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Board of Aldermen 6-23-2020 Page 5

Let me move to another subject, Madam President, and that is one of the Memos later on in the Agenda is a
policy change, one that would cause our policy regarding people who need to be out of work as a result of
childcare problems, childcare issues, it would conform our policy to the Federal Law that was passed, regarding
the same issue. So we are asking there that you approve that change which is expressed in a Memo so we will
be conformity with Federal Law and that requires that under certain conditions we pay people 2/3 of their pay
when they are out as a result of childcare issues for as long as the COVID-19 issue is with us.

Finally, Madam President, | did want to update you on the Safe Stations Program. The way it has been
operating will end on the 30" of June, which is what a week away. | want to thank the Fire Department for
undertaking that project for those years. We think effectively addressed and attacked and worked with the
opioid crisis and got a lot of people into treatment. But for various reasons it cannot continue and we could talk
about this all night, so | won’t. It won’t continue in its present form. But | wanted to let you know that Bobbi
Bagley, Director of Public Health and | and the hospital, which is the so-called Hub under the State’s Plan and
Department of Health & Human Services, even Commissioner Shibinette have been working to develop a plan
that would replace Safe Stations and provide a place 24 hours a day where people could go who need to have
help. The problem right now is that the hospital, the Hub — that’s Southern NH on Main Street, very visible but
they are only open during business hours on weekdays. So we’ve got all these other hours of the week.

So we are working with Revive an agency that you are very familiar with. Jessica Parnell and others to put a
substitute plan in place. In any event, that Madam President, is what | wanted to cover and unless there are
questions, | will conclude my remarks. Thank you very much.

RESPONSE TO REMARKS OF THE MAYOR

Alderman Lopez

| just wanted to thank the Mayor for the efforts that he is putting forward with the Safe Stations. | cannot
imagine how many things he probably has on his plate in combination with just the reopening’s from
COVID-19, addressing the concerns about additional flareups and the impact that it has had on all the
different cities. There just wasn’t a lot of time to address this and it has taken a very significant amount of
effort to even get people to the table to kind of figure out a workable solution. This is something that is like
very intimidating in my opinion as a process because the first time we put it together was sort of a miracle.
So the fact that we are so far along now ready to find partners and gaps is very impressive. And | really
want to thank Revive Recovery for being willing to step forward like that. | would encourage the community
to find out what they do and how they do it because this is going to be a very important part of that
partnership and they are going to need your help. They represent the community that is in recovery and
has committed to the lifestyle of recovery. They are exactly the people that we want taking the lead on this
issue. So | just wanted to thank the Mayor for helping put all of that together.

Alderwoman Lu

Thank you, Madam Chairman. Just a couple of things regarding the Mayor's comments. | have spoken
with a couple of people who have enjoyed dinners downtown and it has been wonderful increasing
business and it seems like a really joyous atmosphere. However, | still feel that, | don’t understand why we
are not doing a directed patrol — the Police Department is not trying to address the modified exhausts.
Sitting outside in the summer in downtown is not a pleasant experience. The mufflers are illegal and a
couple of weeks ago when we were asked to provide funding for an x-ray for a bomb situation, you know, to
have on hand for a bomb threat. | spoke with one of the members from the Police Department and | was
told that we don’t have the hardware that will measure decibels and decibels on exhaust and that just really
surprises me that we don’t have something that seems to me to be so simple. It is a State Law, it’s a law
that should be enforced and we are not enforcing it. And | think it would make a big difference to the
downtown dining experience.

The other thing that | wanted to just ask, for the Firefighter's Contract, | can see that they are asking for
something similar to a recent contract by the Police Department. For that reason | do feel conflicted
because | know we have huge budget issues that are coming around the horizon, over the horizon.

Board of Aldermen 6-23-2020 Page 6

And | wonder if the Mayor, if you are just considering holding back on any of the other projects of the City to
contain costs over the next year while we reassess our financial situation. | am thinking of just some of the
projects that are in their early stages (audio cuts out) project that | love. But | wonder where the Mayor’s
Office stands on halting those expenditures for (audio cuts out).

Mayor Donchess

Would you like me to respond, Madam President?
President Wilshire

Sure Mayor that would be great.

