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Special Bd. of Aldermen — 11/26/2018 Page 5

most sense to try to reduce the project cost and to just provide the flexibility to ... and again the Board of
Aldermen would need to approve some of this. We thought it would be best since we are here to try to create
the flexibility so that the Steering Committee and the Board of Aldermen of the City could decide how best to
allocate the $6.5 million dollars.

Testimony in Favor - None

Testimony in Opposition Good evening, my name is Karen Bell resident of Nashua, 95 Parnell Place
here in Nashua. So along with Alderman Jette’s comments which were very good, thank you, | have a few
questions myself. So we had to raise the $4 million dollars ok, if $1 million dollars is for design and there was
a stipulation by the Board of Aldermen that you couldn’t use more than $2 million dollars, well you are going to
have a $1 million dollars when you raise the $4. So you could raise that, you could use that. And if you are
confident that you are going to raise the $6.5 that’s fine, there’s no Resolution necessary because you only
had to raise $4 million dollars within 2 years, it being signed by you Mayor Donchess on February 20", 2018,
giving the deadline to be 2/2020 for that $4 million dollars to be raised.

So if we think that there is a lot more money out there in the community it would seem like raise the money and
spend the $1 million dollars, because it was for the design, correct? Part of that $4 million dollars could be for
the design. And | understand the chicken or the egg thing because a lot of non-profits and | have been part of
some in the City myself, if you want to build a new building or have a huge capital campaign, yes you need to
elicit a professional fund raiser, you need to have a design, all of these are expenses which occur well in
advance of knowing the actual cost of your project.

So to just throw out and say we need $4 million dollars before we can move forward and we have two years to
raise that, that’s all well and good but there should have been some knowledge, some forethought and some
very hard knowledge about what that needed to be to have a design, to have a professional fund raiser on
board, to know the tick marks of what is going to take to get to that number. Having been told by these
professional fund raisers that there is $6.5 million dollars in the community, that’s great whether it is from non-
City private enterprise or not.

Where are we at if | might ask toward the $4 million dollars, what is our bank account number toward the $4
million dollars at this point, who can answer that for me?

Mayor Donchess

| can. In answer to the first question why don’t we just take the $4 million dollars and use that to design, for
example with the New Market Tax Credits, we don’t even qualify, we can’t even submit an application without a
design. So without a design forget $4 million dollars.

Ms. Bell Well wait a minute forget the $4 million dollars, this is going to be a non-profit entity correct, the
Performing Arts Center?

Mayor Donchess

Yes.

Ms. Bell So the New Market Tax Credits are totally different than just someone say Alderman Caron making a
very generous donation of $1 million dollars out of her own pocket either way it is going to be a donation. So as
a non-profit entity, if somebody wants to make a donation it is a tax credit period versus a New Market Tax
Credit; which is fine that it is a New Market Tax Credit but as a non-profit Performing Arts Center every
donation will be a donation, a tax deductible donation. So what is the difference if we are raising money now as

Special Bd. of Aldermen — 11/26/2018 Page 6

an authorized non-profit, recognized in the State of New Hampshire versus waiting to get New Market Tax
Credits?

Mayor Donchess

You have to wait for me to finish the answer. Alright so we have a potential of raising from the sale of New
Market Tax Credits, but to even get to that point you have to have the design project. Number 2, the fund
raiser is telling us that we have the possibility and they are talking to some specific people who don’t wish to be
known yet, about giving half a million maybe even a million dollars for the naming rights. But they are not
going to do that without a design project. So to get the money we need to be able to show specifically what
this is going to look like.

| think you had a second question?

Ms. Bell Where are we at the $4 million dollars, what is in the bank right now?

Mayor Donchess

So what the fund raising consultant has advised that in every successful fund raising campaign that she has
worked on and if you think about say the Soup Kitchen or any of the others, in order to be successful you
should not start raising small dollar amounts. You go and you find your big donors first, you get them to
contribute and then you use that momentum to then to work to kind of medium-size, then to small donors. So
her advice has been and | think her record demonstrates she knows what she is talking about; do not go out
and try to get $100.00 donors at this point, get your committee together, solicit big donations, and get your big
donors at the beginning.

So following her advice we have not really tried to get $10.00 or $100.00, the first donation needs to be a half a
million or $1 million dollars.

