ORDINANCE 0-21-056
Name of Street Side Location
Veterans Armory Drive Both Entire length”
LEGISLATIVE YEAR 2021
ORDINANCE: 0-21-0536
PURPOSE: Amendments to the ordinances relative to street name changes
of Veterans Drive and the Broad Street Parkway
ENDORSER(S): Mayor Jim Donchess
Alderman June Caron
Alderman Thomas Lopez
COMMITTEE
ASSIGNMENT: Committee on Infrastructure
FISCAL NOTE: The fiscal impact is stated in the resolution that renames these
two streets (R-21-121).
ANALYSIS
Resolution R-21-121, which changes the name of Veterans Drive to Armory Drive, and the name
of the Broad Street Parkway to Veterans Parkway is being submitted at the same time as this
ordinance, If that renaming resolution passes, then this companion ordinance is necessary to
change all the references in the NROs from the old street names to the new ones.
Approved as to form: | Office of Corporation Counsel
By: Dyatu, (Bow te
Date: 4 WAGEXOAIN 43-1
A special meeting of the Board of Aldermen was held Monday, March 1, 2021, at 7:00 p.m. via
teleconference.
President Lori Wilshire presided; City Clerk Susan K. Lovering recorded.
Prayer was offered by City Clerk Susan K. Lovering; Alderman Patricia Klee and Alderman Richard A.
Dowd led in the Pledge to the Flag.
President Wilshire
As President of the Board of Aldermen, | find that due to the State of Emergency declared by the
Governor as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and in accordance with the Governor's Emergency
Order #12 pursuant to Executive Order 2020-04, this public body is authorized to meet electronically.
Please note that there is no physical location to observe and listen contemporaneously to this meeting,
which was authorized pursuant to the Governors Emergency Order. However, in accordance with the
Emergency Order, | am confirming that we are:
Providing public access to the meeting by telephone, with additional access possibilities by video or
other electronic means:
To access Zoom, please refer to the agenda or the City’s website for the meeting link.
To join by phone dial: 1-929-205-6099 Meeting ID: 882 2713 3992 Passcode: 237958
The public may also view the meeting via Channel 16.
We previously gave notice to the public of the necessary information for accessing the meeting, through
public postings. Instructions have also been provided on the City of Nashua’s website at www.nashuanh.gov
and publicly noticed in the Nashua Telegraph, City Hall, and the Nashua Public Library.
lf anyone has a problem accessing the meeting via phone or Channel 16, please call 603-821-2049 and they
will help you connect.
In the event the public is unable to access the meeting via the methods mentioned above, the meeting will
be adjourned and rescheduled. Please note that all votes that are taken during this meeting shall be done
by roll call vote.
Let’s start the meeting by taking a roll call attendance. When each member states their presence, please
also state whether there is anyone in the room with you during this meeting, which is required under the
Right-To-Know Law.
City Clerk Lovering called the roll and asked them to state the reason he or she could not attend, confirmed
that they could hear the proceedings, and stated who was present with him or her.
The roll call was taken with 13 members of the Board of Aldermen present: Alderman Michael B. O’Brien,
Sr., Alderman Patricia Klee, Alderwoman Shoshanna Kelly, Alderman Richard A. Dowd, Alderman June M.
Caron, Alderman Benjamin Clemons (arrived after roll call), Alderwoman Elizabeth Lu, Alderman Ernest
Jette, Alderman Jan Schmidt, Alderman Brandon Michael Laws, Alderman Skip Cleaver, Alderman Linda
Harriott-Gathright, Alderman Wilshire.
Alderman-at-Large David C. Tencza and Alderman Tom Lopez were recorded absent.
Mayor James W. Donchess, Corporation Counsel Steven A. Bolton were also in attendance.
Special Board of Aldermen 03-01-2021 Page 2
ROLL CALL
Alderman O’Brien
| am present, | can hear the proceedings and | am alone.
Alderman Klee
| am here, | can hear the proceedings now. | want to apologize, all of a sudden | got this high pitched
sound and everything went blank. So | truly apologize, but | am here, | am alone and | can hear the
proceedings. Thank you.
Alderwoman Kelly
| am here, | am alone and | can hear everyone.
Alderman Dowd
Yes, | am here, | can hear everyone and | am here alone.
Alderman Caron
Yes | am here, | am alone and | can hear everyone.
Susan Lovering, City Clerk
Alderman Clemons? Alderman Lopez? Alderman Tencza?
President Wilshire
Alderman Tencza was unable to join us this evening.
City Clerk Lovering
Alderwoman Lu?
Alderwoman Lu
| am here alone and | can hear the proceedings.
Alderman Jette
| am here alone and | can hear the proceedings.