Mayor Donchess

Well, of course we need to continue to evaluate circumstances as they evolve and as | have said, we don’t
know what is coming. | would say that we need to, in looking at future projects, one thing we need to
consider is that often infrastructure projects create stronger economy. Even though they require an
expenditure of money, they create economic activity, the build a stronger economy. And in a situation like
we have where small business especially may need a real jumpstart, anything we can give them to recover
from the downtime they have suffered, sometimes making an infrastructure investment is worth doing,
because it will, in the end, produce more for the community than it costs. Think about the impact that we
could have here, | mean we have 10,000 people unemployed, many of them getting $600.00 a week that’s
$6 million dollars a week if you multiply that. When that ends, there could be a downturn and at that point
we certainly, that may be exactly the wrong time to decide, “Oh we are not going to build anything that
could boost our downtown economy or our City’s economy”. That may be the time that we need to invest
to make sure that we come back stronger than we did before the Coronavirus, before the COVIVD-19
crisis.

President Wilshire

All set Alderman Lu?

RECOGNITION PERIOD - None

READING MINUTES OF PREVIOUS MEETINGS

There being no objection, President Wilshire declared the minutes of the regular Board of Aldermen
meeting of June 9, 2020, and Special Board of Aldermen meetings of June 10 and June 16, 2020

accepted, placed on file, and the reading suspended.

COMMUNICATIONS REQUIRING ONLY PROCEDURAL ACTIONS AND WRITTEN REPORTS
FROM LIAISONS

From: John L. Griffin, Chief Financial Officer/Comptroller
Re: NHRS Lower Assumed Rate of Return from 7.25 to 6.75 Percent

From: Kim Kleiner, Director of Administrative Services
Re: Health Insurance Fund and FY21 Health Insurance Enrollment by Union

From: Donna Graham, Legislative Affairs Manager
Re: Communications Received from the Public

From: John L. Griffin, Chief Financial Officer/Comptroller
Re: 7.03% Tax Rate Increase Projected for FY2022

Board of Aldermen 6-23-2020 Page 7

From: Jim Donchess, Mayor
Re: Coronavirus Disease COVID-19

There being no objection, President Wilshire accepted the communications and placed them on file.

PERIOD FOR PUBLIC COMMENT RELATIVE TO ITEMS EXPECTED TO BE ACTED UPON THIS
EVENING

President Wilshire

Now we have a 15 minute Public Comment Period. Those of you that want to speak, if you could raise
your hand or get my attention? Anyone?

John

| am raising my hand, | think.
President Wilshire

Ok, John?

John McAllister, IAFF Local 789

Good evening, President Wilshire. Thank you for allowing me to speak this evening. Good evening to the
Mayor and the Board of Aldermen. | am here tonight to speak on a Resolution before you this evening of
the Collective Bargaining Agreement between the City of Nashua and Local 789, Nashua Firefighters.
Alderwoman Lu, | appreciate that question that you had just asked the Mayor and | would like to just say
that one of the most important infrastructures or benefits to the City, any City, would be the employees that
are employed there. And that’s not just the firefighters, | am talking about the teachers, the Police Officers,
the DPW Workers, all of them. And it’s about time that the City of Nashua invests in those employees.

We started this negotiation back in March of 2019, we finally came to a tentative agreement with the City of
Nashua, yes the City of Nashua because they were across the table from us. We are negotiating with them
in good faith and we finally came to an agreement the end of January / beginning of February. | ask one
question tonight after speaking to a few of you and listening to the comments this evening. If there was so
much respect for the firefighters in the City of Nashua, why did it take us almost a year to come up with this
agreement? | understand the Mayor stated earlier that the offer on the table was 11% but quite frankly the
members of the negotiating team weren’t ready to just accept 11%, we felt as though we wanted more, we
deserved more, our member deserved more.

We have been on the front lines of this pandemic, we’ve been on the front lines of anything that the City
throws at us. We are asking for a fair wage, fair for the City of Nashua as well as the employees of Local
789. | urge you all to do the right and vote in favor of this contract this evening. Thank you.

President Wilshire

Anyone else, public comment? Chief Rhodes?

Brian Rhodes, Nashua Fire Chief

Good evening, Madam President, Honorable Board, Mr. Mayor. Just to be perfectly clear, the decision to
end the Safe Station Program was my decision with my command staff based upon the rules of

engagement, sort to speak that had changed. Our task our charge is to provide public safety to the citizens
who are taxpayers of the City of Nashua.

