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Special Board of Aldermen 03-23-2021 Page 8

opportunities to help people prevent things from happening, somebody needs to be assigned to that
function and back in 2006 and before, you had somebody that was charged with that responsibility but
budget constraints made that position go away and that position just never got picked up anywhere else.
So right now, there’s not an established Fire Prevention or Community Risk Reduction Program in place.
The Firefighters do the best they can day to day, if something comes up they try to deal with it. The Fire
Marshall gets a request for something they'll do it, but there’s not any proactive plan that says, “Look, these
are the risks in Nashua and these are the ways that we are going to try to deal with that”.

As we went through the process, we identified some areas that were just blatant to us that are a fantastic
opportunity for Community Risk Reduction. The first one is disabilities, wnen we looked at your population
right now, you’ve got 8,922 of your households, which is about 24%, have 1 or more members with a
disability living at that home. And we understand that people with disabilities have more difficulty getting
themselves out of emergency situations and that they are more difficult to protect so the best thing that we
can do is on the front end provide education; be aware of where they are, find out how we can help and
make sure they are aware of how they can help themselves. So that is a fantastic opportunity to create
specific messages and educational programs for disabled people and the people that live with so that they
can be the first people to help those people before the Fire Department arrives.

Another one that is really, kind of came out to us, is that your population has been growing and changing
and it has been doing that for a while but when we stop and look now where you are currently in Nashua,
21.7% of your population speaks a language other than English which is really important to know when you
have got (audio cuts out) to know that almost a quarter of your population doesn’t speak English we should
be creating messaging opportunities in the languages that they do speak so that (audio cuts out) learn
these lessons in their native language. And if we are not doing that, we are missing before we even start
these programs, almost a quarter of your population. So it is important to be sensitive to what is in the
community, who is in the community, what their needs are, and how we can meet them in a way that meets
their needs.

So with that, when we look at industry standards and best practices, NFPA 1730 is what we would look at
and that talks about staffing levels for inspectors and Fire Marshalls. The present staffing level does not
allow for the regular inspections that they recommend and the only way you are going to be able to do that
is to add additional people to that office. | would tell you, you are probably, when we look at the numbers to
use 3: if we could get 1 or 2 in there now it would still be a huge step forward but that’s the kind of thing we
want to plan for. We all understand that these things require money and that money requires planning;
start small, add 1 a year, build up to it, knowing though that as you are adding people to this process to try
to balance it out, your community is still growing, so not only are you going to be adding people but you
may need to add more people to meet that future need that is still coming forward.

Beyond that, there may be other ways to look at it, ways such as plan review component as part of the
workload in that office. The problem with line firefighters is they promote in, they promote out; some stay
for a while, some don’t want to be there. So there’s a level of change that is going on within that area. A
civilian plans reviewer is somebody who is hired to come in and just perform that function and not have an
opportunity to leave or not promote to the line might give you the opportunity to create stability, somebody
that was consistently looking at all of the new plans coming in making sure they were held to the same
standard and was there for a number of years to create a significant consistent baseline. So that may be
an opportunity where you can remove some of the work from the other Fire Marshalls and inspectors, give
somebody else their job of civilian planning reviewer, create some stability in that office and still be able to
perform more Community Risk Reduction and inspection opportunities.

So the next big area we wanted to hit on was the Facilities within Nashua Fire Rescue. You have 6 fire
stations, plus you have a fire alarm headquarter building and a training facility with the burn building. What
we did is we came through on this process, is we met with the firefighters and spoke with them but we also
visited all the fire stations. And we created a rating system where every building was rated as excellent,
good, fair, or poor. Fair and poor obviously being the areas you should be aware of. A “fair building is one
that is structurally sound but there are some non-structural defects, the interior has got wear and tear, there

Special Board of Aldermen 03-23-2021 Page 9

are some mechanical systems that are working but probably need some work on them. And the important
part here is the building design and construction may not match the building’s purposes. So that happens
especially in New England, you’ve got a lot of buildings that were built many, many years ago. The role of
the Fire Department has changed in the last 100 years. What we do has changed and in many cases
where the people in our community live has changed. So we may have buildings that were built many
years ago that may not be necessarily in the best locations now. So | say that because when we look at
these buildings and they are getting older, they are going to have additional needs for maintenance and the
question now becomes do we repair them or do we look at relocating them?

