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Board of Aldermen 2-06-2020 Page 5

Those haven't started but the developer is working with others who are going to build those projects out.
There are other sites in Nashua where people have expressed a lot of interest and it looks like they are
very serious in proceeding in part because and some people out of town, because of the Performing Arts
Center.

So the whole idea here is that you invest to attract other investment to build a stronger economy and in the
end, build a stronger tax base, build up tax revenues which benefit everyone. Because in the end, the
downtown is an economic engine like they say in Keene, the downtown is an economic engine for the City
of Nashua. So that, | think, Madam President gives you an overview. | apologize for going on as long as |
did, but this project has been pending for a while. | think some of the original objectives sometimes get
forgetten. | know people are interested, some people skeptical, some people highly supportive, but |
wanted to give you the history and kind of report to you where | think we are right now. If anybody has
questions for me and if that’s permitted, I’d be glad to answer them. But | guess next we go to Mr.
Cummings, is that correct?

President Wilshire

| am going to turn the meeting over to Alderman Dowd as Chair of the Budget Committee. So Alderman
Dowd.

Chairman Dowd

OK, just before Mr. Cummings comes up, | just want to explain what is going to happen this evening. We
are going to have a public hearing on the amendment to R-20-001 or it is an amendment to R-18-001. It is
only the amendment that this public hearing is about, not the bill itself to build the Performing Arts Center.
It is only to eliminate the time constraint for the funding. The Public Hearing | will be calling testimony in
favor and opposition, one at a time, | will ask people to come up to speak into the microphone. I’m asking
that you limit your comments to approximately 3 minutes. If everybody in this room spoke, that would be
over two hours. So please, | do not want people carrying on, especially if it is not related directly to this
Legislation because | will have to stop you.

Then after the Public Hearing we will close the Public Hearing and we will open the Budget Meeting. We
have a few pieces of Legislation in Budget to take up including this one. The Budget Committee will send
the Legislation to the Full Board of Aldermen with either a positive or a negative recommendation. The final
decision on this amendment will happen next Wednesday at the Full Board of Aldermen meeting.
Wednesday, I’m sorry there is a minor thing going on; hopefully nothing like lowa. So before we get started
with comments in Public Hearing, | am going to ask Director of Economic Development, Mr. Tim
Cummings, to come up and please present. He is assisted quite ably by Ms. Novotny.

Tim Cummings, Director of Economic Development

Thank you Mr. Chairman, for the record, Tim Cummings, Director of Economic Development and with me
this evening is the Chair of the Capital Campaign Committee, Deb Novotny. So provided you a
communication, a written Memo which | am going to read from which essentially provides a status update
on the project and analysis of R-18-001. So the purpose of the Memo | wrote to you is to provide an
update on the Performing Arts Center project. The Legislation strikes the two year time period for raising
the $4 million dollars.

To provide you some context relative to the timeline, the following is being provided in an effort to give you
a general context for the timing necessary to get this project up and running. The fact is, there was a lot of
initial upfront work necessary, creating, establishing and developing the differing entities that are the
vehicles to bring this project to fruition. First the Resolution authorizing the Performing Arts Center was
passed in the Winter of 2018. From there, getting the Steering Committee populated and functioning was
the next order of business; this took time.

Board of Aldermen 2-06-2020 Page 6

There are many stakeholders involved. From there, the Steering Committee needed to organize itself, and
develop a rhythm which is vitally important for the project’s success. And again, it takes time. The culture
that developed is one where the Committee worked and acts in a very collaborative and consensus building
manner.

The Steering Committee developed three working groups and focused on operations, design and fund
raising. These were working groups that met throughout the spring and summer of 2018 and beyond.
Simultaneously, there was a public procurement process to solicit an architecture and engineering firm,
along with an operator and construction manager. This all occurred in the latter half of 2018. | would be
remiss not to point out that the Performing Arts Center tour took place, which was in the summer of 2018 as
well and the tour was a great team building exercise and helped to educate and give a frame of reference
for the project.