Board of Aldermen 6-23-2020 Page 8

Any delay in our employees getting to our citizens in emergencies is unacceptable when we are trying to
deal with people who are coming from other communities. We have documentation that they have come
from around the country to come to our Safe Station Program. | just want that to be perfectly clear to all.
The firefighters had nothing to do with this. They have done their job in the past, they are doing their job
today and they will continue to do their job. They are not looking for anything exorbitant but some of you
know | spent time as an elected official in Concord. | understand, we don’t have a crystal ball. But we have
employees who have done an incredible job over the last four years of this opioid crisis when no one knew
what to do, your firefighters in the City of Nashua, stood up. They took care of the problem.

The Fire Department is not nice to have, it is a need to have. We have a safe city, we are constantly rated
as one of the safest cities in the country. We are rated as the safest city in New Hampshire because of the
dedicated employees that you have working. And again, I'll reiterate what John just said, and not just the
Fire Department, your Police Department, your Fire Department, your Public Works, your School
Department, our Libraries, everyone. All we are asking for is to take a serious look at this and yes we don’t
know what the future is going to bring, but your employees have put it out there for the citizens of Nashua
to create a safe and vibrant community for all in the past. And now they are looking for a little something
for that. So | thank you for your time. | know this is a very tough decision, but in the end, without our
employees we have nothing; we are not the Number One City in the United States, Safest City. We are not
the Best in New Hampshire. Again, | apologize for hopping in again because a lot of this stuff was said
before, but | just think it is very important because you have an extremely dedicated group of employees at
Nashua Fire Rescue who are not looking for anything exorbitant they are ;just looking for what | believe is
due. Thank you very much.

President Wilshire

Anyone else? Public Comment? Anyone else, before we move on? Ok.

COMMUNICATIONS REQUIRING FINAL APPROVAL

From: Tim Cummings, Economic Development Director

Re: Communication — Approval & Place on File A Contract for Great American Downtown to assist with
implementation of the Nashua Downtown Riverfront Project

MOTION BY ALDERMAN SCHMIDT TO ACCEPT, PLACE ON FILE, AND APPROVE THE

PROFESSIONAL SERVICES CONTRACT RELATED TO THE NASHUA DOWNTOWN RIVERFRONT

PROJECT IN THE AMOUNT OF $24,000 TO THE GREAT AMERICAN DOWNTOWN AND TO

AUTHORIZE THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR TO SIGN ALL RELATED DOCUMENTS,

BY ROLL CALL

ON THE QUESTION

President Wilshire

You've heard the Motion, discussion on that Motion?

Alderman Jette

Yes, | have a question.

President Wilshire

Alderman Jette?

Board of Aldermen 6-23-2020 Page 9
Alderman Jette

Thank you. | looked at the contract and under what appears to be the scope of work, the number one thing
| see is, “provide strategic advice and assistance with management and execution of Dancing in the Streets
Project”. | am just wondering if there is anyone that can explain with COVID-19, are we actually going to
have a Dancing in the Streets Program and what exactly does that have to do with the Riverfront?

President Wilshire

Anyone want to take a stab at it? Mayor?

Mayor Donchess

Yes, Madam President, | was struggling with the computer again, sorry. Alderman Jette’s question had to
do with the GAD Contract and the Dancing in the Street. So this has been something that has gone very
well, but | think we believe that a change in location would greatly benefit what has been a really high
energy project for the Downtown. Up in Portland at a park called “Congress Square” they run like a
program almost every night or several nights a week. So we were thinking of expanding what we’ve done
and bringing it down to Renaissance Park where it is more in the middle of things in the down. At
Renaissance Park you have a couple thousand people living within you know sight of the park, between the
apartments at, of course, Clock Tower, at Cotton Mill Square and at Loft 34. Maybe it’s not 2,000 but it is
over 1,000 people, we don’t know how many live exactly in each apartment. Therefore, we thought we
could run a very energetic, improved, exciting program of dancing.

Now we are hoping, we don’t - as we have already talked about COVID-19 of course affects everything but
we are seeing more reopening. Depending on conditions, we want to be sensible and safe but given that
these are mostly adults, not you know, small kids or anything. This could be run in a way that enforces
social distancing and still provides people a good opportunity. Masks could be required, things like that, a
good opportunity to enjoy the downtown. So this can be paid for out of the TIF, this would not affect the tax
rate. It can be paid for out of the TIF because this is within the TIF District and activities such as this can be
paid for. So that was the — and Great American Downtown also needs a little bit of a lift financially. So this
was part of the idea in terms of this contract.

Alderman Jette

Ok, thank you for the explanation.

President Wilshire

Are you all set Alderman Jette?

Alderman Jette

Yes | am, thank you.

