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Board of Aldermen 08-09-2022 Page 6

From: Tim Cummings, Economic Development Director
Re: ARPA Funding Framework

MOTION BY ALDERMAN LOPEZ TO APPROVE OF THE COMMUNICATION SUBMITTED BY DIRECTOR
CUMMINGS ON MAY 17, 2022 FOR THE USE OF ARPA FUNDS AS “REVENUE REPLACEMENT”, WHICH WILL
ALLOW FOR THE FOLLOWING INITATIVES, PROJECTS OR EQUIPMENT TO BE PURSUDED: $10,000,000 FOR
THE HOUSING TRUST FUND; $500,000 FOR THE BACK-UP SERVER (IT); $850,000 FOR FIRE
EQUIPMENT/ALARM; $650,000 FOR POLICE RECORD MANAGEMENT AND GATE; $600,000 FOR MAIN STREET
STUDY & WEST HOLLIS STREET STUDY; $1,500,000 FOR THE LIBRARY PARK PROJECT; $600,000 FOR THE
OPTICON SYSTEM; AND $200,000 FOR THE ARPA PROGRAM SUPPORT AND FURTHER REQUEST DIRECTOR
CUMMINGS TO RETURN TO THE HUMAN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE AND PROVIDE UPDATES PERIODICALLY

ON THE QUESTION

Alderman Clemons

Thank you Madam President. | believe that I'm going to ask that the maker of the motion amend it by saying $10 million
for the Housing Trust Fund and $1.5 million for the Library Park project. | think he might have misread those.

Alderman Lopez

He did and he regretted that. $10 million to the Housing Trust Fund and 500 what was the other one?

Alderman Clemons

$1.5 million for the Library Park Project.

Alderman Lopez

And $1,500,000 for the Library Park Project.

President Wilshire

Thank you Alderman Lopez.

Alderwoman Kelly

I'll Keep this brief. This came to Human Affairs twice and we had really good background and all of these. So | obviously
am very excited for the $10 million for the Affordable Housing Trust Fund but these other projects are also very deserving.
| think that they all did a good job explaining what this is going to be used for.

Alderman Clemons

Thank you. | am in support of most of this. I'm not a fan of the million and a half for the Library Park project. | think that
that money could be spent somewhere else. For those reasons, I'm gonna vote no one on this legislation.

President Wilshire

Further discussion? Seeing none.
MOTION CARRIED

From: Tim Cummings, Economic Development Director
Re: Communication — Approval & Place on File a Contract for Professional Engineering Services related to the
Nashua Downtown Riverfront Implementation Project with H.L. Turner Group

MOTION BY ALDERMAN KLEE TO APPROVE THE FIRST PHASE ON THE SPECIFIC DETAILS OF THE
CANTILEVERED BOARDWALKS TO H.L. TURNER GROUP IN AN AMOUNT NOT TO EXCEED $404,340. FUNDING
WILL BE THROUGH THE TIF ACCOUNT CREATED TO IMPLEMENT THE DOWNTOWN RIVERFRONT PROJECT
MOTION CARRIED

Board of Aldermen 08-09-2022 Page 7

From: Mayor Jim Donchess
Re: ESRI GIS Enterprise Agreement Renewal in the amount not to exceed $115,308 funded from 54407 Software
Maintenance/General Fund

MOTION BY ALDERMAN MORAN TO APPROVE THE RENEWAL OF THE GIS ENTERPRISE LICENSE AND
ANNUAL AGREEMENT FOR THREE YEARS BETWEEN THE CITY OF NASHUA, PENNICHUCK CORPORATION,
AND ESRI IN AN AMOUNT NOT TO EXCEED $115,308. FUNDING WILL BE THROUGH: DEPARTMENT: 106
ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES; FUND: 54407 SOFTWARE MAINTENANCE/GENERAL FUND

MOTION CARRIED

From: Lori Wilshire, President, Board of Aldermen
Re: Zoom meetings

MOTION BY ALDERMAN O’BRIEN TO APPROVE TERMINATING THE PUBLIC ACCESS TO ZOOM MEETINGS

ON THE QUESTION

Alderman O’Brien

Thank you. This is what I’m saying is pretty radical. | heard exactly what the people had spoken about and what have
said but | copy and | mirror what is good for the State of New Hampshire should also be equally and legally good as well
for this particular chamber. | think Alderman Klee could agree that within the State, we use very sparingly Zoom. There’s
a whole set of rules. This turned into something else.

| want to hear from the public. The answer is yes. The thing is I’m not the one that took the liberties that one particular
citizen did and came out and introduced us to a whole new set of words of vocabulary that | can assure you that are not
spoken even in the fire station. The term that was used was derogatory to women and therefore | find it particularly
disgusting but what is the safeguard? There is no safeguard. None at all. We don’t even have a switch to shut it off. It’s
uncontrolled. Raise your hand if you were at the Budget meeting like | was and saw five people that took our meeting on
the budget as important as the budget was and just got off and round robin and came up and used their time. It was their
right, but they went off subject and we know that they went off subject. We heard it. It’s on tape. People play it back.
You can see.

