Board Of Aldermen - Minutes - 2/16/2016 - P5
Board of Aldermen — State-of-the-City-Address Page 5
February 16, 2016
will meet monthly to discuss specific plans regarding substance abuse prevention, treatment, recovery, and
law enforcement intervention.
Another challenge is state and federal downshifting of costs and responsibilities onto the city and its taxpayers.
The magnitude of this downshifting is beyond what many people realize. Let’s take a single example — the
state run and state mandated pension system for city employees. Over the past several years the State of
New Hampshire downshifted between $10 and $13 million in additional pension costs onto the City of Nashua,
that’s per year. These were costs the state had previously borne in recognition that the system is state
mandated, state controlled and state managed. For the same $10 to $13 million in pension costs that the state
has downshifted onto city taxpayers, the city could have early childhood education for all children, we could
have a program to ensure that third graders can read at grade level, we could have another POP unit in the
police department to help us fight drug related crime, we could have a lot more street paving and we would still
have significantly lower taxes.
We will be watching any future efforts of the state to raise taxes on city taxpayers, and will be sounding the
alarm when this occurs. State officials should no longer be allowed to avoid their responsibilities by quietly
raising property taxes. An issue which will be discussed in 2016 is the potential outside contracting of our
custodial services. During 2015, the Board of Education requested proposals for the privatization of the
custodial services for school buildings. Privatization would put 101 employees out of work. This is a step that |
do not believe is in the long-term best interests of the City of Nashua. Over the past months | have come to
know many of our custodians and understand better the role that they play in our schools. Custodians are
members of each school community. Not only to they maintain our school buildings, the city’s most valuable
physical asset, but they also contribute in many other ways like helping with children and staying late to make
after school activities possible and also in many other ways.
| also want to draw your attention to the importance of infrastructure in our city. At our town halls citizens have
raised the condition of our streets and their transportation needs over and over again. We need to help our
people get from place to place with ease and without obstacle. Over the course of 2016, the Board of
Aldermen, the city and | will be making progress on some significant infrastructure projects. In 2016, | believe
we will be taking a needed leap forward in street paving. The city has fallen way behind in street paving over a
number of years and residents all over the city have been raising this problem for a long time. We must catch
up. We will soon be bringing on line a software system that will enable us to simultaneously evaluate the
condition of all the city’s 1,300 streets. We will then bond for the paving of most of the city’s arterial streets and
a lot of the neighborhood streets during the 2016 and 2017 construction seasons.
Another big project is the improvement of the property the city bought last year at the end of Burke Street. This
is a four acre parcel of land with a massive garage and an attached 50,000 square foot office space. This
purchase accomplished some important objectives. First, the land we bought is adjacent to the city’s sewage
treatment plant which has used up all the land around it so that we will now have the land to make any
necessary expansion. Second, the city needs a new public works garage. Our current garage is more than 40
years old and is not large enough for our needs. The DPW has to keep dump trucks and other vehicles
outside which shortens their life. The Burke Street project will give us the space we need to house all of the
DPW and Parks Department vehicles indoors with room to spare. Third, the dilapidated parks buildings in
Greeley Park need to be replaced and they have for a long time. Instead of spending money to do that we will
move these park functions to the new facility on Burke Street.
Finally, the 50,000 square foot office building is large enough to house all public works and engineering
employees. It is also large enough for our school administration. Moving the school administration to Burke
Street will enable us to use the current school administration building for a program for children with severe
disabilities which will save the city $68,000 per year in rent. It cost the city $4 million to buy the Burke Street
property and the estimate is that it will take another $10 to $15 million dollar investment to improve the facility
for city use. It would cost the city more than $60 million dollars to construct a new facility like the one on Burke
Street so by moving forward on this project we can save tens of millions of dollars. We will be hosting a tour of
the Burke Street facility for the public on a Saturday morning in March and the Board of Aldermen will be part
