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REPORT OF THE FINANCE COMMITTEE

NOVEMBER 20, 2019

A meeting of the Finance Committee was held on Wednesday, November 20, 2019, at 7:00 p.m. in the
Aldermanic Chamber.

Alderman Michael B. O’Brien, Vice Chair presided.

Members of the Committee present: Alderman-at-Large Brandon Michael Laws
Alderwoman-at-Large Shoshanna Kelly
Alderman June M. Caron
Alderman Linda Harriott-Gathright
Alderman Patricia Klee

Also in Attendance: John Griffin, CFO/Comptroller
Kim Kleiner, Administrative Services Director
Dan Kooken, Purchasing Manager

PUBLIC COMMENT
COMMUNICATIONS

From: Mayor Jim Donchess
Re: Change Order No. 2 on Monica Drive Drainage Improvements

MOTION BY ALDERWOMAN KELLY TO ACCEPT, PLACE ON FILE AND AUTHORIZE CHANGE ORDER
NO. 2 WHICH INCREASES THE NEW TOTAL FROM $172,880 TO $175,880 AN INCREASE OF $3,000.
THE INCREASE IS TO REPLACE A PARTIALLY COLLAPSED SEWER PIPE BEHIND CITY HALL AND
THE TRANSIT CENTER ON GARDEN STREET

MOTION CARRIED

From: Dan Kooken, Purchasing Manager
Re: Purchase of Training Safety Vehicle (Value: $52,709) Department: 152 Fire Rescue; Fund: CERF

MOTION BY ALDERWOMAN KELLY TO ACCEPT, PLACE ON FILE AND AWARD THE PURCHASE OF A
TRAINING SAFETY VEHICLE TO COLONIAL MUNICIPAL GROUP IN THE AMOUNT OF $38,538 AND
VEHICLE FIT UP FROM GLOBAL PUBLIC SAFETY IN THE AMOUNT OF $14,171 FOR A TOTAL OF
$52,709. FUNDS ARE AVAILABLE IN DEPARTMENT 152 FIRE RESCUE; FUND: CERF

ON THE QUESTION

Chairman O’Brien

And | see we have the Fire Chief and we have a Deputy Chief present; would you like to come up if you wish, if
there’s any questions. You can sit to the right of Mr. Kooken. Any questions from the Board. We also have a
Commissioner. Just a reminder, gentlemen when you speak, please identify yourself for the transcript please.

Alderman Caron

So my question is, are we replacing a vehicle because | didn’t see it or just buying a brand new vehicle.

Finance Committee - 11/20/2019 Page 2

Steve Buxton, Deputy Chief Nashua Fire

Steve Buxton, Deputy Chief Nashua Fire and this Kevin Burgess, Commissioner for the Fire Department. We
are buying a new vehicle, it is replacing one of the training safety vehicles.

Alderman Caron

| was going to say “can Park/Rec use it”?

Alderman O’Brien

That is a good question, what is the age Chief, do you know what the age of the old vehicle is?
Brian Rhodes, Nashua Fire Chief

You'd have to check the schedule, | don’t know off the top of my head.

Chairman O’Brien

But I’m sure it is going to be traded in and get the value towards the new vehicle, correct?
Chief Rhodes

Yes or repurposed.

Chairman O’Brien

Repurposed, oh, OK.

Alderman Caron

Thank you.

MOTION CARRIED

From: Dan Kooken, Purchasing Manager
Re: NFR Master Plan Project (Value: $49,956) Department: 152 Fire Rescue; Fund: Escrow

MOTION BY ALDERWOMAN KELLY TO ACCEPT, PLACE ON FILE AND AWARD THE CONTRACT FOR
THE NASHUA FIRE RESCUE MASTER PLAN PROJECT TO EMERGENCY SERVICES CONSULTING

INTERNATIONAL (ESCl) IN THE AMOUNT OF $49,956. FUNDS ARE AVAILABLE IN DEPARTMENT 152
FIRE RESCUE; FUND: ESCROW

ON THE QUESTION

Alderman Laws

Just give us a 30,000 foot overview of what is going on if you don’t mind?

Chief Rhodes

Good evening Committee members, Brian Rhodes, | have the pleasure of serving as your Fire Chief. So this
request is to have a comprehensive review done of our organization. You have heard many times and you will

continue to hear probably in my tenure, that we are very thin in the administrative section of our organization.
This is not something that we can undertake on our own.

