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Board of Aldermen 05-11-2021 Page 29
Alderwoman Lu

Thank you.

President Wilshire

Anyone else.

Alderwoman Kelly

Alderwoman Kelly.

President Wilshire

Alderwoman Kelly and then Alderman Harriott-Gathright.

Alderwoman Kelly

Thank you. I'll Keep my remarks to the issue at hand which is whether we should take this up. And | think that
the conversation from the Mayor, the study that he put out, we won't call it a study; brief survey. And the idea
that a woman had never been appointed but also nobody of color that | am aware of has ever been appointed |
think is enough to merit at least a conversation on this. As the Mayor just pointed out, the new wording talks
about having it be reflective of our community. And one of the things | talk about all of the time about our
current Board of Aldermen is how proud | am on how we are a really good swath of our City; people of color,
people who are under the age of 40; we are almost exactly half men and women. And so | think that kind of
representation allows for different experiences and ideas to come forward. So at the very least | think we need
to consider this and move forward.

President Wilshire

Alderman Harriott-Gathright.

Alderman Harriott-Gathright

Thank you Madam President. First of all | am going to say ditto to my colleagues that spoke. But through you
to Mr. Mayor, did the survey only go out to women?

Mayor Donchess

No, no it went to everybody. But it asked the question, should there be a minimum number of women on
the....

Alderman Harriott-Gathright

Right, | understood that. That’s what | thought but | understood my colleague to say that the survey that you
sent out to women friends. | didn’t think it was appropriate.

Mayor Donchess
No, no both genders, people of all political parties.

Alderman Harriott-Gathright

OK | just thought | would ask. Thank you.

Board of Aldermen 05-11-2021 Page 30
President Wilshire

Alderman Lu?

Alderwoman Lu

Thank you, | may have been misheard. | think | said a curated list. But no, | didn’t mean to say that it was
females only.

President Wilshire

Anyone else, before we vote on that this necessary and we will schedule a public hearing for Monday, June 7",
at 7:00 p.m. Any further discussion on that. Seeing none, would the Clerk please call the roll?

A viva voce roll call was taken which resulted as follows:
Yea: Alderman O’Brien, Alderwoman Kelly,
Alderman Caron, Alderman Lopez, Alderman Tencza,
Alderman Jette, Alderman Schmidt, Alderman Laws,
Alderman Cleaver, Alderwoman Harriott-Gathright 10
Nay: Alderman Dowd, Alderwoman Lu, Alderman Wilshire 3
MOTION CARRIED
President Wilshire
Alderman Caron?
Alderman Caron
Madam President, yes, | would ask that R-21-123 also be sent to the Police Commissioners please.
President Wilshire
| don’t know. Can you weigh in on that Attorney Bolton?
Attorney Bolton
It’s up to the Board, there’s nothing legal or illegal about doing it or not doing it.
President Wilshire
| am not inclined to do so. | think it’s self-serving if we send this to the Commissioners. Alderman Lu?
Alderwoman Lu
| was going to ask what you meant by that. | see, OK.

President Wilshire

Alderman Caron, | am not inclined to do so unless the Board feels otherwise.

Board of Aldermen 05-11-2021 Page 31
Alderman Caron

| just feel they should have a chance to look it over.

President Wilshire

They will have a chance to weigh in; | am sure they will be following this very closely.

Alderman Caron

OK that’s fine. Thank you.

President Wilshire

Alderman Dowd.

Alderman Dowd

| am sure they will weigh in; there’s no doubt about in my mind. However, if we want a formal response from
them we would have to refer it to them, but that’s up to you. The other thing | might point out is that the current

Board of Commissioners were all appointed by Maggie Hassan, reappointed by the current Governor.

Alderman Harriott-Gathright

What does that have to do with it?

Alderman Dowd

Well | mean if there was an issue with somebody being appointed. | will say | believe there should be a woman
on there. | also think that it’s probably not a problem expanding it to five. But as I'll discuss when we send it to
Committee | don’t believe it should be under local control because there’s a lot of reasons which | am sure we

will hear in the Committee.