Ms. Bell_| absolutely understand and | wasn’t thinking of the first round of donations having been through this
process before as an executive director in the non-profit sector in this City | know that the $10.00 and the
$20.00 donations are huge but they are a large number at the bottom of the tier. They are nowhere near the
top of the tier where you are looking at naming rights, half a million, $1 million, hundreds of thousands of
dollars or even the New Market Tax Credits, which will come from businesses to the tune of maybe $50,000.00
or something along those lines. But | think that when this was voted on by the residents of Nashua, | think
many who may be, well | don’t know what many people thought, but that there were some donors already lined
up because there was such confidence exuded by those for this project that you know, all we need is two years
to raise $4 million dollars. So either they were a pie in the sky you know dreaming in some room or they
actually had some forethought and had some discussions with people with money.

| understand naming rights, | understand large donations but people who want naming rights, they know where
the building sits. It is not like it a project in a field with nothing. It is not an empty field, it is an actual building, a
current building on Main Street so they know the location. They may not the design of every window and floor
and seat, but there must’ve been some discussion about a minimum number of seats to bring in certain acts
and how much tickets would be sold for so that there was a little bit more heft in the information for them to
think, “Ok | have money, | am a philanthropic individual who plans on spending whether it an anonymous
donation or not or naming rights” that they know where the building is. And that they know that there is going
to be extensive design work but there had to be some commitment somewhere along the way from engaged
donors and known philanthropists to have assumed that in two years, $4 million dollars could be raised,
regardless of the New Market Tax Credits, which is a whole another second step.

And | applaud you if you get that money, if you get another $2.5 million dollars from those tax credits, great.
But | think that if we are still on and another question | had was that if this Resolution goes through, does now

Special Bd. of Aldermen — 11/26/2018 Page 7

the 2-year clock start ticking today? And the clock is re-set versus February 20" of this year, or is still ticking
as of February 20t and you have a year and roughly four months to get that same amount of money? Just to
say that there will be tax credits involved after there is a design module submitted; so when does the clock
start?

Mayor Donchess

| think the clock would remain the same but the chances of bringing in the $4 million dollars from the New
Market Tax Credits alone that would happen in 2019. So within the two years and so | think we are fine with
the 2 years.

Ms. Bell So still 2/2020 is the deadline and | know you said you weren’t at the point of the $10.00 donors,
$50.00, $100.00 and all those.

Mayor Donchess

We want enthusiastic support which | think we have but the advice of the professionals that we have is that you
need to get the big donations first, because if you allow someone who is thinking about giving $1 million dollars
to give $1,000.00 and sort of walk away, you are leaving a lot of money on the table. So the idea is, and again
this has been done over and over again, to get the big donations first.

Ms. Bell_ And I’m not sure if you had answered the question, I’m sorry if you did and | missed it, what is in the
bank up against the $4 million, what is our balance.

Mayor Donchess
We haven't really sought donations.
Ms. Bell Do we have nothing?

Mayor Donchess

We have followed the advice of the fund raiser and have not sought donations until we get the early large
contributors.

Ms. Bell So the whole thing is changing so that some of this money can be used for design when it wasn’t

before and in 2019 there is an expectation from everyone around in this room that there is going to be a
windfall of $6.5 million dollars between private funding which will include New Market Tax Credits.

Mayor Donchess
Correct.
Ms. Bell So our window just got really smaller and the expectation just got much heftier.

Mayor Donchess

| just want to make it clear that these aren’t my ideas, these are the ideas that the Capital Campaign
Committee and the fund raiser and the experts have come up with. So | am telling you ... this isn’t sort of my
theory, it is the theory and the plan of action that people who are very experienced in these areas have
developed.

Special Bd. of Aldermen — 11/26/2018 Page 8

Ms. Bell Absolutely, | spoke to some of those same people when we were investigating the Capital Campaign
many years ago. But! don’t want to be disillusioned and think that we have a bank account somewhere in the
City that has money in it when there is not. Yet we as a City do currently pay for operating costs of the
building, although they may be minimal of heat and electricity and that we do not yet have any funds for this.
So | just wanted to understand that fully.

Mayor Donchess

There are actually 10 apartments in the building, 5 of which are rented, so we are bringing in more money
through those rents than we used to bring in through property taxes. So there are funds to support the
operation of the building as it currently exists.