Finance Committee - 11/20/2019 Page 3

| think it is very important with the growth that is happening in our City; we are not a developing City we are a
re-developing City. We will look at some of the density that we are adding. We need an outside
comprehensive, objective view of what is happening with our community and can we meet the needs today,
but more importantly, can we prepare for tomorrow.

Another huge component of this is — so there was a comprehensive study done 30 years ago. There was
another one done 10 years after, so 20 years ago. Both of those studies referred to the potential need for
additional fire protection in the northwest and southwest quadrants of our community. To date, respectively 20
and 30 years later, we do not have the increased fire protection in those areas of our community. It is critically
important, | think, to evaluate that now as we look to put a Junior High School in one of the areas that was
identified in two previous studies.

Alderman Laws

Thank you for that. Last on Planning & Economic Development we tentatively approved a Master Plan for the
City. | can’t remember off-hand, are you included in the Committee or a representative of NFD included in the
Committee that is going to be doing that Master Plan? | feel like there is a lot of overlap that might be
happening in the two.

Chief Rhodes

Mr. Chairman if | may answer? Yes Commissioner Grant was part of that Planning Committee with the
Aldermanic Representative, Alderman Melizzi-Golja was also part of that. It is our intention to include that
Resolution of the City’s plan for the Master Plan into this document once it is completed.

Alderman Laws

Excellent, thank you.

Alderwoman Kelly

Thank you. | would like a little — 1 want the 15,000 foot view; he wanted 30 | want a little bit deeper. | know we
have talked about this a lot at the time of Budget and | am wondering specifically what kind of things we are
going to get out of it. | know you already talked about Fire Protection. Is it also going to look at dispatchers,
and what will we get out of the report?

Chief Rhodes

This will be — I’m sorry Mr. Chairman, may | answer. This will be a comprehensive, top to bottom review
starting with the administration, do we have industry standard best practice; administration to handle an
organization of 180 personnel and over $20 million? Are we providing the appropriate service in regard to our
internal customers and our training division, our dispatch services and our external customers in our
inspectional services. We have 3 members of our Fire Marshall’s Office for a City of 90,000 people. The town
of Hudson has 3 for 30,000 people. Our employees do an incredible job but they are overworked and that’s
not from them, that’s from me saying that as their boss. They do an incredible job for us but we could do a
much better service to our community.

One example of that is every year, we are under mandate from the State, to inspect every single one of our
schools. You know how many schools we have and every year we have to get the reminder letter from the
State Fire Marshall’s Office to “we need those inspections done” and that’s not from lack of trying. That’s just
from the lack of the building and redevelopment and occupancy permit inspections that need to be done in a
City of this size.

Finance Committee - 11/20/2019 Page 4

Alderwoman Kelly

So what you just voiced sounded a lot like mostly focused on personnel. Will it also look at infrastructure or
you know trucks or anything like that?

Chief Rhodes

Well absolutely, | apologize, as | said, this will be a comprehensive top to bottom look. We will look at
utilization which is the measure of vehicle X is in this district and this company is tied up this percentage of the
time where we have to move resources in from another district thereby reducing the coverage in that district.
How are we spreading out our work; are we overloading one of our companies more than other ones? It is
going to tell us, you know, it is a hard look and I’ve expressed that to my staff that we need to take a hard look
at our operation. There may be thing we find out that we are not doing well. That’s the key, we can always do
better but we are hopeful that this will point out the things that we can do better on but it will also point out the
things that we are doing good at, but we could always do better at.

Alderwoman Kelly

Thank you.
Chairman O’Brien

We do have another Alderman in the queue to ask a question. But just to smooth the transition Chief, what we
usually do, when the Aldermen ask you the question, you are doing a fine job, but when the Alderman asks the
question you may answer. The only thing that | ask, because the transcript of the meeting, it is on TV yes, but
the lady that transcribed so just please, to remind, and this to all of our guests in particular to identify yourself
so it makes it easier when she transcribed the minutes there and everything but you are doing fine.