President Wilshire

Alderman Lopez.

Alderman Lopez

As | under the Legislation it is basically just to open the discussion and to have public comment and the
ultimate act, if all things move in that direction, is to have a referendum. So | am never oppose to let the voters
have a chance to vote on things, and | think more than the Police Commission, more than the Aldermen, they
are probably the ones who should be weighing in on this. | don’t think it would be a bad idea for any
modifications or recommendations that they suggest or that the Alderman, in reviewing what is going to be on
the referendum, be considered as well. So there’s a lot of room for discussion here.

President Wilshire
Anyone else. OK would the Clerk please call the roll?

City Clerk Lovering

That motion passed 10 to 3.

Board of Aldermen 05-11-2021 Page 32
President Wilshire

Oh I’m sorry, you’re right.

City Clerk Lovering
The first reading, if | may of Resolution R-21-144.

R-21-144

Endorsers: Mayor Jim Donchess
Alderman Jan Schmidt
Alderman Richard A. Dowd
Alderman-at-Large Michael B. O’Brien, Sr.
Alderman Linda Harriott-Gathright
Alderman Tom Lopez
Alderman-at-Large Lori Wilshire

AUTHORIZING THE PURCHASE OF PROPERTY LOCATED AT “L” PINE STREET (MAP 77, LOT 5)

Given its first reading; assigned to the PCANNING AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE and
NASHUA CITY PLANNING BOARD, by President Wilshire

R-21-145
Endorser: Mayor Jim Donchess
Alderman Richard A. Dowd
Alderman-at-Large Michael B. O’Brien, Sr.
Alderman Tom Lopez
Alderman-at-Large Lori Wilshire
AUTHORIZING THE INTERFUND TRANSFER OF $325,000 FROM THE BROAD STREET PARKWAY
CAPITAL PROJECT ACTIVITY TO THE NASHUA MILLYARD DOG PARK CAPITAL PROJECT ACTIVITY
FOR THE PURCHASE OF PROPERTY LOCATED AT “L” PINE STREET (MAP 77, LOT 5)

Given its first reading; assigned to the BUDGET REVIEW COMMITTEE, by President Wilshire
NEW BUSINESS — ORDINANCES

O-21-062
Endorser: Alderman June M. Caron
Alderman Richard A. Dowd
Alderman Linda Harriott-Gathright
Alderman-at-Large Michael B. O’Brien, Sr.
ESTABLISHING A HANDICAPPED PARKING SPACE IN FRONT OF 3 CROWN STREET
Given its first reading; assigned to the COMMITTEE ON INFRASTRUCTURE, by President Wilshire

O-21-063
Endorser: Alderman Jan Schmidt
ESTABLISHING A NO PARKING ZONE ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF NEWTON DRIVE
Given its first reading; assigned to the COMMITTEE ON INFRASTRUCTURE, by President Wilshire
Alderman Schmidt
Madam President, if | may, did we actually vote on 21-143?

City Clerk Lovering

You voted 10 in favor and 3 against.

Board of Aldermen 05-11-2021 Page 33
Alderman Schmidt

Thanks very much.

City Clerk Lovering

You’re welcome.

President Wilshire

Thank you.

PERIOD FOR GENERAL PUBLIC COMMENT

Laurie Ortolano Laurie Ortolano, 41 Berkeley Street. Quickly going through, | am not in favor of the dog park. |
just think the money spent right now is not the thing to do. The Mayor spoke briefly about the secretive
process of how these Commissioners are selected. | think we have our own secretive process going on down
here where we have a Charter Change being proposed for the School, make-up of the elected members
moving it toward a 15 member board with at-large seats. | really don’t think that works and my idea of a
transparent and open government. | know it doesn’t violate an open meeting because it was handled by an
Alderman making the change for the School Board, but | don’t like that process at all.

