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Graham, Donna

From: Laurie Ortolano

Sent: Tuesday, April 05, 2022 4:35 PM

Ta; Graham, Donna

Ce: Board of Aldermen; Cummings, Tim; Sullivan, Matthew; Kathy Cardin; Blaisdell, Marylou;
Richard Lannan

Subject: Omit my email today for the board packet and use this one.

Attachments: RTK 2022-752(Mayor, ED) Response 2022-04-04-2.pdf; Nashua Downtown Barriers PIC

2022-02-11.pdf

CAUTION: This email came from outside of the organization. Do not click links/open attachments if source is
unknown.

Donna,
I had a math error. Here is the corrected Document

Good Morning,

As you all know, the Mayor's Office sent on March 25, 2022, raw data collected in July and
August for Expanded Outdoor Dining. The raw data came with no explanation whatsoever.

As you all know, I wrote back to the Mayor's office and asked for any records that would offer
an explanation for the data collected. Yesterday, April 4, 2022, I received a response with the
following information contained in the records. The Mayor created a fictitious story with
unverifiable data to maintain expanded outdoor dining and barriers for 2022.

[1] the survey was conducted in 2021

[2] The survey was conducted by an intern named Alexander Chen. He appears to be an intern
who worked for Tim Cummings in Economic Development. His last day of employment was
August 25, 2021.

[3] Mr. Chen created a barrier report on August 13, 2021, but continued to gather data to the
end of August and it appears the numbers are lower than what was tallied in July.

[4] If San Francisco’s claims that almost all customers prefer outdoor dining on nice day, it
mean their business volume is very low and that business faces significant challenges. It is

doubtful that expanded outdoor dining will impact profitability.

[5] The Mayor’s statements in the State of the City address were not credible and the City
continues to misrepresent information which erodes public trust and confidence in leadership.

[6] The Mayor stated that expanded outdoor dining brought at least 400,000 patrons downtown
to utilize the seating. Apparently this was based on Mr. Chen’s 2021 barrier study. And these
patrons created millions of dollars of revenue for the city.

[7] Based on the data gathered by Mr. Chen, the average number of people per restaurant using
outdoor seating is 10.8. This number is based on adding the total number of outdoor seats
utilized from the raw data - 9700 outdoor seaters in July and August for 39 days of data
gathered for 23 restaurants that had expanded outdoor dining.

[8] It is important to note that some of that outdoor seating capacity already existed as
Downtown Nashua has had outdoor seating for years.

[9] It does not appear that 400,000 came downtown for expanded outdoor dining. Even if one
extrapolated 9700 outdoor seats utilized for 2 months and ran the numbers out for 8 months,
that would result in under 40,000 outdoor diners. If each person spent on average $75.00, the
revenue would be approximately $3,000,000 in sales, not millions of dollars of additional
revenue. Mind you, we have no idea what typical outdoor dining has generated because the City
collected no data.

[10] The Barrier Report is as follows:

Barrier Report— Alex Chen 8-12-2021 and the Mayor’s State of the City remarks:

While talking to businesses, patrons, and individuals simply walking

through downtown, I have gained some insights into how everyone

views the outdoor seating. The biggest proponents of the outdoorseating were not

the restaurants with this additional seating, but the people who were using it. Aftertalking to
hundreds of people, the large majority of the downtown population and those who frequent it
love the outdoor seating. I have listened to people rant about how amazing it is

to have endlessly, with occasional comments about traffic being a little worse

but not unbearable, the inside of the barriers needing to be painted as beautifully as the
outside of the barriers, and suggestions about

which restaurants need more space for it and which need less. Every day at lpm, 3pm,

5pm, and 7pm, I have kept track of how

many people were sitting outside at eachrestaurant. The following

are some key points from that data, and the data collected from talking to the downtown
merchants.

- The overall average number of people
using the outdoor seating at any given time is 68 people, but thatfluctuates heavily depending on

the time of day, and the day itself.

¢ At 7pm on July 10th there were 264 people sitting outside, then the following afternoon at
lpm there were only 6.

- Martha's exchange alone averages at
21 customers using outdoor seating at any given time, and often peaks late at night around 65.

- Surf, MT's, Stella Blu, Fratello's, and Oddfellows can see anywhere from 10 to 30
customers sitting outside at one time during peak hours.

- San Francisco Kitchen claims 80% of all customers choose outdoor seating if the weather is nice.

- Casa Vieja and Fratello's claim that almost
if not all customers choose to sit outside if the weather is nice.

-MT's, Oddfellows, and The Flight Center all claim to have an outdoor seating pick rate of 75%.