Alderman Klee

Thank you so much. Chief the question that | have and perhaps the Master Plan had taken this into
consideration and | apologize for not being — | had another meeting | had to go to. | heard it was a great
presentation that you did. But one of the things that Alderman Laws and | actually were just recently
discussing was intersections that are coming in. We've got like 5 roads coming into 1 with no stop signs and
so on. We were kind of talking amongst ourselves, where some of these roads are narrow and the
consideration of maybe making a couple one-ways. That would truly effect your operation, the roads are
narrow so we are hoping that might help you. Does this look at any of the roads that would give us, so for
instance if we were doing this, would we be able to go to and say, “Look at these are our roads, how would this
effect your operation with this kind of emergency services” or it just looking at your services in general. Did
that makes sense?

Chief Rhodes

No it won't look into our infrastructure our City Infrastructure. It will look at our response data, our response
times, our turn out times. It will look at, again, those times that the units that are assigned to that particular
district are tried up and they are coming from somewhere else. So it doesn’t really get into travel routes, that’s
a little bit deep in the weeds for this. | think some of that will bear out based upon time.

Alderman Klee

This is just a side note; so before we go further we will talk to you about those particular roads that we are
considering changing the route on them to get your input on it to see how it would affect you.

Finance Committee - 11/20/2019 Page 5
Chief Rhodes

| greatly appreciate that.

Alderman Klee

Thank you though.

Chairman O’Brien

If | may Chief, you are saying your “response data” from what | remember, you do have as part the
Commissions do receive a monthly report or a timely report on what the response status for the apparatus to
particular calls. | know that was done in the past correct?

Chief Rhodes

We do that but the problem that we have now is we have transitioned to our new records management
software so we are kind of in a little bit of a flux. But the good news is this is a very robust software platform
that we just put into play. So instead of having to ask our Superintendent of Fire Alarm to pull this data up and
correlate it and put it into a report, you can come to my office and | can show it to you at a moment's notice.

Alderman O’Brien

| Know when | was on the Department my concern was not so much the people within one mile radius of the
Fire Station, they can make it there timely but also you have a situation of an apparatus that may be in a
remote location, what’s the second apparatus that is going to get there in a timely manner. | know we did have
sometimes 8 minute responses for the second — that’s a long time. That's what | used to refer to as “John
Wayne time” until the rest of the cavalry came. So | am hoping out of this report, we will look as you
mentioned the traffic Alderman Klee, that would help to address that and give us a target point of maybe
answering that question, where we should put future stations.

Alderman Laws
| apologize in advance for the question | am about to ask you and | 100% support this and | think it’s great
idea. However, everything that | am hearing so far just seems like this may be validating the precept position

that we need more staff, administrative staff, things that sound expensive to me. Do you anticipate that there
is anything that we are going to find out in this Master Plan that may actually save money for the taxpayers?

Chief Rhodes

| certainly hope so.

Alderman Laws

Yeah.

Chief Rhodes

But | think it is important to realize that twice we’ve been named the Number 1 City in the United States to live
in. | believe we were just named the Number 1 Community in the State of NH to live in. If we don’t plan for
this, if we don’t prepare for this, then that is all for naught. And it’s just a heading in a 24 hour news cycle.

This study is not for today; it is going to look at today. This is going to help this organization move forward and
help us provide the best service we can to the citizens at the most economic price.

Finance Committee - 11/20/2019 Page 6
Alderman Laws

| just want to be clear that | appreciate everything that you do in spite of the fact that several of your employees
are best friends of mine. Thank you and | am sure everyone in Nashua really appreciates the services you
guys provide. It’s wonderful.

Chairman O’Brien

If | may, God I’ve been around a long time, this will be third report that I’ve witnessed within the Fire
Department. However since the inception of the first and definitely since the second, the Fire Department has
accepted more responsibilities and that has taken some of the attention, | speak mostly 20, 30 years ago,
nobody really thought of the HazMat situation, and yet we have an excellent Hazmat team in the City that gets
utilized. And at that time they didn’t take into dive team, yet we are surrounded by water, with two major rivers
within our community and working with our friends on the Police Department too.

So there are things looking at the future growth that needs to be taken into account. The Fire Service has a
tradition of constantly reinventing itself. You know a couple years ago, one never thought of the concept of
Safe Stations, yet today it has become part of the routine for the firefighters. At one time we basically didn’t go
for a kid who fell out of the tree and broke his arm, but today now everybody is pretty much trained in life
support. So it is constantly revolving and | am in favor of this because to have a modern department you are
going to need to look at the future and see what the needs of this community are going to be. It is almost
$50,000.00 but it came out of a budget if | remember, like Alderwoman Kelly said. | think it would definitely
help us as we look into the future needs of the City as far as our Fire Department and improve the services.