We did not engage the architect and engineers and construction manager until the winter of 2018, early of
2019 as mentioned earlier by the Mayor. And please remember we had the untimely passing of the Chair
of the Performing Arts Center Steering Committee, President Brian McCarthy which understandably
delayed some of the Committee business as we needed to reorganize ourselves. Simultaneous to all that,
the Steering Committee’s Working Group focused on fundraising while organizing and beginning to tackle
the challenge of raising private money for the Performing Arts Center. A public procurement process
occurred in the spring of 2018 to solicit a fundraising consultant as mentioned earlier this evening. Once the
selection was made to hire Full Circle Consulting, which is the company that Betsy McNamara works for, a
fundraising assessment and feasibility study began where 30ish interviews over a four to eight week period
occurred during the summer of 2018. This led to the recommendation and development of a capital
campaign plan. One of the more pressing items that developed was the need to create and organize a
capital campaign committee, recruiting and forming a capital campaign committee occurred throughout the
entire fall of 2018.

The first Capital Campaign Committee meeting occurred in December of 2018. However, just because the
Capital Campaign Committee was formed, does not mean solicitation started. Once the recruitment period
occurred an onboarding and educational process ensued. A lot of the volunteers acknowledged that this
was the first capital campaign and an educational effort transpired during the better part of the winter of
2019 and into early spring. Ironically, as the capital campaign committee was being formed, the design
process was just starting to get underway in January of 2019. The two efforts needed to go hand in hand,
because you cannot realistically solicit donations until a concrete design is achieved. Being the very high
profile public nature of this project, a robust committee process and public engagement piece occurred on
the design, which meant that the designs were not recommended by the Performing Arts Center Steering
Committee until June/July of 2019 or approved by the Board of Aldermen Infrastructure Committee until
August of 2019.

Conversely the fund raising efforts did not begin in earnest until the end of the summer of 2019. However,
the capital campaign committee did not sit idle during the spring and summer, there were a lot of “soft
meetings” taking place to develop leads. Additionally, during the preparation and organizational phase in
the spring of 2019, there was an agreement reached with City Arts of Nashua to be the fiscal agent as a
precursor to the 501(C)3 entity that was actually formed in 2019 and all of that took some time. It was
during the spring of 2019 also that an application for a CDF Tax Credit occurred and | am pleased to state
the application was successful and the project was awarded tax credits in the summer of 2019. It was a
great way to jumpstart the fundraising efforts. Fundraising efforts did not start in earnest until the end and
summer of fall of 2019. | want to give you all that recap to hopefully show and demonstrate that a lot of
work has transpired over the last couple of years, and although it may not seem it and | didn’t even realize
it until | wrote this narrative down, we have accomplished a lot of tasks in a very small amount of time. So
Mr. Chair, if | could I’d like to turn it over now to the Chair of the Capital Campaign Committee to say a few
words.

Board of Aldermen 2-06-2020 Page 7
Deborah Novotny, Capital Campaign Committee

Thank you. What have we been doing again since December? We were in the training and preparation
stage, we hit the ground running in August of 2019. Today we have secured 30 pledges by meeting face to
face with people in businesses, often more than once. Remember, we are asking in a capital campaign for
major and lead gifts. We are asking people to give of their assets, not their income. So these
conversations do take time, but we have secured 30 as of last week. We are following up with several
others who are in different phases of their decision process. We have several initial meetings with people
coming up over the next two weeks.

We also have over 75 lead and top prospects identified that we need to make contact with. Actually that
just scratches the surface. The campaign is going really well; we have received positive feedback from our
community as well as other communities surrounding us. As Committee members, most of whom either
have a fulltime job or run their own business, we have been doing and will continue to do all the things that
make a Capital Campaign successful and have seen and are seeing the fruits of our hard work. Most
Capital Campaigns take 3 to 5 years and we’ve done really well in the past 7 months. We are ahead of all
of our internal milestones that we have set for ourselves and we will continue to remain on course. Ifa
deadline is required, we do request an additional two years.

Mr. Cummings

Mr. Chair, I’ll just close by saying it was never the intention for when the fundraising timeline was originally
discussed during the feasibility study for it to be memorialized, it was originally discussed as a plan or a
guide post which we should all recognize that some of the best laid plans need to change and evolve. If
the Committee wasn’t working or gaining the momentum, | could understand a concern being raised, but
this couldn’t be the furthest from the reality of the situation. The Capital Campaign Committee is working
tirelessly and they are just appealing for some more time. It is my recommendation that this body approve
R-18-001 and allow for more time for this project and the fundraising to occur.