President Wilshire

Thank you. Any other discussion? The Motion is to accept and place on file and approve the professional
services contract related to the Nashua Downtown Riverfront Project in the amount of $24,000.00 to the

Great American Downtown and to authorize the Economic Development Director sign all related
documents. Alderman Klee?

Board of Aldermen 6-23-2020 Page 10
Alderman Klee

Thank you, Madam President. | guess my question would be to the Mayor. | want to see as much life
downtown as possible with everything that we are doing. My concern is when we cancel fireworks and we
are not opening the polls and we are not doing all these other things because of COVID, yet we would be
promoting some type of dancing where people are going to be exhaling. While | do appreciate that we
probably can try to do as much social distancing as possible, is it realistic, | guess is my question. And |
am sure that the Mayor or anybody doesn’t really know that answer. But | wanted to ask when would this
be scheduled for us to do this particular event?

Mayor Donchess

Well as you’ve suggested, we want to be safe and sensible about this, so | can’t really say when exactly we
would do it. We were planning to begin in June, obviously that didn’t happen. We would need to wait to
see how conditions evolve. And if it seems like it could be done in a safe, sensible manner under the
conditions that we face at the time, then we would proceed, if not, we wouldn’t. We have seen, but | agree
with your concern about safety, no question about it. But we have seen some significant progress in the
last couple of weeks — well the last 6 or 8 weeks with the decline in positive tests in New Hampshire. And
then in Massachusetts there have been dramatic changes in the last few weeks where they are down to
1.3% or something like that, 1.5% positive tests, | mean they are way down.

So clearly in this part of New England we are making progress against the disease, but still we have to be
careful and we would definitely work with Public Health with the medical people in deciding whether and
how to proceed.

Alderman Klee

May | have a follow up question.
President Wilshire

Yes.

Alderman Klee

| guess my next kind of like roll into a couple of questions; what is the lead time that they would need to be
able to have this contract in order to get moving forward with some kind of decision. | understand that it’s
the TIF money. Are you saying that it definitely could be the TIF money, | guess would be my question and
they don’t need a whole lot of lead time, would it be better to just kind of hold off making this decision until
we had a better indication as to how things are going. | agree with you all the numbers are going — New
England is looking great. | just have anxiety that if we do something such as this we are going to be seeing
numbers going up, maybe just here in Nashua or people who that are coming to it. | think this will bring
people from other areas beyond Nashua. So | guess my question is, is this something we could put off and
is it definitely coming out of TIF Fund. And it’s not the money as much as it the health.

Mayor Donchess

TIF Funds definitely, that’s the source of funds. So it doesn’t hit the tax rate. We think late August, early
September is the earliest this could go but maybe it would be in the Fall as well. So Public Health is
looking carefully at each of the alternatives we are considering for anything, you know, pools, where we are
not sure we can keep kids apart. So, so far the decision has been to keep the pools closed, but in a
situation like this, where a late summer, early fall we may have much better health conditions where we are
dealing with adults, it may be possible to safely run the event. But we would not, again, do this except in
consultation with Public Health.

Board of Aldermen 6-23-2020 Page 11

| mean | think Director Bagley has done an exceptional job, | mean in balancing the need for safety with the
desire to open things up a bit. She’s been involved in all the decisions regarding downtown and
everywhere else. So she is well equipped to help us work through this or to decide it can’t be done.

Alderman Klee

And | agree with you and thank you very much for your answers.
President Wilshire

Alderwoman Lu.

Alderwoman Lu

Thank you, Madman Chairman. My concern is we are talking a lot about finances and fiscal concerns and
this is a dance party and | just feel that is a dance party, do we really need to spend $24,000.00 to plan
one. And my other concern is maybe we can get City Hall opened, because it seems strange to have a
City where City Hall is still not opened, but we are having dance parties in the streets. So that’s my feeling
about this. Thank you.

Mayor Donchess

| should have mentioned, Madam President that our tentative plan, our target date to open City Hall to a
certain number of people at any one time and there were so many subjects | didn’t get into this one, but it’s
July 6"". So there are going to be significant physical changes at automobile registration, City Clerk’s Office
and the Assessing Office and to some degree in the Mayor’s Office where there’s a lot of public interaction.
But City Hall is going to open, at least in part, before those physical changes can be made. The GOFFER
funds, the Federal Money can pay for these improvements.

So come July 6", assuming we can get the technology to work by that time, which | am optimistic we can
do, we will have automobile registration up in the Auditorium so that people can be spaced apart. There
will be a limited number of people allowed in City Hall, people will need to wear a mask. But we will open
and for most city functions, for many city functions. Some will be by appointment only, but our goal is to
continue to improve the accessibility, again sensibly, consistent with safety. But we believe the first steps
can be taken on July 6 or thereabouts.