Alderman Schmidt
lam here, alone and can hear the proceedings.
Alderman Laws
| am here alone and | can hear the proceedings.
Special Board of Aldermen 03-01-2021 Page 3
Alderman Cleaver
Present, | can hear the proceedings and | am alone.
Alderman Harriott-Gathright
lam present, | am alone and | can hear the proceedings.
President Wilshire
| am here, | am alone and | can hear everyone.
City Clerk Lovering
You have 12 in attendance.
President Wilshire
Thank you.
City Clerk Lovering
You're welcome.
President Wilshire
Also with us this evening is Mayor Donchess and Corporation Counsel Steve Bolton. Tonight we have a
Public Hearing on Ordinance 21-045, Amending the Building Construction Ordinances and Increasing the
Building Department Fees. Director Marchant, are you going to give us an overview of this Ordinance, the
changes?
Sarah Marchant, Director of Community Development
Good evening, yes. Thank you so much. And Bill McKinney should be joining us any second as well who
is the Building Safety Officer. The proposal in front of you tonight is largely to update the Ordinances that
haven’t been updated since 2002. And then also to increase the fees as a follow up to our discussions in
2018 when we increased the fees and said we do that in a two-part system so that we could become more
in line with fees that all the other communities were charging; as we found we originally way undervalued.
But to do so in a way that was economical and not putting too big of a burden on price changes at once.
So with that intro I'd like to turn it over to Bill McKinney who is the Building Safety Officer.
President Wilshire
Mr. McKinney.
Bill McKinney, Building Safety Officer
Yes, good evening; thank you Director Marchant and thank you to the Committee for allowing me to be in
front of you this evening. As Director Marchant said, we spent the past two years reviewing the revised
Ordinances for the Building Codes for the City of Nashua. The NRO for that is a fairly lengthy one and
involves several sections. One of the key issues that we hope to resolve with our revising the Ordinance
and language in it was that currently since our Ordinance was updated, the State of New Hampshire has
gone forward and has a State-wide Building Code that includes all of these Codes that we were adopting
individually each Code Cycle.
Special Board of Aldermen 03-01-2021 Page 4
So one of the major changes is that we’ve made the language now so that we will follow right along with the
State of New Hampshire as they update we will update as well and won’t have to go through a lengthy and
time consuming Ordinance change every time the State does so.
With that, we also have the fee changes that we have recommended. Some of you may recall, we began
this in 2017 after some study that showed that our fees were, by far, some of the lowest in the State to
comparable communities to us and communities around us. In 2017 we proposed an increase that went
into effect in 2018. There was some sizeable jumps on the commercial side of it, but we kept those fees
quite low, increases and on residential in 2018 because the market was just starting to return and we didn’t
want to impact them negatively.
So as | stated, in 2017 we began this process of a biannual review of our Ordinances and Fees. In 2018
the fees that we currently have were approved; in 2019 our review process began again. We had
anticipated these fees being before you in 2020, however, through the thorough review of Ordinance 105
and the updated language, it took much longer than we anticipated. We have altered several fees and
calculated them to align with our new software which has been quite tricky. Our hope with this, by bringing
in and having these more rounded fees, we will be able to more quickly bring out our customer portal which
is an online process for citizens and contractors to apply for permits online, submit all of their paperwork
online and pay all of their fees online, therefore reducing a lot of staff time and a lot of wasted paper.
However, as we all know, in 2020 COVID complicated things quite a bit for us. Our offices were not quite
set up to be operating remotely; we have since changed that. But we spent a good deal of time in order to
do that. So that took some time from us to get these fees to our Legal Department for review and from
Legal to get them to you. | know there are some questions on how our process goes with developing these
fees. | have put a directive out to our staff to look at the fees and use an average of between 15% an 20%.
Again though, you will see this year that residential seems to be a larger increase than past, but that was
calculated that was. Because, as | stated before, in 2018 we kept residential lower rather than to impact
that industry at a time when it was trying to recover. We feel that residential has recovered in a good way;
it's very busy right now in the City. As you know, it is very difficult to buy a home and homes that are being
built are not remaining on the market for very long. So now is the time to actually address those fees as
well.
Some of the difficulty that we found this year is as we are reviewing fees, other communities are also
reviewing fees and updating them; trying to get some formulas in there so we can match was very difficult.
And also, the way fees are calculated around the State there is no standardization. In Nashua we use
square footage calculations, length calculations on pipes for plumbing, number of receptacles and devices
under electrical, where other communities will use standard set fees. Some communities include all
electrical and all plumbing under one fee. So it is a very complicated process trying to come up with some
very good comparisons.