Your amendment for this Police thing is very confusing. Attorney Bolton wrote it up that the Board of Aldermen
must hold an initial vote to determine if the amendment is necessary. And then it says, if it is determined
necessary the Board of Aldermen must order a notice be given for the public hearing. Well we started off this
discussion with the Chairwoman saying that June 17, 2021 would be the hearing at Nashua North. It is as if
you already determined it was necessary. And | am not certain if this vote tonight is why you determined it was
necessary, but | found it totally lacking in understanding why you are doing this, why it came about and why
need it. And | don’t know when it goes to Committee, | can’t tell if the Committee Meeting, Personnel Affairs is
going to happen before the hearing or after the hearing and will it come back from Committee to the Board
such that the Board will discuss it? | don’t like the idea of a public hearing without being able to hear why you
think it is necessary across the board. And if Alderman Lu hadn’t opened the discussion up the way she had,
by asking about the survey, | don’t think there would have been any discussion at all.

| think for something so significant there should be a lot more talk going on and a lot more solid reasoning
behind why we think this will improve our Police Force. One other thing, your IT Office | think is in disarray.
You’ve got some big problems in there with Cyber Security, there’s hacking going on of emails; emails are lost,
appointments are lost, citizens are being arrested when they go to City Hall for not having an appointment that
they might in fact have because your email server is being hacked. You had on the table to establish an IT
Study Committee; it has been tabled in Committee for months and months. You really should pull that
Resolution 20-021 off the table, figure out what you need to do and get somebody in there highly qualified to
deal with your IT issues. Serious problem and you've got a serious lack of clerical staffing in your Legal Office
to provide assistance to those four attorneys and deal with Right-to-Knows. Thank you.

President Wilshire

Anyone else wishing to give public comment? OK seeing no one, Remarks by Members of the Board of
Aldermen. No one?

REMARKS BY THE MEMBERS OF THE BOARD OF ALDERMEN

Alderman Lopez

Nope, you’re not getting off that easy, | was just unmuting.

Board of Aldermen 05-11-2021 Page 34
President Wilshire

Alright Tom, Alderman Lopez?

Alderman Lopez

So | just wanted to announce that we are moving forward with the Tree Streets Block Party on June 27". It is
going to feature a futsal tournament. The kids that are participating are going to be wearing masks. The public
and the people who want to watch are also encouraged to do so. The event will encourage mask wearing
although there isn’t a City Ordinance requiring it. And we are hoping to kind of bring together a lot of different
people to address other types of healthcare needs in addition to the pandemic which has largely dominated our
focus this past year. Other issues like adverse childhood experiences, food security, we have a lot of issues in
Nashua that we need to address, we need to make sure people are getting fed, families are finding shelter,
children are growing up with access to the supports that they need.

A lot of that is communication and that’s a lot of the ways that blocks communicate is through things like this.
So we are working very closely with the Public Health Department to make sure that this is a safe and helpful
event for everybody. We already have sponsors, Neighbor works and Southern NH Medical Center. So
looking good so far, if anything happens citywide prior to that which looks like it may be a risk then we will
postpone it if not pull the plug. But marks your calendars. We are hoping for the best. | think at the beginning
| said June 27", | was a little too excited, | meant June 26".

And then additionally we are working on revising the murals in French Park in keeping with their heritage. The
older murals that we did degraded so we are working with the Richelieu Club. We have identified a number of
prominent Franco-Nashuans | guess you could call them that have contributed to Nashua’s history. And we are
hoping that we will have that project done in the park for dedication on June 25". So everybody is welcome to
follow along with that and if you’re interested, participate.

Finally, | Know a lot of the Board of Aldermen are concerned, confused as to what we are doing with the
masking ordinance. | have brought it up at every single public health meeting and | have encouraged the need
to start considering the issue, to evaluate what we can do, look at best practices elsewhere but start figuring
out whether we want this thing just to expire, whether it needs to transition, whether we need to leave a
backdoor in case some variant shows its head and we don’t have to start all over again from scratch. So the
Board of Health did vote to have a special meeting. | haven’t been told when that meeting will be yet, but | think
all Aldermen could probably coordinate with Director Bagley to make sure they are in the loop on that if they
are interested so that we can start addressing that issue. Thank you.