The largest complaints from businesses have been a lack of parking, an unusually high frequency
of homeless individuals bothering customers, and a general decline in overall customers,
especially during the height of COVID-

19. The biggest complaints from patrons have been slightly more traffic

onMain Street (although most follow that up by saying that if you know the side streets

well enough you can avoid the traffic), less

parking, not enough outdoor seating at some of the restaurants, and the fact that the cones to
create bike lanes are often in the way of traffic, or knockedover and blocking a bike lane.

At the end of the month I will finalize all spreadsheets and graphs, and

make sure it is distributedto anyone who would like a copy. This will include

all data from counting

how many people are sittingoutside each day, along with a graph for each restaurant
with outdoor seating showing its trends, average users, etc.

The Mavors State of the City address, the Mayor stated:

"Positive economic impact, the expanded dining cannot be overstated, a 2021 study of visitors
to our bars during the summer months reveals that at least 400,000 patrons came downtown to
enjoy the expanded outdoor dining.

If we consider how much each one spends this adds up to millions of dollars, millions of doliars
of additional revenue

A recent economic survey reveals that 80% of the visitors to main street come for the
restaurants and bars."

Attached is the Downtown Barrier GIS drawings labelled by business, and the Mayor office
records sent April 4, 2022.

Sincerely,
Laurie Ortolano
41 Berkeley St.

Februay 11. 2022

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April 4, 2022

Laurie Ortolano
41 Berkeley Street
Nashua, NH 03064

RE: RTK request received March 28, 2022
Ms. Ortolano,

The Office of the Mayor is in receipt of your right-to-know request dated Saturday, March 26,
2022.

Your request is for:

1. Please provide any communication associated with this data, letters, reports, or emails or
notes.

2. Please provide any notes recorded by your staff if a meeting was held on this data.

3. Please provide the excel spreadsheet or raw data format that the information was
generated in.

The Office of the Mayor has conducted a reasonable search based upon your requests. The
response to each request is below:

1. Please find the responsive documents attached. All redactions are pursuant to RSA 91-
A:5, IV as the information is of a personal, confidential nature and disclosure would
constitute an invasion of privacy. Any notes, to the extent that they exist, are being
withheld as exempt pursuant to RSA 91-A:5, VIII as notes or materials made for personal
use.

2. To the extent that any notes exist, they are being withheld as exempt pursuant to RSA
91-A:5, VIII as notes or materials made for personal use.

3. Please find the Excel spreadsheet as an additional attachment to this email. When the
Office of the Mayor provided this data in its March 25, 2022 response, certain fields were
redacted pursuant to RSA 91-A:5, IV as the information is of a personal, confidential
nature and disclosure would constitute an invasion of privacy. To continue to protect this
information from disclosure, the previously redacted information has been deleted from
the Excel spreadsheet being provided to you.

File #2022-752(Mayor, ED)

4/1/22, 4,02 PM Personal Portal
FW: Final Report

Cummings, Tim <CummingsT@nashuanh.gov>
11/23/2021 at 07:01 PM

From: Cummings, Tim <CummingsT@nashuanh,gov>
Sent: 11/23/2021 at 07.01 PM

To: Telerski, Noah <telerskin@nashuanh.gov>

Ce:

% 1 Attachment(s) Total 433.4 KB View ~

fz) City Hall Data.xlsx (433.4 KB) This spreadsheet can be found attached to this email.

Data collected from the summer.

From: Alex Chen fi

Sent: Wednesday, August 25. 2021 7:37 PM

To: DeRoche, Amy <derochea@nashuanh.gov>; Cummings, Tim <CummingsT@nashuanh.gov>
Subject: Final Report

CAUTION: This email came from outside of the organization. Do not click links/open attachments if source is unknown.
Hi All,

Today is my last day working with City Hall, and | wanted to say thank you to you both. | greatly appreciate this opportunity,
and have enjoyed my time here. Attached is the spreadsheet containing:

- General Info about each business (anyone not listed declined to speak to me)

- A spreadsheet and graph containing how many people were using the outdoor seating

- Contact info fer patrons that support outdoor seating

- A page for each business with a line graph and a Pareto chart to show trends in customer use of outdoor seating and to
easily identify busy times/days

If you have any questions about it feel free to send me a text or email and | will try to get back to you as soon as possible.
Again, thank you both and | hope this can give some insight into how outdoor seating is being utilized downtown.

Best regards,
Alex

Alexander Chen

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4/1/22, 4:0¢ PM Personal Portal
City Hall Data.xlsx

Cumming , Tim Cumming T@na huanh gov
03/07/2022 at 02:13 PM

From Cumming , Tim Cumming T@na huanh gov
Sent: 03/07/2022 at 02:13 PM

To: Telerski, Noah <telerskin@nashuanh.gov>

Cc

% 1 Attachment(s) Total 424.8 KB View «

This is the same spreadsheet as found on the above page, and is

City Hall Data.xl 8K : :
LBV Halllblate x1axi(628: 2148) attached to this email.

FYI

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