Therefore, what is the safeguards to what this is? We're not the ones in this chamber. We follow our rules and our
decorums to a tee. It seems the public is not following our decorums. We don’t use this type of language. We don’t
disparagingly attack our employees. Whenever we have an employee that’s up for some other form of things, we go into
closed session to discuss that employee but the public can’t and yet they can lambast an employee on their opinions and
not really based on any type of fact. Something needs to be done. Maybe after some time of terminating the Zoom
meetings, we can come up with rules and guidelines that maybe more appropriate. As it sits right now, there is no
guarantee that what had happened in the past will not happen again. Therefore based upon the past practice, | am very
guarded. Like | say with the deepest of regret but | think those who have been an Aldermen for a while when | started if
you couldn’t make a meeting, you were encouraged to be at the meeting but you called in on a telephone. | understand
that technology is lagging. I'd like to have Zoom for us that we’re able to contact and come on to Zoom in order to record
our presence and to be at the meeting.

From what | understand and the question could be asked and answered by Corporate Counsel by New Hampshire State
law, | don’t think there’s any guarantee to have public comment at any of these really proceedings. So that would need to
be clarified because you heard in somebody’s comment, it’s covered under the Right to Know Law. SO within that
clarification, that needs to be discussed. So the whole thing needs to be taken a look at and maybe we should have the
time out and come up with better rules on it and then we can make a better educated discussion. It doesn’t have to last
forever. Thank you Madam President.

President Wilshire

Can | ask you to respond to that?

Steve Bolton, Corporate Counsel

Alderman O’Brien is absolutely correct. The law does not require public comment be afforded except in specific incidents.
The annual budget, issuance of bonds, supplemental appropriations all require this Board to have a public hearing on
those issues otherwise, public comment is your choice. It is not imposed upon you by New Hampshire law.

Board of Aldermen 08-09-2022 Page 8

Alderman Sullivan

Thank you Madam President.

President Wilshire

You’re welcome.

Alderman Sullivan

| am in full support of keeping the Zoom technology for these reasons. The reason why | read the communication in
regards to the cost. | feel the cost is negligible considering what we have and the resources that we have in the city. |
think that a reason that we should keep it is when you look at the landscape of the city and how people find out about
issues, | think while our website is pretty robust our local media is not. Well we do have a local newspaper here, it’s not
very well circulated. It’s only printed maybe once a week. Obviously there is an internet edition but it’s still. | think this
allows people to understand what’s going on at the city level.

| think that while | do understand Alderman O’Brien’s concerns, | think we’re maybe mixing messages because | did see
some ordinance being proposed about decorum, which | could understand and would welcome to discuss. However, |
think that given the fact that the technology is there — and once you give people something, it’s really difficult to take it
away. | think it allows the citizens of Nashua to understand what’s going on in their city. Now if we want to talk about
maybe it’s only for Board of Aldermen meetings and maybe it’s not for every single committee meeting, maybe that’s a
discussion that we could have.

As far as for the Aldermen to maybe count that as attendance while | have used it a few times for that, | mean to me if
we're going to take it away, take it away completely, including the Board of Aldermen. | would support keeping this as it
is. Thank you.

Alderman Klee

Thank you Madam President. | apologize. I’ve been doing a lot of homework. So this could take just a few minutes. I’ve
been contacting municipalities. | contacted the New Hampshire Municipal Association. I’m going to give you a few of the
somewhat like communities that | feel as well as one town. So Concord, New Hampshire, - no for Zoom. Manchester —
no for Zoom. As a matter of fact, Manchester said masks off, Zoom gone. Portsmouth — yes. They do have Zoom and
they allow public comment in their Zoom. | said, “Oh, do you get a lot of public? They said never.” So it’s easy to have
public comment and so on. So they’d don’t get a lot of people coming in. They don’t have the glitches that we have.
Peterborough — yes it’s a town. They do not have Zoom. Keene — they do have Zoom but not for public members. They
allow the minute takers and people who are giving presentations. Board members — every time a board member wants to
use Zoom, they have to be voted permission from the remaining members of the board. Litchfield -no. Those are just
some of the ones that had called and spoke to their Town Clerks and asked information from.