Alderwoman Kelly

Thank you. | am going to support this; | think that the report is going to be something that will really help us.
The word you used when you were chatting just now was “plan”. So to Alderman Laws’ point, | appreciate
what we are going to get out of this, but | imagine there will be a plan to sort of phase in the things that we
hear from this report?

Chief Rhodes

Yes thank you for that question absolutely. This is not an all or nothing report. This will be, we will have
options. And at the end of the day it comes down to the members who sit in this room to decide how we are
going to fund public safety, more importantly in this case fire protection and emergency services to what level?
So again what | think it is going to do, it is going to equip you with the knowledge, factual knowledge moving
forward to make informed decisions for the community.

Alderwoman Kelly

So the other question | had was in regards to how we plan for this report in the future. So it’s been 20 years
since we did one, | imagine we probably don’t want to wait another 20 years for the next one. So are you guys
thinking about strategically how consistently we can do this plan so that we don’t get 20 years behind?

Chief Rhodes
So this is the first phase of this, yes. This is a kind of 0 to 10 year plan and hopefully after this plan, then we
work on a strategic plan and we kind of go through this and figure out what are the priorities of this and then

the strategic plan will be that 1 to 3 years, how do we get there. And how do we get there in a planned,
measured, controlled fashion?

Alderwoman Kelly

So just to clarify, you are thinking we do the strategic planning and at most we would do this again in 10 years?

Finance Committee - 11/20/2019 Page 7

Chief Rhodes

| think that’s probably a good idea; | won’t be here to see that.

Chairman O’Brien

Who is going to remind us?

Chief Rhodes

We can set it in Outlook, you can set a calendar. No, | think this is important, in my three decades of service in
the City, this City has changed tremendously. And as | said, we have gone from a developing City to a
redeveloping City. And the only way we are going to redevelop is up and that presents challenges and

presents challenges when we start increasing density in both buildings and population. So again this is just
going to be a tool to help all of us plan for the future of the organization and the City.

Alderwoman Kelly

Thank you.
MOTION CARRIED

From: Dan Kooken, Purchasing Manager
Re: NPD Six (6) 2020 Ford Police Interceptor Utility AVWWD Vehicles (marked) (Value: $268,964)
Department: 150 Nashua Police Department; Fund: CERF

MOTION BY ALDERWOMAN KELLY TO ACCEPT, PLACE ON FILE AND AWARD THE PURCHASE OF
SIX (6) 2020 FORD POLICE INTERCEPTOR UTILITY AWD VEHICLES (MARKED) TO M-H-Q, INC.,
MUNICIPAL VEHICLES, IN THE AMOUNT OF $268,964. FUNDS ARE AVAILABLE IN DEPARTMENT 150
NASHUA POLICE DEPARTMENT; FUND: CERF

ON THE QUESTION
Chairman O’Brien
| see we have three items that are from the Police Department. So if members of the Police Department, feel
free if they want to come up and prepare for any questions from the Members of the Board. Welcome, thank

you, you’ve heard my little reminder, identify yourself you know if you get called on to speak. | will open up the
questions by members of the Board. Any questions?

Alderwoman Kelly

Since you guys took the walk to sit here, | was wondering if you’d just give us a quick overview of the couple of
the things that are on the agenda, in terms of what we are doing?

James Testaverde, Deputy Chief of Police

Yes Ma’am, Jim Testaverde, Deputy Chief of Police. Also with me is Brian Sojka, Head of our Fleet
Maintenance; and Karen Smith, Head of our Finance Management. To answer the question, so the first item
that you see before you is for one marked supervisor vehicle. You will notice the difference between the
original budget and the newest quote. That is due to the fact that Ford just changed the specs on the newest
model, on the 2020 Ford Interceptor.

Finance Committee - 11/20/2019 Page 8

The newest model doesn’t conform to our existing emergency equipment, light bars, speakers and what not; so
that is what the uptick is in getting new emergency equipment. Once we refit the fleet, that emergency
equipment will be able to be used over and over again for all subsequent vehicles.