Lastly, | just want to note that we have also an overall project status update one-pager for you. I’m not
going to go into detail on that but | do want to call out a couple particular items, particularly because there
are some audience members here who have asked me to make sure | am very clear and transparent on
some of the particular numbers with this project. So a cost estimate was recently done and it came it at
$23.8 million dollars; that’s what the project is looking at right now. The cost estimate that was recently
done is showing it to be at $23.8 million dollars. We are striving to reduce that down to something in the
order of $21 to $22 million dollars, which is the targeted goal.

We have three main sources identified for funding this project; $15.5 million dollars of City general
obligation bonds; we have identified New Market Tax Credits at $4.2 million dollars and then local private
fundraising capital at $2.5 million. That raises us, if all in, at $22.2 million dollars. So the overall financial
plan would be to use 70% of the project funding coming from the general obligation bond; 20ish% from the
New Market Tax Credits and then 10% from the Capital Campaign Committee. We are working towards
that 20% as a New Market Tax Credit. We are working towards that 10% as the local philanthropic
charitable capital to be contributed to the project. That’s 30% of the total project funding. We have
confidence in the 10% that’s coming together, if you are willing to give us an extension of the timeline and
we are working aggressively for that other 20%. That other 20% through the New Market Tax Credit is
beyond our control, and it is something that we won't really learn about until early summer, June or July
timeframe. So | just want to make sure that everyone understands that. So there is a possibility at some
point that we may need to revisit how to close that 20% gap in the funding plan once we hear from the New
Market Tax Credit folks as to where things stand come early summer.

So | just want to make sure that was also very clearly understood again for folks. With that being said, Mr.
Chair, | hope this evening this body feels as though they can support the Resolution and votes in favor of
the Legislation before you. Thank you.

Board of Aldermen 2-06-2020 Page 8
Chairman Dowd

Ok as is the case, all public hearings for the people that presented, are there any questions from any of the
Aldermen before we proceed to public input?

Alderman Jette

People are concerned about the status of the project. | understand what you have said about the quiet
phase, | think you called it, about the fundraising and that the fundraising professional that we have
engaged has been advising you to proceed in this way with this quiet phase. The problem, as I’ve told you,
is that when we don’t say how much money we’ve got, people are assuming you don’t have any. The
$250,000.00 that Bank of America announced last week | think it was, was great news. But that’s the first
we've heard about any money. Now the Mayor has said that Enterprise has added $100,000.00 to that.
What can you tell us to kind of give us comfort that when you say “things are going well’ it would be great to
know how well they are going and how much money you have been able to raise so far.

Ms. Novotny

Thank you for the question Alderman Jette. We have 30 lead-in major donor gifts at this time. Can you
hear me now? We have 30 lead-in major gifts right now and we have about 20 on the table that we are
waiting for their final commitment on. As the Mayor said, we had a $250 public announcement from Bank
of America, that was there choice to publicly announce their gift. We, prior to their gift, we had already sold
the tax credits and Enterprise Bank was already in before Bank of America made their gift as were several
other businesses and individuals. So you did the math, | know you all can do the math, so you know what
we have a minimum of and | can tell you we have more than that, obviously. We are following a proven
capital campaign strategy.

The capital campaign strategy is to raise 70% of our goal by having conversations, face to face, with
businesses and individuals. We have a core committee of eight people who all work either at a full time job
orrun a business. lf we were to go public at this time, we don’t have the resources and we are not ready.
We really want to have 70% of the goal before we announce it.

Chairman Dowd

All set Alderman Jette?

Alderman Jette

No. If | could, so when you say “do the math”, | know Bank of America has pledged $250,000.00. The
State Tax credit from the community development finance authority you know the Mayor mentioned $300

hundred and something. But actually the amount that we are getting from that Is $294,000.00, correct?
OK. And then Enterprise is $100,000.00? So | add up $644,000.00 right now.

Ms. Novotny
We have 30 pledges.
Alderman Jette

But you can’t say how much that equals?