Alderwoman Lu
Thank you, Mayor.
Alderman Schmidt

Thank you. Several times in the last couple of days people have questioned the optics that they are seeing
coming from our decisions. This kind of decision being made at this time is probably bad optics. It may not
be coming from the Budget, it may be planned for the future. Perhaps | should change my Motion to table t
this. That would be my suggestion at this point.

MOTION BY ALDERMAN SCHMIDT TO AMEND HER MOTION FOR FINAL PASSAGE TO TABLE THE
PROFESSIONAL SERVICES CONTRACT RELATED TO THE NASHUA DOWNTOWN RIVERFRONT
PROJECT IN THE AMOUNT OF $24,000 TO THE GREAT AMERICAN DOWNTOWN AND TO
AUTHORIZE THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR TO SIGN ALL RELATED DOCUMENTS,
BY ROLL CALL

Board of Aldermen 6-23-2020 Page 12
ON THE QUESTION

President Wilshire

Is that your Motion?

Alderman Schmidt

Yes.
A viva voce roll call was taken which resulted as follows:

Yea: Alderman Klee, Alderwoman Kelly, Alderman Caron,
Alderman Lopez, Alderwoman Lu, Alderman Jette,
Alderman Schmidt 7

Nay: Alderman O’Brien, Alderman Dowd, Alderman Clemons
Alderman Tencza, Alderman Cleaver, Alderwoman Harriott-Gathright
Alderman Wilshire 7

MOTION FAILED

President Wilshire

And that Motion failed. Do | have another Motion?
Alderman Schmidt

| guess we could go back to the original Motion.

MOTION BY ALDERMAN SCHMIDT TO ACCEPT, PLACE ON FILE, AND APPROVE THE
PROFESSIONAL SERVICES CONTRACT RELATED TO THE NASHUA DOWNTOWN RIVERFRONT
PROJECT IN THE AMOUNT OF $24,000 TO THE GREAT AMERICAN DOWNTOWN AND TO
AUTHORIZE THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR TO SIGN ALL RELATED DOCUMENTS,
BY ROLL CALL

ON THE QUESTION

President Wilshire

Any discussion? Alderman Dowd.
Alderman Dowd

Yes, GAD is right at the moment is having financial difficulties because a good part of their funding is
related to the casinos and casinos donating to the charities, which have not been able to do that for some
time. Also, GAD is responsible for a number of things that keep Nashua vibrant such as the Meals
downtown, the Stroll and numbers of other things. If there’s nothing to keep them going, they may
disappear and | think that would be a tragedy for the City, because the one thing we are really going to
need when we come out of this pandemic is things to get people’s spirits back up and get the vibrancy of
the downtown again. And it is important that we, you know, it’s not that it necessarily would be a dance. If
that doesn’t happen we will find other things that GAD can help us with and take some of the burden off of,
because | see Mr. Cummings just joined us, off of his group. That’s why we are looking to have GAD get
involved in that. They have a number of other things to do. But we want to keep GAD vibrant and busy and
helping the City of Nashua. And this is one way we can do it. | would strongly suggest that we approve
this.

Board of Aldermen 6-23-2020 Page 13

Alderman Klee

Thank you, Madam President. | agree with everything that Alderman Dowd just said. | have a follow up
question to that, if we approve this and it is being approved for the thing such as the dance and so on. If
they decide to use the funds to do something else in that same area with the Riverfront, do they need to
come back to us? If they decided that wasn’t what they wanted to do, because that’s kind of what
Alderman Dowd indicated that maybe they would do something else if they couldn’t come through with the
dance. | just want to get that clear?

Tim Cummings, Director of Economic Development

Madam President? Thank you for allowing me to join this evening. For the record, Tim Cummings,
Director of Economic Development. | apologize for my casual attire, | wasn’t planning on joining, | was
watching the meeting remotely. | thought it may help to chime in and clarify some questions that were just
raised. So first and foremost, this contract that is being put before you was brought about in a lot of ways
to help me and my office. For those of you who may or may not know, | have been working a lot and |
haven’t been able to spend some time on some other projects. So having an extra set of hands through a
contracted service type basis to actually implement the Downtown Riverfront Project, is what this is trying to
achieve and trying to do it on a limited scope. So there are some things that I’ve asked Paul Shea,
because of his unique knowledge of the downtown, his unique knowledge of the Riverfront and GAD’s
mission, it made sense to bring him in temporarily through GAD to help so we stay on course with this
major project that | think is a priority for the City.