President Wilshire
Thank you. Alderman Schmidt.
Alderman Schmidt

Thank you Madam President. | would like to welcome back Alderman Cleaver. You were very much missed, it
is good to see you hear. Yes | am hearing a lot of questions about the mask ordinance and we are doing so
much better; we are doing remarkably better. And as far as Massachusetts that was a real issue for us, on the
border, they had absolutely no deaths today which is remarkable. It looks like we are moving forward because
of vaccinations. And one more thing, there’s a lot of things that | really enjoy about being an Alderman but one
that really makes me smile every single time is when someone steps up to volunteer on a Committee. It is just
the best feeling in the world. Thank you everybody who does that, it is just tremendous. Thank you, Madam
President.

President Wilshire

Thank you, Alderman Schmidt. Anyone else? Alderwoman Lu?

Board of Aldermen 05-11-2021 Page 35
Alderwoman Lu

Thank you. | also want to welcome back Alderman Cleaver, it is good to see your face. | wanted to share, a
couple of weeks ago, actually it was Arbor Day. Dante | believe his last name is Castellano, he’s a student in
town and he organized a tree planting which | helped him with; | planted five trees. He gathered volunteers to
plant over 100 trees for just residents who bought the trees from him so we are replenishing the tree stock in
Nashua and | thought that was a really great public service that he did.

| also wanted to mention that, | think at the last meeting, or maybe two meetings before, | expressed concern
about — concern and I’ve asked for information on how high levels of our overtime is going to affect our future
retirement costs in the City. | did speak with the Mayor personally but | haven’t heard back from you. | think
that you had indicated that you needed to look into it. | wonder if we have any information on that now.
Because | continue to be, you know, I’d like for it to be looked at and at least responded to. Thank you.

President Wilshire

Mayor, did you want to respond to that?

Mayor Donchess

We are talking mostly about the Departments that have a lot of overtime, those being Fire and Police. The
answer is that when people work overtime, even on the pandemic, even when they receive ... that they do in
those situations it contributes. So the answer is yes it does impact pensions but that’s just part of the need for
the overtime.

Alderwoman Lu

When | first brought this up my point, Mayor Donchess, was that it seems to be that some of these tasks we
don’t need highly skilled fire fighters to be doing that. And so wouldn’t that be a way that we could protect or
less in the future cost of the retirement expenses?

Mayor Donchess

Well it might affect it slightly but | am not sure that it is easy to find a group of competent people to supervise
some of these clinics. Most of this overtime occurs at both the testing clinics where people are tested for
COVID-19 and more recently the vaccination clinics. You know, when you go to the clinic you know there
needs to be people who direct where a lot of people coming in at the same time need to do and where they
should wait. Could other people do it? | suppose so but | think people with some level of training and
knowledge and experience, it would need to be someone like that. And | am just not sure we have an alternate
group of people that would really serve the same function.

President Wilshire

You're all set Alderman Lu? Anyone else? Alderman Dowd.

Alderman Dowd

| was expecting OB to jump in but the firemen that were at the vaccination centers, first of all, all of their
overtime including the pension costs were covered by Federal dollars. And also, the firemen are all EMT
trained so they are out in the parking lot and if somebody has an issue within the first 15 minutes that they
make them stay after their shot, they can immediately handle that and a nurse or a doctor to come. So they

are not just directing traffic, they are there for a reason.

The other thing is a member of the public called me a liar for saying the Police overtime was covered by
Federal dollars. There are four major categories of Police overtime that were covered by Federal dollars

Board of Aldermen 05-11-2021 Page 36

including overtime pension costs and that did not come out of the City and there’s data available for that. Some
of it is from grants. So | think that the overtime costs that we are talking about via the pandemic is not a hit on
the City per se as far as the Budget is concerned. So just all | wanted to say.