| queried the New Hampshire Municipal Association. They said almost all towns — no. Some of the cities have continued
it for various reasons and so on but the majority of them are not. Very similar reasons to what we’re looking at. We’re
looking at the technical glitches. | was at the Planning Board meeting last week. For anybody that was there, | Know
Alderman Caron was there as well. | think it was a 10 or 15 delay we had - as well as Alderman Thibeault was there also.
There was about a 10 — 15 delay. The person was trying to speak. It was going in and out. | was listening to it as | do
here. You couldn't hear it over Zoom. It was just really, really bad and very difficult to do that.

For me, | would say we need to get rid of Zoom. | don’t think we’re right there. | think it was a good thing to do at the
time. I’m not going to look at the cost of it because while | think every penny is important to look at, | don’t look at this as
going to break the bank kind of expense. | also look at the Board of Ed. | think it was brought up that they don’t have
Zoom. They don’t have the technology and they do pack their rooms. Quite a bit they pack the rooms.

Before the past two years, we were packing rooms as well here. We don’t pack them quite as much now because people
can do Zoom. I’ve spoken to a number of elderly people in my community who yes they would like Zoom and equally who
say | don’t do technology. So yeah. When | explained to them some of the situations and the glitches, I’ve asked them
have you zoomed. They said no, they don’t Zoom. They were told that once we get rid of Zoom, they no longer can
speak which is not true. They can still send letters. They can still call. | do return every phone call. | return every e-mail.
| think one of the members of the public said that just a few people returned his message. Everything that he basically
said to us was what he wrote to us. | can speak for many of the people around this horseshoe that we do read all the e-

Board of Aldermen 08-09-2022 Page 9

mails. We just don’t necessarily respond if it’s not our constituent. That does not mean that we don’t hear. That does not
mean that we don’t see just because we haven't pressed the send by sending a message. | just feel that if | responded to
every single e-mail message whether it’s my constituent or not, | wouldn’t get any work done. | would just be responding
to e-mails because we do get quite a bit.

As Alderman O’Brien pointed out, New Hampshire voted against it. Well it wasn’t so much we voted against it, we were
told no. We were told by the Speaker of the House that that would not be happening and they cut off public comment.
You were there and that was how you spoke.

My biggest issue is the glitching. We don’t have control. If we mute everybody because someone is misbehaving, we
mute everybody. That means that the employees that are trying to give presentations can’t give the presentations and
that creates its own headache. I’m not going to be popular amongst my fellow colleagues here because | don’t believe
the Aldermen should be Zooming in. In the past, we had two phone lines that we could call and | think that’s what we
should be going back to. | know and I’m saying this knowing that the month of September I’m going to be having two
surgeries and there’s a good chance that because of quarantining and being laid up, that would mean | would have to call
in if | wanted to be able to participate. I’m not just doing this because I’m here at every meeting. This will affect me as
well. So | want to put that out on the table.

| think it was mentioned that there’s been bad behavior. | think that it was mentioned about the profanity. | can tell you |
remember the day | sat here watching Zoom on my screen and was appalled by a man who walked in front of the camera
totally nude, took his baby from his wife, and sat there very pleasantly, happily. We've had people who have put up vulgar
signs and so on. | hate to punish the whole because of the few but we have no way of shutting them down unless we shut
all of Zoom down. Until we can really get a handle on that technology, | think it’s time for Zoom to go by the wayside. |
think that many of the people that speak here as one from the chamber did speak was almost identical to an e-mail that
we received. Again, | read them all. There’s not one that goes by. | may not respond to all of them but | do read them all.
Thank you for letting me speak Madam President.

Alderman Moran

Thank you Madam President. Pretty split on this issue. | don’t Know how I’m going to vote yet. | really want to listen to
the debate from everyone else. My concerns are it does kind of disenfranchise folks that have access to this other than
local access TV. For one, my family we don’t have cable. We stream. So the only access that we have is to go onto
Zoom and watch. Then again, my 7 year old and my 5 old also got to hear the “C” word for the first time by a member of
the public during a Finance Committee because my kids were watching me on the Finance Committee. Mr. Mayor | think
you were that night. So it does bring up a concern of mine for the public interfering in my ability to parent, which | find
distasteful. I’m an elected official. My kids are not. I’m just trying to raise civically minded children.

