candidate Jackie Carvey talks about the saint statues
Carvey said public hearings would have also been helpful for the mayor's plan to install two, 10-foot-tall bronze statues of St. Michael and St. Florian on the façade of the new public safety building, set to open this fall.
The statues cost $850,000, according to city officials. Commissioned as early as 2023, they were not disclosed to the city council, which approved the project's budget, or the residents until The Patriot Ledger reported on them in February.
By chance, the first council meeting Carvey attended was the February meeting following the first report on the statues, attended by scores of opponents as well as police and firefighters there to support the administration.
"The frustration was palpable all around," Carvey said. A forum where residents could raise questions or express concerns was "the missing piece" that could have improved the public debate, she said.
"Issues can be controversial, as the statues," she said. "We won't always agree, but when people don't have the opportunity to be heard, that's where a lot of animosity can start."
Asked how she sees the statues with respect to the separation of church and state, Carvey paused to gather her thoughts.
"If we're looking at figures that represent our community well, there are opportunities outside the religious space that we can look to," she said. "We don't want to imply that one religion is superior to another. That really tarsnishes the idea that everyone is welcoming here. Quincy is for everyone."
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Peter Blandino covers Quincy for The Patriot Ledger. Contact him at [e-mail].
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This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Jackie Carvey is candidate in Quincy at-large city councilor election
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