Fred Teeboom My name is Fred Teeboom, | reside at 24 Cheyenne Drive. | should say that | also own a non-
profit and | raised about $150,000.00 of private money, it took 4 long years for the Holocaust Memorial. Let me
just summarize a little bit more succinctly what this Resolution is about. It allows the $15.5 million dollar bond
to be used for the design before $4 million dollars is raised from private funding. It also allows New Market Tax
Credits to count towards the $4 million private funding. It allows private funding to be used for anything other
than exclusively operating costs. Those are good things but let’s take a look at them.

The New Market Tax Credits are really not private funds, they are really redirected tax money. Somebody gets
a tax credit, say $100,000.00 and they don’t pay that in taxes they pay that in contribution, same as paying a
charitable contribution. So it’s really not private funding. Now these changes, |’m not against them, | think they
are good things to do. Why wait for the design until the $4 million is raised? You might as well spend $1
million trying to design this thing, because if you are going to do it, you have to design it. You already spent $2
million dollars buying the building and the land, not even knowing if you are going to raise the $4 million

So these are good things. The problem that | see is the referendum of last year. In the referendum of last
year, and | have a copy of it, it says exactly what is in this resolution before you, before it is marked off. No
one in the City when they voted on this, was told about these changes. And I'd like to know, Mr. Mayor, my first
question, on what basis are you making these changes? Shouldn’t’ you go back to the voters and get them to
vote on this?

Mayor Donchess

You could do, it would take years, but in my opinion the people that voted for the project and it was a majority
would believe and | think even some of the opponents, you have kind of suggested so yourself, that it would
make sense to if you need to design the project to gain the funds that are necessary to proceed, that you
design the project. | don’t think that people would’ve said it wasn’t understood that we would need a design
project at the time this was proposed. So | think if that had been understood and it had said we could spend
money for acquisition and design rather than just acquisition, | don’t think people would have voted differently.

Mr. Teeboom That was not my question, my question was can you do this? Have you checked with your legal
counsel to see that you can make a change to a Resolution that was voted by only 1.5% by the way.

Mayor Donchess

The answer is yes, we have gone over this in detail with bond counsel, they are the people who decide
whether bonds can be sold. David can give you the name of our bond firm and we were on the phone with
them last week and today.

Mr. Teeboom How about Attorney Bolton? The City Attorney not the bond attorney.

Special Bd. of Aldermen — 11/26/2018 Page 9

Mayor Donchess

The City Attorneys are fine.

Mr. Teeboom They said fine?

Mayor Donchess

Yes.

Mr. Teeboom Well | needed to ask you because | am convinced. | am not your legal counsel.

Mayor Donchess

The vote was only advisory | mean it wasn’t a binding vote. The vote went to the people it was kind of what do
you think?

Mr. Teeboom It says authorize, no, no, no. | have a copy of it right in front of me, it doesn’t say advisory, it
says authorizing the Mayor and the City to issue bonds. Authorizing the Mayor and the City to issue bonds not
to exceed the amount of $15,500,000.00, it is not advisory.

Mayor Donchess

The Board of Aldermen in a City are the only ones that can authorize a bond issue.

Mr. Teeboom Anyway let’s go on, I’ve raised this issue, I’d like your legal advisor.

Mayor Donchess

Now Mr. Teeboom, | appreciate your coming to all of the architectural interviews and you’ve shown great
interest in the project and | appreciate that.

Mr. Teeboom | don’t want to get stopped, it won’t be me, | already have a law suit against the City, that’s
already in the Supreme Court.

Mayor Donchess

We don’t need another one.

Mr. Teeboom Somebody else could, somebody else could stop it easily done. At least easily brought to
court. It does raise an issue that I’ve had a problem with this Board and the previous Board and maybe the
Board before that. That is you approve resolutions without really having done the due diligence of figuring out
the cost. If all the resolutions should get done after everything else is established, the final step. As an
example, when we did the Broad Street Parkway, debated for years, | sponsored the bond resolution for the
Broad Street Parkway, | personally did. | was the tenth vote, | took a lot of grief on it, but | did it only after we
have very detailed cost studies and options. In fact, | put the options in the bond resolution, option 1 and option
2, you may recall, very detailed. Now you say well we should have written it differently, we should have
thought through this whole charitable thing. It wasn’t thought through. And know that it happened through the
previous board when they voted it down, you didn’t get the 10 votes that you need, and Clemmons raised his
hand and said, “I want to for a referendum” and somebody else stuck in the $4 million, | think that was done on
the floor, on the floor, somebody says, “$4 million bucks”. They didn’t have any rational, no thought. Great
let’s vote that one. Now let’s put it before the voters, great let’s do that one. No thought at all, that is not how
you do bond resolutions.