Again, this allows us the opportunity to still soeak and have people in the community bring very coherent things to us. My
personal opinion is the folks that do become vulgar, and use belittling language, and hold up signs, and what not, they're
missing something in their lives. I’m not going to go on about my credentials in mental health or anything, but they’re
missing something. So on this in totality, I’m very split. I think the elderly need access. | think people who can’t get here
and have child care issues should be able elect to Zoom. Maybe it is time for a pause to see what Lord Wilshire — one of
our most popular politicians in the entire city can get control over Zoom to allow for civil engagement through all forms of
access to the Board. | really want to hear more from everyone else. | think it’s very important that we have citizens
engaged. A few bad apples shouldn’t ruin the entire bunch. | think there can be a pause to kind of figure out how to we
engage and have the Clerk or someone have the ability to intervene so we don’t have to have a parental advisory posted
on local access.

On top of that, | know | travel a lot. Alderman Sullivan travels a lot, Alderman Comeau and I’m opening another mental
health clinic in the west coast next year. | was planning on joining some days on Zoom. At the end of the day if the
constituents can’t join, | don’t want to join. | don’t think our employees or Aldermen should have a special privilege over
citizens. That’s all | have.

Alderman Lopez

So | agree with some of what was said by my colleagues. With regards to moderating, | don’t think we have the
infrastructure set up. While it was pointed out that $11,000 is the current impact of it, the current impact is not entirely
adequate and it’s being performed by people who are videographers and it’s not fair to ask them to also be Facebook
moderators. It’s not realistic to expect the public to fully moderate themselves as evidenced by some of the stuff that
we've seen. It falls automatically to the Chairs of the different committees and their Vice-Chairs. We try to do our best but
we weren't elected for that either. | wasn’t elected for my live streaming credentials. It's very problematic and distracting

Board of Aldermen 08-09-2022 Page 10

to conduct the business of the city to be dealing with people who are acting out, or unfamiliar with technology, and all that
type of stuff. We have different roles for reasons.

| think if we were really going to do this right, we would need somebody who’s a dedicated moderator. To be blunt, we
haven't even managed to fill our second aldermanic assistant position in several years. Other than asking other
departments to do it like the videographers, | don’t think it’s fair for us as Aldermen to say well we want the public to have
a privilege. We’re not going to pay for it. We don’t know who can do it. We’re just going to expect it to continue. | don’t
think it’s realistic or sustainable. While | do think that Zoom has played a crucial role in managing the pandemic, | also
take note of the fact that a lot of the speakers who are currently defending its use were pretty opposed to us meeting via
Zoom and made the point that we needed to face the public and be here doing the city’s business. | think that does
extend to the public as well. It’s an opportunity and it’s impactful for the public to come and speak in person. | think we’ve
lost sight of that in a lot of ways where it’s easier to access as a click of a button. | think some people who may have
come out and really engaged in issues and maybe watched the whole meeting don’t have to now because they can just
turn it on when it’s their time to speak.

| don’t agree that it disenfranchises more people that not. | don’t think that we have adequate moderation mechanisms in
place right now. I’m not impressed by the public’s level of participation in some select cases but | don’t think this is a
decision that was made because of the people who are abusing it. | think it’s a feasibility decision and | don’t think Lord
Wilshire is alone in her belief that this is something that if we’re going to do it, we really need to put a lot more effort and
time into assembling the infrastructure for it and making sure it works. | say that out of respect for the videographers who
are trying to do it, the Aldermen who are trying to operate it and meetings at the same time, and the public who often want
to be heard but it’s much easier for someone to take up their time and to espouse their political beliefs and opinions if they
don’t even have to come down here to do it.

So | think we had a pretty good system for 100 plus years where the public could make comments in person and
governance was conducted in person. | would like to reserve the right to re-engage it for the public if COVID numbers go
up again and we have an outbreak of whatever else shows up in the next couple of years. | think if we’re going to
continue doing it for meetings, it should only be available to Aldermen or more importantly to city staff. If they’re making
presentations, or they can’t come to attend the meeting, or it would be cost prohibitive, | want to save the taxpayers
money by letting them do it remotely. | think the presentations come across more smoothly to the public when they do.