If | may continue? The same can be said for the second item, you see the 6 vehicles that are going to the
patrol fleet and the third item is slight deferent and | do have some handouts. It is something new that we are
kind of looking to do.

Chairman O’Brien

If you can hold off on that and we can handle that separately when we come to it on the agenda than.

Deputy Chief Testaverde

Yes Mr. Chairman.
Chairman O’Brien

OK on the pending question is there any other comments from members of the Board? Questions? Seeing
none, I'll call the question.

MOTION CARRIED

From: Dan Kooken, Purchasing Manager
Re: NPD 2020 Ford Police Interceptor Utility AVWWD Vehicle (unmarked) (Value: $42,583) Department: 150
Nashua Police Department; Fund: CERF

MOTION BY ALDERWOMAN KELLY TO ACCEPT, PLACE ON FILE AND AWARD THE PURCHASE OF A
2020 FORD POLICE INTERCEPTOR UTILITY AWD VEHICLE (UNMARKED) TO M-H-Q, INC., MUNICIPAL
VEHICLES, IN THE AMOUNT OF $42,583. FUNDS ARE AVAILABLE IN DEPARTMENT 150 NASHUA
POLICE DEPARTMENT; FUND: CERF

MOTION CARRIED

From: Dan Kooken, Purchasing Manager

Re: NPD 2020 Three (3) Ford Police Interceptor Utility AWD Vehicles (unmarked) (Value: $104,457)
Department: 150 Nashua Police Department; Fund: CERF

MOTION BY ALDERWOMAN KELLY TO ACCEPT, PLACE ON FILE AND AWARD THE PURCHASE OF A

THREE (3) 2020 FORD POLICE INTERCEPTOR UTILITY AWD VEHICLES (UNMARKED) TO M-H-Q, INC.,

MUNICIPAL VEHICLES, IN THE AMOUNT OF $104,457. FUNDS ARE AVAILABLE IN DEPARTMENT 150

NASHUA POLICE DEPARTMENT; FUND: CERF

ON THE QUESTION

Chairman O’Brien

Is this the item you wanted to discuss?

Deputy Chief Testaverde

Jim Testaverde, Police Department; it is Mr. Chair. May | hand this out to members of the Committee?
Chairman O’Brien

Oh absolutely, yes.

Finance Committee - 11/20/2019 Page 9

Deputy Chief Testaverde

Thank you sir. These 3 unmarked vehicles — historically the Nashua Police Department has utilized Chevy
Impalas or Ford Taurus for our unmarked vehicles. I’m sure everyone is familiar seeing them around town.
Both Chevy and Ford have discontinued those models, forcing us to go with a new vehicle. We did a study
and it was determined that our best course of action is to have our unmarked vehicles mirror our marked
vehicle units. There are many benefits to that; | can walk you through this package. It is fairly self-explanatory,
but the biggest benefit | can tell you is that currently for our marked fleet we have the Ford Police Interceptor
Utility Vehicle. If a marked vehicle becomes inoperable due to an accident or other damage, we are able now
if we move forward with this plan to take an unmarked vehicle from say the Detective Bureau for instance and
after retrofitting it with the emergency lighting, light bars and audio equipment and have another vehicle in the
fleet; as opposed to the alternative would be it can take up to six months to get a new vehicle into the fleet.

Additionally all of our mechanics are very, very familiar with this vehicle. The alternative vehicle that we looked
at was the Dodge Charger, it is a vehicle you can see with other Police Departments including State Police. It
is a good car but it is not a great fit for us in this municipality. You'll see the gas mileage, while it is consistent
with the Ford it is not as good. Also one of the biggest we had was with the key. Currently if you would
indulge me for a moment. This key | hold in my hand operates every Ford in our entire fleet at the Police
Department and this key operates every Chevy. If we continue, if we switch our unmarked vehicles to the Ford
Interceptor as | am asking you to allow us to do today, we will be able to continue that model. If we have to
move to another vehicle, say the Dodge Charger, with that technology, each individual vehicle would have its
own key and to get a new key, which does happen when things get lost or you know outdated, would be a cost
of $196.20 per key which becomes a significant cost when you add it up.

At the end of the day, wear and tear and being able to have the interoperability between unmarked and marked
vehicles seemed like a no-brainer to us and you'd see the cost is still fairly consistent.