So a “fair” building is one of those that you can start looking at; when we got the “poor” area, we’ve already
passed the time that we should have taken some action and these are areas we need to address pretty
quickly. (No audio).

Alderman Clemons

| think you are on mute.

Ms. Harper

How about now?
Alderman Clemons

Now you’re good.

Ms. Harper

OK. When we look at some of these buildings, for instance, the Amherst Street Station, Station 1, you
know, turn out times, things where we are looking at how quickly a firefighter can get into a fire truck and
respond, these buildings were built in a different time and they weren’t necessarily built with that in mind.
So newer facilities are specifically designed with ease of access to get the firefighters out to the trucks and
out the door as quickly to respond. There are ways we can improve their turnout times by creating
environments that are specifically set up for that. So as we are looking at making changes, those are the
kinds of things we want to keep in mind. So Station 1 should definitely be on the radar, it is a “fair” building,
it is not in “poor” condition yet but “fair’ means you’ve got to start planning because you are going to be ina
poor situation very quickly if you don’t plan to address it sooner than later.

When we look at your station 2 it was built in 1998 it is in good condition, it is good for now, but again things
change and life happens and buildings get older as we move forward and you are going to need a plan, not
necessarily imminently but a little bit further out just to maintain that building and keep it in good working
order. The next one that was a concern was Station 3 on Spit Brook Road which is also in fair condition.
The building was built in 1977, it has got some antiquated facilities and there are absolutely areas that need
to be addressed sooner than later in that building. Station 4 built in 2005 is also in good condition, but
again, it is already more than 15 years old so keeping in mind while it is good today, you are going to need
to do work in the near future to keep it in good condition. Looking out at Station 5, that’s another one that is
in fair condition, it was built in 1961, it is an older building. It definitely has got some facility systems that
need to be updated and/or renovated and the same goes for Station 6 on Conant Road, it’s now in fair
condition. Fire Alarm Headquarters is good and your training facility is brand new, it is in absolute excellent
condition.

So what | want to summarize is the facilities and the message I’d like to leave you with is that the
infrastructure is going to require significant financial investment in the coming years. So we tell you that
now so you can plan and start coming up with a plan that your community can afford and the build into the
overall plan for your City. Four of your six fire stations are more than 40 years old, they are in fair
condition, they are going to need work. Many of these stations have outlived their useful life, some are no

Special Board of Aldermen 03-23-2021 Page 10

longer located in the optimal locations and as you look through the service part of this report, you are going
to see which stations are still in ideal locations and probably need to renovated and there’s some stations
that it might make sense just to rebuild in a different location. So that’s part of this planning process, is to
have those discussions now and see how it fits into your overall capital plan and to make decisions that will
get you to where you need to be when it is time to be there.

So with a that in mind, as you are looking at these stations and talking about renovations and relocations,
some of the things that you really just want to think about building into stations now that may not have been
done back when some of the stations were built are things like drive through bays. You want the ability for
the firefighters to drive in forward and to leave forward. A lot of our accidents happen when you are
backing up so right now you have drive through bays in some of the stations, the problem is you have so
many apparatus, they can’t drive through because there’s things in the way. So even though you have
drive through bays, you are not getting the benefits of it and you are still requiring people to back up.
Backing up is dangerous, accidents happen, people get hurt, and if we can avoid backing up a large fire
apparatus, it is always a better idea to do that.

Another issue is cancer in the fire service. Your turnout gear goes into fires with firefighters, they are
washing it, they are making every effort they can but at the end of the day there is still going to be a
process of off gassing following a fire where the gas is coming off of the turnout gear and now the firefighter
is in that fire station or exposed to that off gas that happened in a fire long after the fire is over. So modern
practices are to create well ventilated, separate rooms where turn out gear is stored so that as that process
happens, those contaminants are removed and the firefighters aren’t there breathing it again. So these are
all things that you would want to consider as you are making renovations and rebuilding fire stations in the
future. All of that helps for the safety of your firefighters.

So just to kind of summarize the process we went through, we had 22 virtual and in-person interviews,
meetings and facility tours as part of this process. We tried not to do this in a vacuum, the pandemic
certainly gave us some challenges but we wanted to talk to anybody that would talk to us. We wanted to
hear what was going on and see how your system was working. Knowing that we couldn’t meet with
everybody in person or virtually, we also did a 20 question on-line survey of the Nashua firefighter’s
numbers in the community of the fire service. And the reason for that was we wanted to give them an
opportunity to have an anonymous chance to give their input, their thoughts and to give their ratings. So |
will tell you, we had some pretty good responses out of that 20 question on-line service for the fire
department. 94 members of the department did complete the survey which is about 54% of your members.
So it is considered representative of the majority of the Fire Department.