Additionally, | would also like to say that when we talk about access to meetings, there’s not very good education even
amongst board members as to how we can access meetings. The public does have access through public access. The
public has live access through the website. So you can stream it live. I’ve been on this Board where Aldermen pre-
COVID saw something on TV and then came bolting down to participate because they were concerned about what we
were doing or what we were saying. That’s been around for along time. You can go to CTV on the city’s website and
watch these proceedings live. If you do feel like you want to make public comment, you can watch it live and then come
down at the end. So | don’t think the public is having any rights infringed by having Zoom removed. | think it behooves us
to look at this a little bit more carefully and make sure that if we are going to offer it, we are moderating it because we
don’t have any way to control language. We don’t really have a way to control what people are doing on the screen. We
couldn’t even control what people names were as Alderman O’Brien can attest to and we aren't able to confirm that the
people speaking are even who they say they are who where they say they are, which are some things we can do at least
here in person. Thank you.

Alderman Jette

Thank you Madam President. Before tonight’s meeting, | was hoping to get a jump here and move that this be referred to
the Personnel and Administrative Affairs Committee where a full discussion could be had. Since I’m the sixth speaker, it
sounds like we’re going to like or not, we’re doing it tonight.

| think there are a lot of questions. A lot of good questions that have been raised. | don’t think we really have the
answers. The technical aspects of running a Zoom meeting — | experience a lot of Zoom meetings and | don’t run into the
same problems that we run into here. | don’t pretend to be a technical expert by any means whatsoever. So | don’t know
why these other groups that | work with are able to conduct Zoom meetings apparently without much difficulty and why we
have so much problem. | don’t know what the answer to that is. | was hoping that the committee could have some of the
people with that type of expertise come and offer their suggestions. | know I’m on the Cable TV Advisory Board and there
are members on that board who are very technically proficient who might be able to offer us some guidance here.

I’m in favor of giving the public the opportunity to participate and | think the introduction of Zoom kind of came to us as a
result of the COVID problem. For me, it taught me that we could allow much more access by — I’m thinking of the public
yes but also Aldermen who couldn’t come for whatever reasons. I’m also thinking about like in our committees. We often

Board of Aldermen 08-09-2022 Page 11

times have experts who appear before the committee to offer some perspective on some project or whatever. These
experts, they charge if you have them come to a meeting and they speak for 10 minutes at a meeting, they're clock starts
the minute they leave their home or their office. All of that time traveling here, sitting here, waiting for their time, when
they finally give their presentation, and then all the time they spend going back to where they came from we have to pay
them and a pretty penny for that. Zoom allows them to come in, give their presentation in a very short period of time. It’s
avery cost effective way of getting the advantage of that type of testimony.

| don’t want to repeat what other people have said the reasons for continuing to have Zoom but | do want to point out this
came to us as a result of COVID. Ladies and gentlemen, COVID is not over. We're acting like it’s something in the past.
Most of us feel comfortable coming to meetings without masks now. They’re predicting that there’s going to be another
wave of infections coming this fall. From my own selfish motives, | don’t want us forcing people to fill up this room in
coming here who may or may not be vaccinated, who may not choose to wear a mask. | think it’s putting us ina
vulnerable position. | still think it’s a good idea to refer this to the committee and get the people who know the answer to
these questions to give us the benefit of their expertise. | know this motion doesn’t cut off debate. | would like to make a
motion that it be referred to the Personnel/Administrative Affairs Committee.

MOTION BY ALDERMAN JETTE TO REFER TO PERSONNEL/ADMINISTRATIVE AFFAIRS COMMITTEE

ON THE QUESTION

Alderman Dowd

Yeah, | think it does cut off debate because now we'll be debating whether to send it to Personnel Committee. It didn’t go
to any committee when we started using Zoom. We started using Zoom when City Hall was shut down. We couldn’t have
meetings here. That’s how it started and we started just by | believe the President saying we're going to use Zoom now
because we can’t go to City Hall. It’s closed. | don’t think there’s anything that can be discussed at that committee that
can't be discussed here at the full Board right now because we’re all here. Half of you have already discussed it. | think
the rest of us want a chance to discuss it. If you go to a committee, you only have a handful of the Board unless
everybody shows up in which case you're basically calling another full Board meeting. | don’t think it’s productive to send
it to any committee.

Alderwoman Kelly

I’m going to defer to after the motion.

Alderman O’Brien

Thank you Madam President. Hearing what some of the people have said does not alieve the President of the Board runs
the call of the meeting. If the President of the Board, in my interpretation and I'll ask the question to the President and if
you want to refer with Corporate Counsel, but if the President deems to allow Zoom for aldermanic use or for receiving
testimony, that was the call of the Chair. That is her prerogative as the Chair and | think that is backed by the book of
Mason’s and that is, again, referred to what happens at the State level. What should be good for the State of New
Hampshire should be good for little ‘ol Nashua here. So therefore, the modifications can be made on this through the call
of the particular Chair. If Madam President if you want to refer that question to Corporate Counsel?