Special Bd. of Aldermen — 11/26/2018 Page 10

| have reviewed, probably the only public person that did, not being a member of the Board or the Steering
Committee, | reviewed all 12 proposals for A&E services. | reviewed all 11 proposals for the construction
manager and | have reviewed the one and only proposal for the operating service Spectacle Management. |
attended, you saw me there, sitting on the side like a fly on the wall, six bidder interviews for A&E services, all
the six. Your three bidder interviews for construction manager all bidders are qualified in my opinion and I’ve
got construction experience, some obviously more than others. Now what interested me was the cost, the very
reason you are here, cost. That is what bonds are all about, cost. The $15.5 million dollars in case you’ve
forgotten is $2 million dollars for land purchase; there is $1 million dollars for design; there is $1 million dollars
for staging and audio visual equipment, after all it is a performance theatre, not just a building; and $11.5
million dollars for construction The memorandum written by Tim Cummings and presented by Duncan Webb.
| tried to dig into this $11.5 million. You know something, | never could find the rationale, | never could find a
spread sheet on it.

| did find, when | did the Right to Know Law request from Mr. Cummings through the City Clerk, | found that
Fennessy Consulting had been hired by Duncan Webb to do costing for this project, they were paid to do
costing for this project. Guess what they came up with in detailed spread sheets, for Main Street, also for
Court Street and for this new building on Spring Street, guess what they come up with for this project on Main
Street? $16.4 million dollars, $16.4. $16.4 million dollars, | can show you the spread sheets, in fact if you
want me to, Ill e-mail you the spread sheets, in fact | will e-mail you the spread sheets. What would happen
then, this was never made public, | got the sheets because | asked through the Right to Know Law.

Then what happened is that Alderman McCarthy who was very much involved, went to Harvey Construction,
Harvey does a lot of work for the City for the schools and asked Harvey Construction if they could look at
Fennessy’s estimates at no cost. Guess what Harvey come up with? $15 million dollars. When | asked them
and I’ve talked to Harvey, I’ve talked to the Vice President, | said “what is this based on”. He said “We made a
comparison from the Boston Market, Fennessy’s of Boston’s organization and the New Hampshire Labor
market and we figured we’d take a reduction, that’s how they came up with $15 million.

Then McCarthy went back to them and said “Il want you to descope, we don’t do much on the interior, we don’t
raise the roof, we use the mechanical, cut the cost down” and they came up with an estimate of $10.5 million. |
asked Bernier, what is the validity behind it? And he says, “Well it’s really not very valid because you are
asked to do things that couldn’t possibly build a theatre with’. So what you are left with is a $16.4 million dollar
estimate to do the job and a $15 million dollar to do that job. Certainly not this magical $11.5 million dollars
that Tim Cummings come up with that he never backed up. |’ll stop in a minute and ask Mr. Cummings if
you’ve ever backed it up with a spread sheet.

Mr. Cummings

| would. | don’t know if makes sense for me to comment now or wait until Mr. Teeboom is done with all his
comments in its totality so | can respond to them.

Mr. Teeboom Ok that’s acceptable. Now the original design, well the final design by Duncan Webb in
summary for this Performance Theatre, is 550 tiered seating, like Cinemagic tiered seating, 550 tiered seating,
500 table seatings, tables on a flat surface, you have to be able to bring the staging down to a flat surface and
a thousand standing. People today they wave and they stand you know I’ve seen it, waving, stomping, in
unison, thousand. That was a design and the second floor up, the second floor up because the downtown
merchants who paid for these studies of Duncan Webb through parking meter fees called Downtown
improvement funds, insisted on having retail space on the bottom floor. That is the design currently, lots of
proposals there is no other design right now on the table.

So | should also mention that in the list that Fennessy prepared in the detailed spread sheet here are some
exclusions, quite a few exclusions in fact, one of them is no hazardous material. And we found out through the

Special Bd. of Aldermen — 11/26/2018 Page 11

builders there is hazardous material. Also, no escalation cost, they figured starting date of March 2018. So
even those costs have question marks on them.