So a couple of things that we have discussed in the Downtown Implementation of the Master Plan, which |
believe we are working towards having a presentation to this body or a sub committee of this body on July
8'". And then in addition to that execute on some plans to operationalize the Downtown Riverfront. What
does that mean? Some of you may have seen, we did yoga along the Riverfront recently. That was
through GAD’s efforts. | mean, and already they are trying to do things like yoga, like kayak promotion, like
Dancing in the Streets. So we are trying to look at the Riverfront in a different way, we are trying to use it
as a natural asset that is competitive advantage for us, that makes our downtown unique. But we need to
start looking at the downtown in that way and we want to have GAD promoting those types of activities. So
it was along those lines that we were looking to bring GAD on board temporarily to help move this overall
project forward. Thank you.

President Wilshire
Thank you, Director Cummings.

Steve Bolton Corporation Counsel

Madam President, Steve Bolton. | think | can answer Alderman Klee’s specific question about whether if the
Dancing in the Streets Program doesn’t happen, are other programs contemplated by the contract. And the
fact is that the Dancing in the Streets program is actually one small part of the scope of the work of the
contract. It contemplates the yoga program as well, it contemplates general other activities in that Riverfront
TIF District, Marketing support, Communication with the Stakeholders. So this is not $24,000.00 to have a
single Dancing in the Street program. That maybe one or more Dancing in the Streets, but it is also going
to be apparently several other things.

Alderman Klee

Madam President, may | follow up. Thank you Attorney Bolton and thank you Director Cummings, |
appreciate both of those explanations. It does answer a lot of the questions | have. | am definitely all for
this. | have seen the yoga, | have heard back positive things from the yoga. | think using our Riverfront is
brilliant, | think putting somebody like Paul Shea there to do this kind of work is also another thing that

Board of Aldermen 6-23-2020 Page 14

would be brilliant. He is a hard worker and someone who has a lot of energy to take care of all these
things. Hearing all of these things, | am definitely for this and | am glad it’s coming from the TIF and not the
taxpayers even.

Alderwoman Lu

Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, Madam President rather. Thank you for the information, | still feel the
same way that | did and perhaps, would it be helpful, well | think over the period of the pandemic | think that
there has not been the contact with the City Departments, maybe just the updates with the General Board
of Aldermen that | had expected. Maybe | need a better understanding of how the Great American
Downtown Organization intersects as a (audio cuts out) our City employees but | think part of my objection
to this is just being presented with we want to spend $24,000.00 on this and now it turns out, well it’s not
really that. | guess | would feel a lot better if the communications and the contracts were written with the
expectation that they are going to be read and that we don’t have to wonder why a dance in the middle of
COVID-19 would be a good idea to spend $24,000.00. | know that the Riverfront Project is great, | thought
that the yoga at the Greeley House was simply an effort of a private enterprise (audio cuts out) into the
open where they could have people come and join a class without the restrictions of 50%. Just a thought
that we are off-sourcing the business of the Community Development or rather the Economic Development
without a clear understanding. | would just feel better if it was described more precisely or more exactly as,
no this isn’t $24,000.00 for a dance. We need to keep this guy going, or this organization going and | don’t
know, it sounds like they need a steady stream of income from the City to do their mission. And that is
what | am hearing and | just would like more, for it to be a little bit more upfront. Thank you.

President Wilshire

| don’t think anybody was not trying to be upfront. | think what’s in the contract is in the contract. Great
American Downtown has done a lot here in the City. They are having financial troubles because of COVID,
because they haven’t had any income because their fundraisers have been down. But | think they were on
the up and up with all of this. | don’t think there was anyone trying to pull anything over on us.
Alderwoman Lu

| don’t — may | follow up on that. No | don’t mean that Director Cummings or Great American Downtown,
we just need better communication about, you know, to start off saying this is for the Riverfront Project for a
dance and then to say, well no it is for whatever we might decide. That’s what! am saying is not, ok, let’s
not say (audio cuts out).

President Wilshire

Alderman Lu, we can’t hear you. Are you all set?

Alderwoman Lu

Yup.

President Wilshire

Anyone else on the motion to accept, place on file and approve the contract? Alderman Clemons.

Alderman Clemons

Thank you. So just a quick question, did this go before Finance Committee? Or is this the first time we are
hearing it?