Board of Aldermen 2-06-2020 Page 9

Ms. Novotny

No because it will, again, there’s a reason that we are in this quiet phase, it’s because of the conversations
that we are having. And once we talk about the dollar amount, we are not longer in the quiet phase, we are
in the public phase. And we have a lot more conversations to be had in the quiet phase. We all know that
our goal is $2.5. We also know that there are New Market Tax Credits that we are not sure about. So we
are committed to raising more than $2.5. We are really trying to get as close as we can to the $2.5 before
we go into the public phase. Part of the public phase is to sell the seats in the auditorium and the
Performing Arts Center; 750 seats for $1,000.00 each. That would be part of the public campaign so we
our goal is to raise more than $2.5; we just want to be as close to the $2.5 after having these conversations
that are already scheduled before we go into that public phase. We do have several members of the
community who have said they were going to help us in the public phase. So planning the events, the
social media, admin support, they are ready and their marketing support, they are really getting those
things in place now to be ready to go into the public phase. We anticipate that they will have an event
where they will invite all of our donors who are already on-board and recognize them, each of them who
want to be recognized and then announce the total. | think that momentum of announcing the total at that
type of event is going to be the most successful way to raise more money for the Performing Arts Center.

Chairman Dowd
There are several people who want to ask questions, have you got another question?
Alderman Jette

| do have more questions. So is it reasonable that these announcements could occur by the summer?

Ms. Novotny

We hope so. You know it is February and we have a really good pipeline. One of the things that we were
talking about today, because | thought this may be a question, is of all of the people that you’ve talked to
and had conversations with, has anyone that you asked said, “no”. And we don’t have anyone that has
said “no”. We have people that have pledged, we have people who said they need to, again, we are asking
not to do 10% of their income, we are asking them to go into their CD’s and savings account and take
money out of their assets to give it to us. That’s a conversation that they not only need to have with us to
really understand the project and what is going to mean to Nashua, but then they need to go and talk to
their families about it.

So in respect to them, we are giving them the time because we know any capital campaign, you don’t ask

someone and they write you a check for $1 million dollars. | wish they would, if anyone in the room wants

to, that would be great but that isn’t what happens. It is conversations, multiple conversations with people

to show them the value of what the Performing Arts Center will bring. And that’s what we are doing in face
to face meetings with these donors.

Alderman Jette

And if | could, one last question for Ms. Novotny, the State Tax Credits of $294 is that part of your $2.5 or is
your $2.5? That’s part of it? OK. Thank you.

Ms. Novotny

And | will tell you a little bit as far as those tax credits go, people who purchased those tax credits, are
making a decision to have money directed to the State of New Hampshire be applied to this project. And
they specifically choose this project. So it does show, the fact that we have already sold all of the tax
credits, does show that we have a lot of support in the community as well as from Bank of America, as well
as from many of the local banks, as well as from many of the downtown businesses.

Exhibit A
NASHUA 16314 — East Hollis & Bridge Street Intersection Improvement Project
Scope of Work and Task Descriptions
Amendment 1
September 30, 2021

will revise the document and provide the City and NHDOT with the Final CE (electronic file and
up to three hardcopies).

Resource Agency Coordination — MJ will attend one NHDOT Natural Resource Agency
Coordination Meeting and two Cultural Resource Agency Coordination Meetings to obtain input
on resource concerns and proposed impacts. MJ will provide agenda item request materials to
request attendance at each meeting. It is anticipated that two MJ staff members will attend
these meetings and that MJ will provide presentation materials and meeting minutes.

Phase 2D — Right of Way Plans

Using the General Plans as a base plan, easement plans will be developed for the parcels
impacted within the project limits. Temporary easements are anticipated on the following
parcels to account for sidewalk and walkway reconstruction.

Parcel 40-1 — 49 Bridge Street
Parcel 40-2 — 51-53 Bridge Street
Parcel 40-4 — 55 Bridge Street
Parcel 40-15 — 136 East Hollis Street
Parcel 40-16 — 144 East Hollis Street
Parcel 40-26 — 152 East Hollis Street
Parcel 40-27 — 154 East Hollis Street
Parcel 40-28 — 156 East Hollis Street

Temporary easements will be shown in color and will be described using roadway stationing,
offset, bearings, and distances. It is assumed a Draft set of plans will be submitted for the
purpose of City staff discussing impacts with owners. Once the owner meetings have taken
place, any proposed revisions will be made and final easement plans submitted to the City.
Since only temporary easements are required, easement plans will not be stamped by Licensed
Land Surveyor.

It is assumed that the City will complete all other aspects of the right-of-way acquisition process.
It is assumed that the City will utilize the Waiver Valuation process defined by NHDOT and will
complete the right-of-way acquisition process by developing the just compensation for the
easements, negotiating with the land owners, and completing the necessary paperwork to
secure the easements in advance of the project’s advertisement date.