Now comes along the sole bidder, Spectacle Management who is going to operate this thing. What is it that
they say? Forget the 500 seating, 550 seating, forget the 500 tables, it is not a correct venue but Duncan
Webb estimated $1 million revenue a year. Spectacle Management says, read the proposal. You are going to
have 750 seat theatre to make sense in this region to attract the venues you want to get people to come in to a
theatre, 750 to provide revenue so you can pay that particular performance. 750 they said and $2 million
dollars a year. And if you do 750 theatre and $2 million dollars a year | will not need your $4 million dollars
from your charitable funding, you keep that, because you will make enough money and break even. All they
wanted is a $1.00 lease a year. But 750 theatre, and $2 million dollar revenue. And that by the way has been
backed up by some, several of the A&E vendors that made presentations. If you think of the Palace Theatre, |
forgot how big the city, but far greater than 750.

So where are you? Well if you have a 750 seat theatre you need a balcony in a foot print of the Alec Shoe
Store and the building behind it, you need a balcony. And therein lies the suggestions to place the
performance theatre from the ground up because think about it. You need to have very long stressors about
100 feet stressors, you have to have columns to support these stressors. And if you put them in the basement,
they won’t bother anybody. If you put these columns in the first floor, you take away a lot of so-called retail
space, it makes no sense. The only thing that makes sense is to build this thing from the ground, first floor up.
There are nooks and crannies and spaces that you build this up, very nice for retail, places where people can
meet before the performance, meet after the performance, have little performances, all that makes sense, but it
takes a design. So better to operate this, 750 seats and therein lies an issue about the cost. | don’t think the
cost is anywhere near what you need.

| think if you can get a resolution and it is acceptable to make changes to a bid voter’s voted on then make it a
$20 million resolution. Add the money that Fennessy proposed $16.5 million for construction, $11.5 and $6.5
is about $5 million, make this a $20 million resolution, then you build the system you want the theatre, you the
stages, make a theatre you can be proud of, not some rinky dink operation. Court Street is an example of a
failure. | was here in 1993 when we voted Court Street, and Court Street as a performance center has been a
failure. If you are going to go this way go the correct way. | am the guy known to not spend money, not spend
money foolishly. If you are going to a resolution make it $20 million.

One more thing, this $6.5 million dollar charitable money, | was here when the consultant made the
presentation. These New Market Tax Credits, she said and | am quoting her almost, are highly competitive and
they are nationwide not New Hampshire wide, nationwide. Highly competitive no guarantees, do not get
caught in that trap. | know, like I’ve said, I’ve spent a lot of time fund raising, it is very difficult. That’s my
recommendation and if you don’t do it, | can’t support the current resolution. Thank you.

Mayor Donchess

Would you mind if | respond to that because | largely agree with it. | think that except for the cost estimates,
first of all | agree we should do it right, it might take 750 seats, | think Tim can show the cost estimates, but in
reality, you have been to all the architectural interviews, you’ve seen how creative they are. And | am going to
speak for you and say you’ve been pretty impressed by the creativity and the thought that has gone into this
project but some of these very capable architects. In the end, we are unlikely to build exactly what Duncan
Webb proposed, it was a concept, he said the second floor, | think most likely it'll go to the first floor, which will
not require the raising of the roof as much. You heard the Icon Presentation, they put forward a very creative
way of bringing it to the first floor and reversing things. All of the architects have said that they could bring it in
on cost. They’ve all said that they thought they could do it. | think we should leave it at $15 million, but if we
are successful in the New Market Tax Credit application, which our expert is very confident we can get, if we
ever had to go above $15 million, we have $4 million dollars coming into the project. So if we had to go a little
over in order to accomplish the goals you have outlined, that would be an available source.

Special Bd. of Aldermen — 11/26/2018 Page 12

We still think we can bring it in based upon what the architects are saying at $15.5 but you know there is a $4
million dollar cushion from the New Market Tax Credit. But what | would ask Fred is that you stay involved in
this and that you continue to come to these meetings and maybe participate a little more than you have and |
think that you’ve seen how many people are involved in this whole thing. | think if we work together in terms of
trying to come up with a quality project, we can do that and one that the City will be proud of.

Mr. Teeboom | appreciate that, but | will say that as a member of the public | can’t speak at these meetings.

Mayor Donchess

Well maybe we will open it up if you keep your comments a little shorter it would help.