Alderman O’Brien

Thank you. | wasn’t going to say much. | can appreciate Alderman Lu’s concern but like Alderman Dowd said,
in my 35 year career on the Fire Department, today’s requirement to be a firefighter is a minimum you have to
be an EMT. Some are even paramedics which basically is advanced medical and everything. But whether
they are sitting there doing it, directing traffic or just breathing, | think some people lost sight of why they are
there. And because a certain drug which is the vaccine is being administered to the person. Some people who
may not know, can have an allergic reaction. Now out of the major forms of shock, one of the ones that is very
dangerous is anaphylactic shock. Basically what ends up, and now | am reverting back to my EMT days, but
basically your airway constricts is one of the symptoms and you cannot breathe and that is why the firefighters
are there.

Fortunately it is a rare event, but it does happen. And when you have nurses that are going out because of the
thousands of people that they inoculated, giving the shots in the arms, the firefighters were there mostly just to
make sure if anybody was feeling ill or showing signs of shock. So fortunately it wasn’t anything major that |
am aware of but that question can be referred to the Fire Chief. But their job was highly skilled. After sitting
there and taking medical courses for 35 years, it is a very complete skill set. People rely on it. | have had
people wrap their human bodies around trees and | think they were very appreciative of my skill set in trying to
extricate them from vehicles. And so the firefighters | think they did a great job there in assisting the public,
and again, it was predominantly a cautionary measure. So | was glad that they were there. And like Alderman
Dowd says, it was covered with the Federal dollars that was granted with the inoculations so there wasn’t too
much of a municipal impact. And those that followed within the Finance and the Budget Committee saw that
because we did a vote to approve that and the money went back to the Fire Department if you remember that
was | think Assistant Chief Buxton came to that very same meeting speaking to have that money
compensated. That was the reason that he gave. So again that’s the reasoning. So thank you, Madam
President.

President Wilshire

You’re welcome. Alderman Lopez and then Alderwoman Lu.

Alderman Lopez

Yeah | just wanted to add that the firefighters are kind of, you don’t want them to have to prove their worth
because that means there is a fire. Equally you don’t want them to have to respond to an emergency and look
busy, but they are the ones who are likely to transport somebody in need of healthcare or experiencing a
medical emergency to the hospital and it is only prudent that we have them on hand. So! appreciate their
presence and | think we do have a lot of Fiscal Priorities to be looking at coming up and | mean some of that
may be a tough decision but | would much rather look at trying to cut how often we are watering the plants or
how often we are buffing eagle than how often we have firefighters available to respond to an emergency.
Thank you.

President Wilshire

Alderwoman Lu?

Alderwoman Lu

Thank you. | just wanted to clarify or point out that any time you manage a pension system, you really don’t

know if you are level funding it. So the Federal Government is paying what they typically put forward per hour
of work toward their pension, | understand that. But there’s always a large risk that the management of those

Board of Aldermen 05-11-2021 Page 37

funds is not going to yield the cash flow that they are going to need in their retirement. And | just think it is a big
risk; it is a risk that we have to take on with our public servants, but in this case we don’t have to take this risk
on. | Know we need a single emergency you know emergency worker at a site, but | just think this is a lot of
risk to take on to have this much overtime that we don’t really bargain for originally, we don’t budget for. We
don’t know whether we are going to be able to grow these pensions. If pensions were that easy, then we
wouldn’t have a pension problem right now. And that is the biggest problem affecting our tax rate that there is,
is the pension problem.

And it just seems to be obvious that we’ve got a huge roomful of people who are trained to address
emergencies. | mean they are giving shots, but we have doctors there, anyways, | wanted to make it clear that
just because you are paying a certain point into the pension, it doesn’t mean that there’s no risk to it. You’ve
put, this is going to grow to exactly what you need. That’s all. Thank you.

President Wilshire

Anyone else? Seeing none, Committee Announcements.