President Wilshire

Yes | do.

Steve Bolton, Corporate Counsel

Well yes. The presiding officer, the President of the Board of Aldermen, and in the case of the Board of Aldermen makes
decisions but those decisions are subject to the will of the majority of the Board. If on a particular evening the President
were to say that yes its okay if one of our Division Directors made a presentation on an issue by way of Zoom or other
remote platform, it could be done and unless the majority disagreed with that, there would be no problem with doing that.

Alderman O’Brien

Madam President may | be able to make an amendment to my motion?

President Wilshire

Board of Aldermen 08-09-2022 Page 12

Yes.

Alderman O’Brien

Well we do have a pending motion from Alderman Jette. So after we disburse with that, | would like to make if | may be
recognized. Thank you Madam Chair.

Alderman Clemons

Well this is on the motion to refer, correct?

President Wilshire

Yes.

Alderman Clemons

So | will defer any comments on that.
Alderman Klee

Thank you Madam President. On the Motion to Defer to sending it to a committee, | oppose that. | think that we can all
speak here to it relative to why this is being done. The question | think that was asked before, | think we got letters as to
why that’s happening. | think that this is just to change the way public comment is happening here. It’s not cutting off any
of the other so | see no need for it to go to another committee. | think we should make a decision and | appreciate you
allowing us to have this discussion and so on. Thank you.

President Wilshire

Any other discussion on the Motion to refer to committee? Seeing none.

MOTION FAILED

MOTION BY ALDERMAN O’BRIEN TO AMEND TO TERMINATE THE PUBLIC ACCESS TO ZOOM MEETINGS BUT
IN CERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCS AS WARRANTED TO BE ALLOWED TO BE USED BY MEMERS OF THE BOARD OF
ALDERMEN OR BY DIVISIONS DIRECTORS GIVING TESTIMONY TO THE BENEFIT TO THE BOARD OF
ALDERMEN AND TO ALLOW THAT EXCEPTION

ON THE QUESTION

Alderman O’Brien

Thank you Madam President. | think in hearing what some of the concerns are, this seems to be a good compromise.
This will allow this. | hope maybe at a future date that maybe we could come up with take this technology and tame it a bit
to use it to fit within our decorum. As it sits right now, it’s dangerous. It is dangerous.

| agree with Alderman Moran. | think we all hold ourselves to a high standard as being elected. The term “aldermen”
means city elders. Somebody who is supposed to be bar represented from government. So this will allow to have the
representation for the Board to have access to make the proper decision if members cannot be present. Maybe we can
keep a leather eye in the future if we can get better things that we could probably bring it up for further discussion. So
thank you Madam President.

Alderman Clemons

| had told you Madam Chair that | would be supportive of such a motion in the past and | made that a public comment as
well. Having heard from the public and having heard from folks, | don’t know where | stand on it. Having had my own...

President Wilshire

Alderman Clemons can we keep the comments to the motion to amend?

Board of Aldermen 08-09-2022 Page 13

Alderman Clemons

Well the motion is to amend yes. So in regards to that amendment, we’re still eliminating Zoom for public comment,
correct in that motion?

President Wilshire

In that motion.

Steve Bolton, Corporate Counsel

You’re just changing the motion.

President Wilshire

Okay. We're just changing the motion.

Steve Bolton, Corporate Counsel

If this passes, all you’ve done is amend the main motion. You still have to vote on it. You still have to debate the motion.

Alderman Clemons

So I’m going to defer my comment, again, until we get to the main crux of the conversation.

Alderwoman Kelly

I'll defer as well.
Alderman Dowd
I'll defer to we’re back on the main motion.

President Wilshire

Okay, the motion is to amend. No further discussion on that motion?
Alderman Jette
Could you tell us how the motion is to amend it how?

President Wilshire

Mr. Clerk could you please repeat the motion.

MOTION BY ALDERMAN O’BRIEN TO AMEND TO TERMINATE THE PUBLIC ACCESS TO ZOOM MEETINGS BUT
IN CERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCS AS WARRANTED TO BE ALLOWED TO BE USED BY MEMERS OF THE BOARD OF
ALDERMEN OR BY DIVISIONS DIRECTORS GIVING TESTIMONY TO THE BENEFIT TO THE BOARD OF
ALDERMEN AND TO ALLOW THAT EXCEPTION

MOTION CARRIED

President Wilshire

Alderman Clemons back to the main motion as amended.