Mr. Cummings

Thank you Mr. Chairman, | do want to just take a quick opportunity to address a couple comments that were
just made to make sure the record is accurate and reflective especially of which is because there was
gentleman who was referenced who could not be here to actually correct the record for himself. So President
McCarthy did not unilaterally do anything. There was a small working group assembled of various community
stakeholders, folks in the Arts Community, folks from the City, folks from the Downtown and they got together
over the course of the feasibility study on occasions, | would say once a quarter. It was through those
meetings that the idea came about to reduce the scope of the concept plan from what is articulated in the
Fennessy Consulting Report as option 1, 2 and option 1A and option 1B.

At that point it was all through our architect and Fennessy consulting who went out and had those cost
estimates independently verified because there was a question raised during the working group meeting that
there was these third party consultants who were not from the local market and they really wanted to make
sure that we had accurate labor rates and what not for the cost estimates as provided. So those cost
estimates were independently verified by a local group and all that data is available and up on the City’s
website and | thought | had made that clear on occasion. So | just wanted to make sure that is accurately
reflected for the record.

The other point | wanted to make is because this was reported in the news recently this summer inaccurately |
want to make sure folks know that there is money raised, so it is not like we don’t have any money raised for
the Performing Arts Center. | don’t know what that number is, there is a separate effort going on and it is being
led by our professional fund raising consultant Capital Committee and City Arts Nashua. City Arts Nashua is
currently under the care and custody of those funds. So there is money available but we are focusing on the
big dollar donations right now and then we will be transitioning into a second and then a third phase. The third
phase is more of a public campaign that folks have all been referencing. So | just want to make sure that is
accurate.

Mr. Teeboom | just want to say at the Public Hearing, | talked to Seamus Fennessy personally and he is ticked
off because he was never consulted on the so-called deduction of $16.4 million dollars. | should also say |
have never seen anything whatever the group is that Tim mentioned. The only I’ve seen are the spread sheets
of Fennessy, the other thing are the spread sheets of Harvey, $15 million and the spread sheets by Harvey to
the $10.5 million. If Mr. Cummings has back up the $11.5 million then he should produce that. I’ve asked him
that several times. I’ve heard him say in the public meeting that he has various sources, he is always being
kind of fuzzy where his $5 million came from, I’ve seen his memo where he advised the aldermen about 11.5
I’ve never seen the details. If he has them, | request that you produce that information. Thank you.

Mr. Cummings

I’ve provided it under multiple occasions and in fact | Know Mr. Teeboom has it.

Special Bd. of Aldermen — 11/26/2018 Page 13
Alderman Dowd

Is there anyone else that would be like to be heard in opposition to this? Please come up to mic and state your
name and address.

Barbara Pressly Hello, my name is Barbara Pressly and | live at 11 Orchard Avenue and | am so pleased to
know that my alderman is going to be the first one with the million dollar donation. My primary concern tonight
is the integrity of our local Board of Aldermen. | have always been | guess naive enough but | think a lot of
people are very naive that when something is placed on the ballot for the citizens to vote, that it is rather
sacred. | am deeply concerned | understand putting something on the ballot by the way is not a frivolous
endeavor, it is really hard to do. | am distressed to learn tonight that the group that was so much in favor of
this, it is pretty clear now that they did not understand the magnitude and the complication of a project like this.

| think so many of you are new members to the Board of Aldermen and | think you have been placed in an
extremely awkward position because you did not vote to put it on the ballot. So you’ve been caught in the
middle; do you live up to what was voted on explicitly and exactly or do you find another way to accomplish
what you want to accomplish? | do believe that the plan, | commend the Board and all of the sub-committees
that have worked on this, | think you have really done a good job to find out what it would take to really have a
quality project like this and | commend the work that has been done.

| certainly like the suggestion of Alderman Jette, I’m trying to think of some way that you can sort of save the
integrity, can the public ever trust again anything that is put on the ballot if you so drastically change the
meaning of it through a resolution. And it clear to me that you have learned a lot, you’ve learned that what you
want to do is probably the best way to accomplish this. | thought the idea of getting the money to get the
design might be a solution for you. Nobody wants to give a lot of money or time to something that they can’t
see and understand. It seems logical to me that maybe some way that you can think about finding a resolution
where you do not violate the public decision and you could still proceed with the next step, which clearly is to
get a design. Think about it, if you come in with a really exciting great design, you could have an enormous
amount of support from everybody. | think that would work, | hope you won’t rush into this. In a way you have
the reputation of local government in your laps, not by your own doing or own solution or suggestion. | hope
you don’t feel the need to rush this through and support it and push it through tonight.