What those surveys told us was very much the same as what we heard during all of the meetings with the
fire fighters in the stations. First and foremost, your firefighters are proud to be members of Nashua Fire
Rescue. They are proud to be part of this organization, they are proud of the work that they do, they are
proud to serve the City, they are just very proud of the work they do. | think that’s important because there
is a level of pride that comes with that that you can’t create, it just happens from within and that is a tribute
to you for the resources that the Chiefs and the Aldermen have provided as far as training and equipment
and their ability to do their job well. And they are proud of that, so kudos to all of you for being part of that
process.

Beyond that, they all felt that the people that make up the Department are by far the Department’s biggest
strength. They talked about the number of people, the manpower, the aggressive firefighting, again they
are proud of the service they provide, they are proud of the level of training they have. They do a good job
and they are proud of it. So | think it’s important to recognize that. Because as we go through this process
there’s always room for improvement, but you have a lot of good things going and a lot of good people
doing that work and it is really important to give credit where credit is due. And that’s absolutely where they
good deeds are happening.

Special Board of Aldermen 03-23-2021 Page 11

So | am going to move to the next thing which is morale. Far and wide we heard in all the meetings and the
interviews showed us that there is a morale problem with Nashua Fire Rescue. Members felt very strongly
that communication or lack thereof, was the biggest Department issue. People just weren’t getting
information they needed, it wasn’t consistent and that makes people uneasy, people want to know what to
expect, they want to have a level of expectation of where they sit in the system. If they don’t have that
information they get unsettled and that leads to bad morale. So there is a morale problem in Nashua Fire
Rescue; the good news it is absolutely fixable with a little bit of time and resources.

We did hear repeatedly throughout all of our meetings, members want to see a more consistent
accountability system with the Nashua Fire Rescue. They want to see Chief Officers holding members
accountable from the top down, they also wanted to see their own union holding their members
accountable from the bottom up. They felt by and large that not everybody was treated the same way in
certain circumstances and part of that is just the communication. There may be circumstances that required
different responses, there may be people that are being treated the same but they don’t have that
understanding because they don’t have the information. So some of that is creating more of a transparent
process, understanding that not every detail of every situation can be shared, but there should be a
baseline expectation of what can be shared and people should know what they can understand here, again
knowing where they fall in that system and how they fit in.

The fifth big issue that came up was training and members across the board repeatedly identified that
training is truly one of the biggest weaknesses within Nashua Fire Rescue. We are going to talk about
some ways that that can be fixed, because it is absolutely fixable. So we gave you dozens of
recommendations and the important thing is that while all of those need to be addressed and looked at
going forward, you have to look at the morale, the communication, the accountability and the training before
any of the other things can matter. We need to do all of it but it is almost like triaging a patient, it doesn’t
matter if their big toe is broken, if you don’t get them breathing it is not going to matter. So the focus really
initially needs to be on your morale, your communication, your accountability and your firefighter training.

ESCI suggests the most effective way and the immediate way to address all of these issues is really to look
at restructuring the Administrative Division to include an Assistant Chief of Uniform Professional Standards.
And this Chief would report to the Chief of the Department. And the reason we recommend this are that
they would have the ability to investigate all the internal affairs type activities. So right now, that’s additional
work on top of the current Chief and Assistant Chief. And they have got their plates full. You’ve got a very
lean staff administrative division, they are trying to do a whole multitude of things and when all of these
internal affairs things come in it is just more work on top of what they are doing and there are only so many
hours in the day. So now they’ve got to make decisions about what are they going to do and what are they
not going to do to get those things done. So if we could create that third position and take all of those
internal affairs issues off of their plates, what we are creating is that level of consistency that the members
are looking for. We have one point of contact between the Fire Department and Human Resources, one
person that is addressing it, one person that Knows past practice, one person that is making sure that there
is a consistent metric that is being applied across the Board.