From what we can determine though, we still remain lower than, as we have in the past, lower than
Concord and Manchester; about in the same area as Laconia or Keene. And actually | think we are higher
than Laconia but about the same with Keene. So comparable communities we are doing well. We still are
about middle of the road, | would say, on our fee increases with what you have before you. And with that, |
will entertain any questions.
President Wilshire
We are going to open this up to the public and then we will have a discussion at the Personnel Meeting. So
what | would like to do now is | would like to open up the Public Hearing.
Special Board of Aldermen 03-01-2021 Page 5
PUBLIC HEARING
O-21-045 AMENDING THE BUILDING CONSTRUCTION ORDINANCES AND INCREASING THE
BUILDING DEPARTMENT FEES
TESTIMONY IN FAVOR - None
TESTIMONY IN OPPOSITION - None
TESTIMONY IN FAVOR - None
TESTIMONY IN OPPOSITION - None
President Wilshire closed the public hearing on O-21-045 at 7:13 p.m.
ADJOURNMENT
MOTION BY ALDERMAN O’BRIEN THAT THE MARCH 1, 2021, SPECIAL MEETING OF THE BOARD
OF ALDERMEN BE ADJOURNED BY ROLL CALL
A viva voce roll call was taken to adjourn the Board of Aldermen meeting which resulted as follows:
Yea: Alderman O’Brien, Alderman Klee, Alderwoman Kelly, Alderman Dowd,
Alderman Caron, Alderman Clemons, Alderwoman Lu, Alderman Jette,
Alderman Schmidt, Alderman Laws, Alderman Cleaver,
Alderman Harriott-Gathright, Alderman Wilshire
13
Nay: 0
MOTION CARRIED
The meeting was declared adjourned at 7:14 p.m.
Attest: Susan K. Lovering, City Clerk
A special meeting of the Board of Aldermen was held Wednesday, February 24, 2021, at 6:15 p.m. We will
be going into Nonpublic Session Pursuant to RSA 91-A:3 II (a) and (c) and is not open to the public. All
votes taken after nonpublic session will be included in the minutes, if any.
President Lori Wilshire presided; City Clerk Susan Lovering recorded.
Prayer was offered by City Clerk Susan Lovering; Alderman Thomas Lopez led in the Pledge to the Flag.
President Wilshire
As President of the Board of Aldermen, | find that due to the State of Emergency declared by the
Governor as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and in accordance with the Governor's Emergency
Order #12 pursuant to Executive Order 2020-04, this public body is authorized to meet electronically.
Please note that there is no physical location to observe and listen contemporaneously to this meeting as
we will be going into nonpublic session.
Let’s start the meeting by taking a roll call attendance. When each member states their presence, please
also state whether there is anyone in the room with you during this meeting, which is required under the
Right-To-Know Law.
City Clerk Lovering called the roll and asked them to state the reason he or she could not attend, confirmed
that they could hear the proceedings, and stated who was present with him or her.
The roll call was taken with 10 members of the Board of Aldermen present: Alderman Michael B. O’Brien,
Sr., Alderman Patricia Klee, Alderman June M. Caron, Alderman Benjamin Clemons, Alderman Lopez,
Alderman Ernest Jette, Alderman Jan Schmidt, Alderman Brandon Michael Laws, Alderman Linda Harriott-
Gathright, and Alderman Wilshire.
Alderwoman Shoshanna Kelly, Alderman Richard A. Dowd (arrived at 6:42 p.m.), Alderman David C.
Tencza (arrived at 6:19 p.m.), Alderwoman Elizabeth Lu (arrived at 6:19 p.m.), and Alderman Skip Cleaver
were recorded absent.
Mayor James W. Donchess, Corporation Counsel Steven A. Bolton, Administrative Services Director Kim
Kleiner, and Chief of Staff Cheryl Linder were also in attendance.