Page 7 of 13

Board of Aldermen 2-06-2020 Page 10

We have a lot of support. Everyone we are talking to is really positive about the Performing Arts Center
and is excited for the doors to open.

Alderman Clemons

Thank you | wish Corporation Counsel was here for my question but perhaps the Mayor or somebody else
can indulge us. | know it is being referred to as a quiet phase, but what | struggle with is the fact that we
have the Right to Know Law and people want to know what is being done here. Has this been vetted
against the Right to Know Law as far as us being or the City being involved with something where we are
not disclosing what is going on. Has that been vetted?

Chairman Dowd

I’m seeing Mr. Cummings shaking his head yes.

Mr. Cummings

Yes thank you Mr. Chairman, just very quickly, it has been vetted, and the reason why it was structured the
way it was is that the money does not actually come to the City of Nashua. It is coming to a separate legal

entity, originally as a fiscal agent and now as a separate 501(C)3 non-profit and therefore it is not subject to
any of the Right to Know disclosures.

Chairman Dowd
Follow up Alderman Clemons.
Alderman Clemons

Yes only to say | appreciate that explanation. | think that will help some folks in the community understand
why there is a separation there with how we, you know, because obviously people want to know. They
want to know how successful this is and | think there is a lot of curiosity there. But | think they also have
the legal question of how can the City be involved with something like this without disclosing certain things.
So that fac that it has been vetted by our Corporation Counsel with, quite frankly, reasonable explanation, |
think is important for the public to know and understand. So that was my question and I'll ask further
questions at the Budget Meeting so that folks can have their say here tonight.

Ms. Novotny

The non-profit organization that was started is really a benefit to our fundraising. If we were going out to
have these conversations with people and then said, “Oh by the way, it’s subject by the Right to Know and
we need to be able to give your name and the dollar amount that you gave and make it public” it would
impact our ability to raise funds.

Alderwoman Lu

Thank you. Ms. Novotny if | was to be on your list of 75 donors and | wanted to make a major gift. What is
the minimum that | should be prepared to donate?

Ms. Novotny

When we are brining out the naming opportunities and talking to people about major in lead gifts, we are
looking at $25,000.00 and more. Some people that we are going out to obviously are coming in at, some
people, $5,000.00 or $15,000.00 but really we are leading them at the $25,000.00.

Board of Aldermen 2-06-2020 Page 11
Chairman Dowd

Any other questions? Ok! am going to open it up to public comment. Again this public hearing is on
amendment to R-18-002, “eliminating the timing requirement for the public funds”. So please limit all your
comments to that one subject and limit your comments to approximately 3 minutes. I'll now take testimony
in favor? If you want to speak in favor, please come up to the microphone, state your name and address
for the record.

PUBLIC HEARING

R-20-001 - SECOND AMENDMENT TO R-18-001 “AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR AND CITY TREASURER
TO ISSUE BONDS NOT TO EXCEED THE AMOUNT OF FIFTEEN MILLION FIVE HUNDRED
THOUSAND DOLLARS ($15,500,000) FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS CENTER LOCATED
AT 201 MAIN STREET”

TESTIMONY IN FAVOR

Latha Mangipudi | reside at 20 Salmon Brook Drive and | have resided in Nashua for over 30 years. | am in
support of this extension. Having served on several non-profit advisory boards such as Mission and over
where we had to raise $5 million dollars over 3 years and then currently serving on the NH Charitable
Foundation Regional Board. I’m not raising funds there, but you know, having understood what the process is,
it is very important to keep the initial phase of capital campaign on the stealth mode. Because there is a lot of
hesitation on major donors to make their name and contribution public too early. Having said that, | keep
buying Mass Million, Mega Millions, one of these days I'll hit the 3 figure and | will make a check donation. But
this is a typical, | have gone to several of the trainings for fundraising on several of the boards.

This is one of the major things that they talk to you about, initial phases. You have to keep it especially going
for the big donors. It’s you know on a pyramid you come from the top down, the large donors, half a million,
quarter of a million, hundred thousand, then on the base of the pyramid is the large base. So the human
behavior is when you ask for a donation, they ask what’s the minimum. And human nature is to go for the
lowest denomination. So in order to work on that, and this is a pride for our community, this is such a big pride,
and we’ve talked about it just like the rail project, we have talked about it for several decades or you know this
in particular, this is a reality. So let’s not botch it and let’s not shoot ourselves in the foot. This is the due
diligence that | am so excited to be part, I’m not part of the team, full disclosure, I’m not fundraising, but to talk
about this, to talk outside of my community here in Nashua, to say we are getting a Performing Arts Center.
Would you like to come and participate? Would you like to give a donation? And you’re right, people are
looking at it. So | would really encourage the elected officials who represent my voice, to vote in favor of this
extension and keep this project moving and hope it becomes a reality. Thank you.