Committee announcements:

Alderman Dowd

Yes, the first Budget Review Committee for the FY ’22 Budget is going to be next Thursday, May 20" at 7:00
p.m. on Zoom. We will be covering General Government, Emergency Preparedness and Administrative
Services. | would like all the members of the Budget Committee to let me know if there are any conflicts with
this schedule so that | can see if we have any problem nights; | hope we don’t. But let me know one way or the
other if there are any issues with any particular nights so that we can make sure that we have a quorum.

Thank you.

President Wilshire
Any other Committee announcements? No? Seeing none, Alderman O’Brien?
Alderman O’Brien

Thank you, Madam President. | am just contemplating Aldermen now there goes a lot of evenings with the
Budget Committee. But looking forward to it. Madam President, | would like to be recognized for a motion.

ADJOURNMENT

MOTION BY ALDERMAN O’BRIEN THAT THE MAY 11, 2021, 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, Alderwoman Kelly, Alderman Dowd,

Alderman Caron, Alderman Tencza, Alderwoman Lu, Alderman Jette,

Alderman Schmidt, Alderman Laws, Alderman Cleaver,

Alderwoman Harriott-Gathright, Alderman Wilshire 12
Nay: Alderman Lopez 1
MOTION CARRIED

The meeting was declared adjourned at 9:27 p.m.
Attest: Susan K. Lovering, City Clerk

AGENDA MEETING OF THE BOARD OF ALDERMEN MAY 11, 2021
7:30 PM

Meeting is being conducted remotely in accordance with Governor’s Emergency Order #12 pursuant to Executive
Order 2020-04

Join Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85827219596? pwd=c0g IM0pOZ mxrd E9obHA3W U9KcT ByZz09
Meeting ID: 858 2721 9596 Passcode: 357332

Join by phone: 1-929-205-6099 Meeting ID: 858 2721 9596 Passcode: 357332

If anyone has a problem accessing the meeting or Channel 16, please call 603-821-2049 and they will help you
connect.

1. PRESIDENT LORI WILSHIRE CALLS ASSEMBLY TO ORDER
2. PRAYER OFFERED BY CITY CLERK SUSAN K. LOVERING

3. PLEDGE TO THE FLAG LED BY ALDERMAN PATRICIA KLEE
4. ROLL CALL

5. REMARKS BY THE MAYOR
6. RESPONSE TO REMARKS OF THE MAYOR
t. RECOGNITIONS

8. READING OF MINUTES OF PREVIOUS MEETINGS

Special Board of AIDEPMEN.......... 0. ccc cece cece eects cee eee ee eens eet ee eee eeteeeneaeeten seen ees 04/26/2021
Special Board of AIDEPMEN.......... 0. ccc cece cece eects cee eee ee eens eet ee eee eeteeeneaeeten seen ees 04/27/2021
Board of AIDGrMen. ..... 0... cece cee cece ne een e eee nee e eee e deen ee tetas eae bettie eeeaneneees 04/27/2021

9. COMMUNICATIONS REQUIRING ONLY PROCEDURAL ACTIONS AND WRITTEN REPORTS
FROM LIAISONS

From: Matt Sullivan, Planning Department Manager
Re: Referral from the Board of Aldermen on O-21-058 to Nashua Planning Board, amending the
Floodplain Management Land Use Ordinance

From: Matt Sullivan Planning Manager
Sherry Dutzy, Chair, Nashua Conservation Commission

Re: Referral from the Board of Aldermen to Conservation Commission on O-21-058, amending the
Floodplain Management Land Use Ordinance

From: Deb Chisholm, Waterways Manager
Re: Proposed modification to Land Use Code 190 Article Vil Floodplain Management

From: Diane Thibodeau, Executive Assistant, Division of Public Works
Re: Board of Aldermen Referral — R-21-127 bond

From: Julie Chizmas, Transportation and Long-Range Planner
Re: Partnership with Bird Rides, Inc.