Alderman Clemons

Thank you. | don’t know how I’m going to vote. | thought | did but I’ve had some introspective on this both personal and —
in my own profession, I’m dealing with such difficulties right now. What | believe is that we should be moving forward with
technology like Zoom, particularly in my own industry. | think the need of having to be physically present has shown to be
archaic quite frankly. But that being said, | do have the concerns and | share the concerns that were raised by several of

Board of Aldermen 08-09-2022 Page 14

my colleagues that it’s being abused by some members of the public and that the ability for us to create laws or rules
surrounding what can and can’t be said are and rightfully so in some cases restricted by the First Amendment and | agree
with that interpretation.

So where | am struggling with this is how do we balance giving access to the public in a way that is constructive where
they can come to us and speak to us constructively either for or against something or whatever their opinion may be and
do it in a way where they might not be able to get to this chamber for whatever reason. | feel like having that ability | think
is a good in general a good thing. | think we have two pieces of legislation this evening — one of which I’m a sponsor of
that might help us with that in the future that | think will likely get broad support from this Board. | think that there are other
things that can potentially be done technologically wise with Zoom that we haven't explored. | Know that there is the
ability to have it where you can mute almost everyone except for certain people. That technology exists. | don’t know if
we have to pay for it. | don’t know if that would be more of another cost but it’s out there.

| don’t know. | don’t know if we’ve explored it enough to just shut it off. | don’t know. I’m really struggling with it because |
err on the side of being with the public’s ability to access our Board. | think what | had initially said was out of anger for
what had happened at that Finance Committee by a certain member of the public. We can’t live our lives based on the
bad actions of certain people. | don’t Know where I’m going to vote on this tonight and those are my struggles.

Alderwoman Kelly

Thank you, President Wiltshire. | want to start by thanking you for bringing this forward. | think there have been multiple
issues with Zoom, especially in the recent months and | think it was good for us to talk about it as a Board. I've been
taking notes as we've been talking and the pieces of this from a problem standpoint that I'm concerned about our
decorum. We are all on the same page in terms of how we as a body works, but the decorum has definitely eroded and |
think that that needs to be addressed, especially when it comes to public comment.

The other concern that I've heard from others that I'm also concerned about is the funding and that that $11,000 is just
what they're doing now and that moderating a public forum is very different than moderating a group of people who have,
you know, know how to use Zoom and we are employees of the city. So | think that that is something that we need to talk
about. | think that the public forum is and more access is important. But there are technological things that need to
happen in order for that to be a safe environment for everybody.

| don't buy the tech issues. | agree with some of the things that have been said here. There's a ton of bells and whistles
with Zoom. There's a whole page that you can - I've been on with Congressman and we've made it so that people can,
you know, talk when we want them to talk and they're muted when not. So there are ways around this. I'm not an expert
so | think | would love some more information on how we fix that. Where | struggle and right now is that | think that part of
this is values and we've talked about this as a country for a long time. You know work has changed. It's not a butts and
seats anymore. People are working remotely from California to New Hampshire. COVID really did change the culture in
terms of how we work and being physically present isn't this like thing to a few says the only way that you can do the work
that you need to do. | know that | personally had to Zoom in multiple times and part of that was because | wanted to
protect everyone in this horseshoe. My son was unable to be vaccinated until one month ago. So | think through COVID
we've learned a lot about people's risk levels and how they feel in terms of, you know, their ability to want to come out,
whether they want to wear a mask, or not wear a mask. | think that your own risk level and the public’s risk level might be
different. | never would want someone to not be able to come because they're afraid.

| also agree with the comment that the fall could be very different. | don't think COVID is done with us as much as we
want to be done with it. So | would really hate to be in a position where we cut this off and then people feel like they can't
access, or they might want to come but they have COVID, or they're a high risk person who might be very concerned
about the levels at the time. So | really am struggling with this as well and a lot of people have said that. | think that there
are problems to fix but right now | don't feel comfortable just cutting it off.

Alderman Dowd

Speaking of the technical issues, there are a few things that concern me greatly. One is my FCC rule - anything televised
has a delay so that anything inappropriate can be cut out before it gets aired. Our Zoom is open to anybody even kids
and anything said, there's no delay, there's no cut, they hear everything that is said on Zoom. Lately we've had a number
of instances where things that have been said on Zoom that people shouldn't hear. We don't have a way to fix that right
now with any kind of delay. | use Zoom a lot and | don't know of any way to do it. So that bothers me.