NON-PUBLIG SESSION
MOTION BY ALDERMAN O’BRIEN THAT THE BOARD OF ALDERMEN ENTER INTO NON-PUBLIC
SESSION BY ROLL CALL PURSUANT TO RSA 91-A:3 II (A) THE DISMISSAL, PROMOTION, OR
COMPENSATION OF ANY PUBLIC EMPLOYEE OR THE DISCIPLINING OF SUCH
EMPLOYEE, OR THE INVESTIGATION OF ANY CHARGES AGAINST HIM OR HER, UNLESS
THE EMPLOYEE AFFECTED (1) HAS A RIGHT TO A MEETING AND (2) REQUESTS THAT
THE MEETING BE OPEN, IN WHICH CASE THE REQUEST SHALL BE GRANTED; and
(C) MATTERS WHICH, IF DISCUSSED IN PUBLIC, WOULD LIKELY AFFECT ADVERSELY
THE REPUTATION OF ANY PERSON, OTHER THAN A MEMBER OF THE PUBLIC BODY
ITSELF, UNLESS SUCH PERSON REQUESTS AN OPEN MEETING. THIS EXEMPTION
SHALL EXTEND TO ANY APPLICATION FOR ASSISTANCE OR TAX ABATEMENT OR
WAIVER OF A FEE, FINE, OR OTHER LEVY, IF BASED ON INABILITY TO PAY OR POVERTY
OF THE APPLICANT;
SECONDED BY ALDERMAN CARON
Special Board of Aldermen 02-24-2021 Page 2
A Viva Voce Roll Call was taken, which resulted as follows:
Yea: Alderman O’Brien, Alderman Klee, Alderman Caron, Alderman Clemons,
Alderman Lopez, Alderman Tencza, Alderwoman Lu, Alderman Jette,
Alderman Schmidt, Alderman Laws, Alderwoman Harriott-Gathright,
Alderman Wilshire 12
Nay: 0
MOTION CARRIED
The Board of Aldermen went into non-public session at 6:21 p.m.
The Board of Aldermen came out of non-public session at 7:24 p.m.
MOTION BY ALDERMAN O’BRIEN THAT THE BOARD OF ALDERMEN SEAL THE MINUTES OF THE
NON-PUBLIC SESSION BY ROLL CALL UNTIL SUCH TIME AS THE MAJORITY OF THE COMMITTEE
VOTES THAT THE PURPOSE OF THE CONFIDENTIALITY WOULD NO LONGER BE SERVED, BY
ROLL CALL
A Viva Voce Roll Call was taken, which resulted as follows:
Yea: Alderman O’Brien, Alderman Klee, Alderman Dowd, Alderman Caron,
Alderman Clemons, Alderman Lopez, Alderman Tencza,
Alderman Jette, Alderman Schmidt, Alderman Cleaver,
Alderman Laws, Alderwoman Harriott-Gathright, Alderman Wilshire 12
Nay: Alderwoman Lu 1
MOTION CARRIED
ADJOURNMENT
MOTION BY ALDERMAN O’BRIEN TO ADJOURN, BY ROLL CALL
A viva voce roll call was taken which resulted as follows:
Yea: Alderman O’Brien, Alderman Klee, Alderman Dowd, Alderman Caron,
Alderman Lopez, Alderman Tencza, Alderwoman Lu, Alderman Jette,
Alderman Schmidt, Alderman Laws, Alderwoman Harriott-Gathright,
Alderman Wilshire 12
Nay: Alderman Clemons 1
MOTION CARRIED
The special meeting was declared adjourned at 7:28 p.m.
Attest: Susan K. Lovering, City Clerk
A regular meeting of the Board of Aldermen was held Tuesday, July 13, 2021, at 7:30 p.m. in the aldermanic
chamber and via Zoom teleconference which the meeting link can be found on the agenda and on the City’s
website/
President Lori Wilshire presided; City Clerk Susan Lovering recorded.
Prayer was offered by City Clerk Susan Lovering; Alderman-at-Large Ben Clemons led in the Pledge to the
Flag.
Let’s start the meeting by taking a roll call attendance. If you are participating via Zoom, please state your
presence, reason for not attending the meeting in person, and whether there is anyone in the room with you
during this meeting, which is required under the Right-To-Know Law.
The roll call was taken with 15 members of the Board of Aldermen present: Alderman Michael B. O’Brien, Sr.,
Alderman Patricia Klee, Alderwoman Shoshanna Kelly, Alderman Richard A. Dowd, Alderman June M. Caron,
Alderman Benjamin Clemons, Alderman Thomas Lopez, Alderman David C. Tencza, Alderwoman Elizabeth
Lu, Alderman Ernest Jette, Alderman Jan Schmidt, Alderman Brandon Michael Laws, Alderman Skip Cleaver,
Alderman Linda Harriott-Gathright, Alderman Wilshire.
Mayor James W. Donchess, Corporation Counsel Steve Bolton, were also in attendance.
ROLL CALL
Alderman O’Brien
Present in the Chamber.
Alderman Klee
| am here and in the Chamber.
Alderwoman Kelly
| am here on Zoom and | am alone in this room but my co-workers are around. And | am unable to attend in person
because | am on a work trip.
Alderman Dowd
| am present and | am in the Chamber.
Alderman Caron
| am here and | am in the Chamber.
Alderman Clemons
| am present at home, participating via Zoom because | have been ill for the last 3 days, luckily it is not COVID-19
but still | am sick and | didn’t want to pass it on to my colleagues. No one is in the room with me and | can hear
everyone.
Alderman Lopez
| am here and | am in the Chamber.