Mary Lou Blaisdell | live at 32 Webster Street in Nashua. | have spoken to you several times in favor of this
project. And | am a downtown business owner and | also serve on the Steering Committee and on the Capital
Campaign Committee. | think Deb, Rich, Phil and all of us have more meals with each other than we do with
our families now because we are meeting so often. We are working very hard to move this program forward.
We have a vast amount of positive energy going into this program, through the Steering Committee and
through the people we are sitting down and talking to and asking for donations. We will meet our goal, it’s very
strong, it’s moving in a very positive manner and it is very exciting. This project isn’t just a project for
downtown, it’s a project for the City of Nashua. We have presented to you on numerous times how an art
center helps an economy within a City. Everything that you read, every art program that you read about that
comes into a City, proves positive economic results for a City. And it will do that for ours. Not only am |
volunteering my time for this program, this Performing Arts Center, I’ve made a pledge, my husband and | have
made a substantial pledge personally and we have through our business to. So both professionally and
personally, we support this 100%.

Board of Aldermen 2-06-2020 Page 12

Elaine Oulundsen | live on Raymond Street in Nashua. I’ve lived in Nashua for 35 years. | am on the Board of
Directors for the Nashua International Sculpture Symposium. | am very much in favor of this resolution. For
me, the Performing Arts Center is an investment in Nashua’s future. Nashua will benefit greatly from the
completion of the Performing Arts Center. | have many, many friends who live in Massachusetts and they tell
me all the time, they are asking me all the time, “how is it going”. They want to come here to partake in this
Performing Arts Center when it is completed.

People want to live in and visit a vibrant City. We are so fortunate to have so many family run restaurants and
shops downtown. Many are second and third generation small businesses and they are Main Street’s heart
and soul. They are the heart and soul of Main Street. Currently Nashua, everybody knows this, but it bears
repeating, currently Nashua holds the award for NH’s most creative City/Community, most creative community.
We have become a destination for the arts and continuing to build on our foundation of great music, murals,
sculptures and our many great American Downtown activities and festivals, it just makes sense to continue to
build on that by having a Performing Arts Center. Completion of the Performing Arts Center would likely create
120 jobs and bring approximately 70,000 people to downtown. There’s a nonprofit organization known as
American’s for the Arts which focuses on advancing the arts in the United States. | would recommend folks
check out their web site. Their web site explains how investing in the arts has a positive economic return. Go to
Americansforthearts.com. So let’s courageously keep moving forward and create the Performing Arts Center.
Many years from now generations to come will be grateful. Thank you.

Marc Thayer Hi everybody,my name is Marc Thayer, | live at 1 ClockTower Place, it’s downtown if you haven’t
heard of it. And | am the Executive Director of Symphony New Hampshire. The Symphony was founded here
in 1923 and until very recently it was known as the Nashua Symphony Orchestra. We are excited about
coming to our 100" Anniversary in three years. And | am very happy to speak now in favor of this amendment
and this building project which is very important to us and to our future and the future of the City.

We just hired a new music director. Roger Collier, who will be moving here with his wife from California. He is
also very excited about being involved with the Performing Arts Center. We know this Arts Center will be a
valuable asset in downtown Nashua and will generate increased business for our restaurants, hotels and other
businesses on Main Street. We know our favorite restaurants on Main Street are packed before and after our
concerts. Sometimes | can’t get in. The Symphony will continue to need the Keefe Auditorium for its size and
seating capacity, but we also look forward to using the new PAC for smaller orchestra concerts, educational
programs and new types of concerts that you might not expect from an orchestra. We are seeing, in the past
few years, more and more people coming to our concerts from Billerica, and Lowell and other small towns
around here that | can’t pronounce. We have audience members coming from Exeter, Lebanon and
Francestown and Jaffrey, believe it or not. They are becoming donors, they are bringing revenue to Nashua;
that’s what the arts do. They are bringing people and money here.