The other thing that bothers me is that if we have an issue with Zoom, we can't have a meeting. Several times the
meetings have been delayed or almost canceled because we have an issue with Zoom. That's taking things away from

Board of Aldermen 08-09-2022 Page 15

local government and to me, that's not right. We should be able to perform our duties. Relative to the telephone calls
before we had Zoom for Aldermen, we had an agenda one night where we had something that was important to vote on
and | called in from Lucerne, Switzerland, at three o'clock in the morning to vote and it worked just fine. If you can do it
from overseas, you can certainly do it locally here in the United States.

So again if we're going along in a meeting and someone happens to Zoom, we have to stop the meeting and schedule
another night out perhaps or wait until we find somebody that can fix it. That's an issue. That's a big issue and we don't
have a solution for it and I'm not even sure we could solve that in any kind of committee meeting or any other meeting. If
IT comes up with a much better can of worms, then maybe we can bring it back but right now we have issues.

The other thing is that Aldermen had to run the Zoom meetings. When you're sitting up there, and to me, you're not
representing your Ward or the city when you can't focus on the meeting you're focusing on running a TV screen. That's
not good and that's not productive to city business. So let's look at what's best for city business. | have no problem with
public input. We read the letters that we get that Donna forwards to us. We read emails and by the way if you have
access to Zoom, you have access to email and you can write much more detail and an email to us than you can in three
minutes on Zoom. Yes | agree with some of the things that are in the legislation that's coming forward trying to legislate
people using decorum but you can't legislate that much as | would support the legislation. There's no penalties for
anybody breaking that. Again anything that’s said online, on Zoom, goes out to everybody that's on Zoom.

In businesses, you have a select group of people that have been invited to that meeting. In our case, it's open anybody in
the world that wants to get on that meeting. It's a much different scenario than in a private business. We can easily get
letters and emails and we do all the time and that gets the same point across other than somebody wanting to be seen on
TV. So to me, | support having people being able to support us. For years, and years, and years they came here. We've
had many nights in the past where we've had a full audience. Our agendas are posted way in advance. | know there's no
local telegraph anymore but maybe we could do something to publicize what's on the agendas more comprehensively and
get it to people. | know that Alderman Klee puts out a newsletter every week. Trust me, there's nothing that we're going
to do that she doesn't cover in her newsletter. In fact, | have more emails from my constituents. | just copy it and send it
out to them. That's away. There are other ways that we can solve that problem but right now Zoom is not working the
way we think its working.

Unless there's some way that we can delay - like when something happens on Zoom, when it goes out to the TV audience
it's delayed. If you've ever watched the TV thing, it's delayed from real life. It's confusing if you're on the phone or on TV
because it's different. Again, Zoom can't do that. Whatever said is aired by anybody listening. So to me that's a problem
with FCC regulations. | don’t know if anybody's ever looked into that from Legal but | think that's a problem. The words
and things that are being talked about by Alderman Clemons, those things shouldn't go out on the air, including the
internet. We have to do something about it.

Now if we want to cancel it so Aldermen can't use it and our Division Directors can't use it, I'm okay with that. If we want
to give it as the amendment says the authority for the President to say okay if there's a Division Director that wants to
present something and they’re unable to come in, we can allow it. But | think that for the safety of the people listening and
for the safety of this Board to be able to meet and other boards, | think that Zoom was put in place because we had to.
City Hall was closed. We couldn't have aldermanic meetings without Zoom. Not the case anymore so I'm gonna vote to
support the motion to do away with Zoom.

President Wilshire

Anyone else?

Alderman Thibeault

Thank you Madam President. | have a few things. I'm going to try not to repeat what people have said because | know
it's getting long on this issue. | do want to answer Alderman Jette’s question about why in the world and in the world for
me too the technology works great and there's never these issues. It's money. It's because these companies - | worked
for Eversource. Well they pay to make sure the technology's perfect and that somebody's running it. They have a big IT
department because if that doesn't work, the business can't work. So we don't have the kind of money to do that type of
thing.

So $11,000. It's going to be more just like Alderwoman Kelly said and some of the others have said. It's going to cost
more than that to do it. The right way to make everything work the way that would be the safest, it would cost more
money. | think, you know, I'm all for technology but | hate to say it but somehow City Hall sometimes is a little bit behind
on technology. If we can't spend the money to upgrade all of that, then | don't think we should be using it.