I’d also like to mention that a lot of people don’t know about this and a lot of it has to do with the Holiday
Season but I’ve been really quite surprised that people who watch government and there is no press here
tonight so they don’t even know what you are voting on. Well they go the message, so anyway, pardon me?
(inaudible) Well they are not sitting up in the press box anyway you have a tough decision to make and | am
sorry for those of you that are new that you have been placed in this situation but you have.

| think Alderman Jette has come up with a great idea where you can maybe proceed, get the money, get a
good design and not violate the sacredness of a citizen’s vote. And you would have time to do that, you would
have time to get it on another ballot if you want to change what they voted on, let them vote to make the
change. But think your integrity is at stake. Thank you.

Testimony in Favor- None

Testimony in Opposition

Karen Bell 95 Parnell Place, Nashua, New Hampshire. Just a couple of questions, observations and things
since the past couple people have spoken. The Palace Theatre has 880 seats since after they had the
renovation. It was 1,100 seats they had a renovation now it is 880; I’ve been there it is a great venue. | don’t
Fred if these are all facts but if you have a 550 tier, 500 table and 1,000 standing in this, the first thing, those
are the numbers that Fred was saying, the first thing that comes to mind to me doing the math is over 2,000

Special Bd. of Aldermen — 11/26/2018 Page 14

people at full capacity and Alderman O’Brien you would be the best to know, what is going to be the fire
capacity in this building? Having gone through feasibility study myself many years ago in this community in a
non-profit, during the feasibility study we had hired an architect, it was part of the cost of the feasibility study.
We had architects come in and do a plan and we knew what the plan was right down to the rooms which way
the doors opened and everything else, and here was the number, boom — during the feasibility study. So that
when we sought out donors, and then we went and me with them, we could say this is the land this is on, this
is the cost and here is the amount of animals that this building is going to hold. So they knew right off the bat,
that was part of the feasibility study so in my mind it seems like some things happened backwards or are
happening backwards.

My last kind of question from my first round | am not sure if it was answered or | didn’t pose it as an explicit
question, is the Performing Arts Center already in or does it already have non-profit status? Is it a 501(c)3
currently in the State of New Hampshire so that, god forbid | know we don’t want the $10.00 donors yet, but if
somebody all of a sudden found out they were terminal and had a lot of money and thought | want to have a
tax benefit or make a donation or whatever to the arts, and have a contribution in Nashua to a non-profit entity,
is the Performing Arts Center a non-profit? Is that status already secured? Can anybody answer that question
for me?

Mr. Cummings

Mr. Chairman | can answer that question, so the simple answer is we are working with City Arts Nashua, they
are a fiscal agent, they have the 501(c) charitable tax deduction status. There is an effort underway to receive
certification through the IRS, that is three to six month-ish process and so until that is actually achieved, we
created an avenue with City Arts Nashua so there could be a way of donations being given and tax deductible.

Ms. Bell So City Arts Nashua could in fact accept donations as we speak for the Performing Arts Center and if
people didn’t know that, they know that now so that if they wanted to consider making a contribution, an early
one, even though it is not going to be naming rights or anything else, in any amount to the Performing Arts
Center, they could do so through the City Arts. Good to know.

Alderman Dowd

Also I’ve been involved in the design of numerous schools here in Nashua, we always have the Fire Marshall
involved in reviewing all plans and having to sign off on the design.

Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja

Just to clarify Mr. Teeboom’s comment, he was talking about different options, so it could be 1,000 at one time,
it could be 500 tiered at one time, or it could be table tops because as we have moved through this project, one
of the things that we have looked at is flexibility in use. So do we want movable seats and those sorts of
things. So what he was referencing was three different options, not all of that at one time.

Ms. Bell Different options, not totally combined, ok thank you.

Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja

No, no, because | think all of us would be very afraid of having 2,000 people in there. And | just think that one
of the things that all of us have come to realize, because many of us work both public and non-profit, is that
some of the things we need to do in the public arena happen in a little bit of a different way, because we are
public and how we have to go about writing resolutions and passing resolutions and moving forward. So we
don’t have the flexibility to just say ok we are going to do a design even though that kind of makes sense. At
one point, those of us from the public as well as members of City Government and this Board who were on that
initial committee, we were like oh we have to get money to put a design together, but you can’t put a design