The PAC will increase pedestrian traffic on Main Street which will help security at night and make Main Street a
more desirable place for new businesses to locate. We believe we are stronger together; more concerts
happening here in Nashua means more people coming here and more awareness and visibility for all of us.
This tells people that you don’t have to go to Boston for quality arts and concerts. We also know we fail
together, with less to do here, our audiences and visitors will look elsewhere. There is a lot of competition for
entertainment on Saturday nights and we want people coming to Nashua for dinner and a show. | have been
involved in various building projects and capital campaigns elsewhere and this is a very normal process with
the quiet phase and if you blow that and screw it up and go public too soon, you lose all of those major pledges,
that’s a very common practice and it works everywhere.

On a personal note, | moved here four years for this job. | don’t have family here, | didn’t go to school here, |
have no nostalgic connections to Nashua or New Hampshire. | am one of those statistics that you are talking
about trying to get to move here to work. | enjoy living downtown, we enjoy the street festivals, the farmer's
market, the live music up and down Main Street. When this project was first voted down by the former Board of
Aldermen it really made me consider whether or not | wanted to live here. You need this project, City’s don’t
stay static, they improve or they decline. You’ve made so much progress in the past few years, please don’t
start to go backwards now. Thank you.

Board of Aldermen 2-06-2020 Page 13

Lou Jeris Good evening everyone, Lou Jeris here at from Haines Street in Nashua. Much like Jim had said
earlier, this project will be another lynch pin in bringing more development to downtown. You know things are
changing, people are moving to more urban centers now. In order for this to happen and to happen
successfully like the previous speaker said, this amendment needs to happen so we can keep the fundraising
momentum going. And blowing the cover is probably not a wise thing. Again, you are seeing some changes, it
is going to make some people uncomfortable, some of these votes need a little bit more courage than other
votes. You are going to have some people talk later, but it’s going to be the usual, the throwing of the wet
blanket over — you know — why are we doing this? Why don’t we sell it? We don’t understand, you know, it’s
too risky. Again, there’s much of an upside to this and the Committee is doing a good job. We'd like to see it
happen faster, so we are this stage now where we have to make adjustments in order to have this effort move
forward and to see it come to fruition. Thank you.

Fred Teeboom | live at 24 Cheyenne Drive and | am in favor of this particular amendment. It’s the second
amendment and what this amendment does is it eliminates the two year restriction of raising $4 million dollars.
| thought when it initially came out and | think Clemons had something to do it with it wasn’t really based on
fact. It just came out on a moments notice, there were no facts behind it. So eliminating these two years
makes a lot of sense. On the other hand | have concerns and I'll come back on the negative side for the
concerns | have. But just on this question, | have two questions, this being a public hearing. First of all to the
fundraiser, the question is when an organization makes a pledge, as they do in this quiet phase, is that pledge
cash? Can they renege on the pledge, can they put conditions on the pledge, like you’ve got to raise $1 million
before my pledge comes through. Exactly what are the conditions of these pledges that you talk about?

Chairman Dowd

Ms. Novotny would you like to answer that?

Ms. Novotny

| would, thank you Mr. Teeboom. Our pledge, if you are making you can write a check up front, you can pledge
over 5 years, we will bill you every year. As far as any conditions on it, if the Performing Arts Center, so all of
these funds are being held strictly for the Performing Arts Center, and if it doesn’t come to fruition, the pledgers
will get their money back and that’s the only way.

Mr. Teeboom OK | know a lot about fundraising, | helped build the Holocaust Memorial, and | raised well over
half a million dollars. There were two lots of donors, | was one and somebody else came up with over
$25,000.00 as well. The rest was all small money, many people here donated, | know Mayor Donchess has a
brick. So | know a lot about fund raising. But the pledge does not necessarily mean cash in the bank. So what
happens when you reach your $2 million dollars and find out people reneged and they don’t produce? Do they
sign an oath? They sign an affirmation? Exactly how do you collect on the pledge that isn’t making good, that
is my question.

Ms. Novotny
All of the people who are pledging donations are signing an agreement.
Mr. Teeboom The sign an agreement? That's legally binding?

Ms. Novotny

Well it’s an agreement, yes. Could someone renege? But typically when you are making a donation to a
nonprofit for something most people it doesn’t happen.

Mr. Teeboom Alright, final question.