Alderman Klee

| just have one quick question. The nice thing about having an unmarked vehicle is that it is unmarked and no
one knows. | don’t know a lot about these vehicles, but are these a very common vehicle that we would see on
the street? | Know when everybody had the Taurus or everybody had that, people would say, “that’s an
unmarked vehicle” you know, you just knew. And if you bought one, people would say, “OH you got a Police
Vehicle”. Would that happen here or are these a very, very common vehicle that you would just see them on
the streets anyways.

Deputy Chief Testaverde

It’s a good question, my opinion on that is within a short period of time, the citizens of Nashua would be able to
identify these vehicles from about six blocks away just from seeing it. At first, they are not used to seeing it,
they can pick out our Detective Chevy Impalas fairly quickly but | think as times goes on it would become
commonplace.

Alderwoman Kelly
Forgive me, | am trying to pull up the contract. Are you going for the hybrid or the eco-boost?

Deputy Chief Testaverde

We are actually going for the third, if you go to the very last page, the all-wheel drive vehicle, just the utility.
That is currently what we have in our fleet. You'll see some benefits with some of the other vehicles, but at
the end of the day, in the third column, the 3.3 liter, all-wheel drive vehicle, it is the lower of all the prices. It is
the vehicle that we use with our marked units, the interoperability and interchangeability would be perfect.

Finance Committee - 11/20/2019 Page 10

Some of the tactical nuances, while the hybrid has slightly better gas mileage there are up costs up front and
there would be some up costs for maintenance upkeep potentially which | can have Mr. Sojka talk about if you
would like.

Alderwoman Kelly

| am interested from a perspective of | understand you have a job to do but we are working on trying to be
more economical from an energy and efficiency perspective. So if there is a possibility to get us to a hybrid at
some point, | mean you guys have a large fleet. So it would make an impact.

Brian Sojka, Nashua Police Department Supervisor

Brian Sojka, Nashua Police Department Supervisor. Doing some research on the hybrids, the hybrid actually
has an 8 year, 100,000 mile warranty on those batteries. We keep our unmarked between 10, 12 years in that
area if not a little bit longer. Once the vehicle does come out of warranty, we would be responsible to replace
those batteries and that is a big part of that vehicle. At this time, pricing of that battery would cost us roughly
$3,700.00 including another 4 hours of install from the dealership because these batteries are huge in these
vehicles, so they are heavy to put in. So we looked at that too besides the price difference of the vehicle. You
know maybe in the future if prices start going down we could look at that.

Alderwoman Kelly

Sure and if | could follow up. Yeah as you were saying we are still refining hybrid-ability and solar and all that
stuff is starting to become more commonplace and get a little more streamlined. So maybe we can look at it in
the future when it is not going to be a heavy financial burden.

Chairman O’Brien

To follow up on Alderwoman Kelly’s question though, | know these are going to be not actually first line, | know
they are going to be unmarked vehicles and everything and not going to go through the rigors that a regular
patrol vehicle would go through. But they do have the potential to be a patrol vehicle as you had said in the
case of an accident. How do hybrids actually do as a patrol vehicle? | Know some of your vehicles run hot 24
hours with the different shifts, they don’t really take a breather too much.

Brian Sojka, Nashua Police Department Supervisor

This is the first year Ford ever has come out with a Police Package Hybrid. They have never done it on the
utility before. So it is really early at this point to see how they are going to hold up. The challenge is the price
difference on the two vehicles, but how will they actually hold up? | can’t give you that answer at this point.
Will the battery be able to handle what the vehicles are requiring from it and how long will it last for the amount
of time that we use? They do a lot of idling time so | guess at this point we can look at in the future and see
how Fords are holding up at this point. But like | said, this is the first year they are coming out with that vehicle,
so really nobody has that answer at this point, except for Ford.

Chairman O’Brien
For Alderwoman Kelly’s concerns which is a good idea to get the planet greener, it might be something to
watch. | always stay away from the first model year of anything that | purchase, let somebody else figure out

its problems. Chief Testaverde did you want to say something?

Deputy Chief Testaverde

Yes Mr. Chair | was going to echo what you just actually said. Because of that the utility vehicle that we are
currently using, we’ve had for about 5 years now and it has been tested.