This position could also help develop the Management and Communications Plan. You know, again,
people want to know, especially in this day and age, where they fit in the system, what to expect, what is
going to happen and that is a critical weakness right now. You’ve got those two people — the Chief and the
Assistant Chief — they are trying to get as much done as they can during the day. They don’t have
(inaudible) to sit down and have a planned out mitigations program where they can go ahead and get that
information out to them. What | would tell you is that issue is going to continue to fester, unless we can find
a way to deal with it and get that information out to them.

The other big issue is the recruitment of new firefighters. Right now the Training & Safety Division is
spending a significant amount of time recruiting and vetting out new firefighters and getting them on line.
Honestly they have bigger issues and the bigger issue really should be focusing on training your
firefighters. You should be getting these trained instructors out there training your firefighters and perhaps
reassigning this recruitment duty to this Assistant Chief who can then make sure that that happens but

Special Board of Aldermen 03-23-2021 Page 12

allow the Training Division to focus their efforts on training the firefighters which would address the issue of
the training deficiency that was brought up by the membership.

And then again the training program in general, if we put this Assistant Chief over that and take off the
workload from recruitment and retention, now we have somebody that is going to manage the training and
safety division, help them achieve SMART goals that are smart, measurable, reasonable and will be done
in an appropriate amount of time and we have accountability there. So the person is overseeing it, we’ve
taken some workload off the Training Division and now the Training Division can be focused in on really
getting firefighters trained to the level that they need to be.

Then the fifth issue is the professional development program. You know, you’ve got people moving up
through the ranks, but they are taking classes here and there and there’s not a systematic program to move
people from where they are now to where they want to get. So we could create a formal career develoment
program and show people career paths, if you want to do this job, these are the programs you need to do.
If you want to do that job, this is what you need to do and give them something to look forward to in the
future. People want to see that there’s hope and that they are going to move up and that they can promote
and they want to know how to do that and how to prepare themselves for it.

So in summary the communication, the accountability, the training and the morale — those are your big
issues. | would tell you that in 2001 Municipal Resources Inc. came in and completed a similar
organizational assessment and at that time, they had the same results. They felt that the morale, the
communication and the accountability were issues. So here we are 20 years later and those issues are still
unresolved and not only are they unresolved but they are going to get worse if we don’t start doing
something to address them. And we need to put some resources towards giving you the people that can
focus their efforts on dealing with those issues specifically so that they don’t continue to fester and get
worse.

| guess the last thing | would review is, again, there is dozens of recommendations in this Master Plan. You
don’t have to like them all, you don’t have to do them all and that’s designed into the process. The most
important thing out of this is to agree that all of this is important and needs to be looked at and then to
move into the strategic planning process. And that’s what comes next ideally in a good situation. What you
want to see now is the strategic planning process is going to be your 1 to 3 year plan; the Master Plan was
just a look ahead. Now we looked at all the issues that we could see on the horizon for 15 years, but ideally
you would want to engage in strategic planning next and that is bringing the Nashua Stakeholders, through
all different levels of the organization and say, “OK out of all these recommendations what are our priorities
here in Nashua, what do we want to do and what do we want to do first”. And we want to see everybody
from elected officials to Chief Officers to new firefighters to get all of you in on the same page and say, “Ok
this is what we are going to do in the first year or the first three years” and to do that.

And | would tell you that if you don’t engage in that strategic planning process and you don’t make a plan of
how you are going to start addressing things, what often happens is these Master Plans become a report
on a shelf and that’s absolutely not what you want to do. You have a lot of people that were engaged in
their process and gave their opinion and were looking to see change happen and the best way to do that is
to bring them back and to do this strategic planning process to figure out where do you as an agency want
to start and what are you going to do.

In conclusion, your successful strategic planning process would get you an ability to systematically
implement the recommendations that are in this report in a way that is good for you and your stakeholders.
And with that, I’d open the floor for any questions?

President Wilshire

Thank you, Mary-Ellen, does anyone on this Board have questions? | don’t see any hands up.
Alderwoman Lu?

Special Board of Aldermen 03-23-2021 Page 13
Alderwoman Lu

Thank you. Ms. McCutcheon how did you learn to talk so fast.

Ms. Harper
(Inaudible).

Alderwoman Lu

No, it was great. Thank you. That was really incredible it all made sense, so thank you for getting so much
information out in such a short period of time.

Ms. Harper

You're welcome.
President Wilshire
Alderman Jette?
Alderman Jette

Thank you, Madam President. And thank you for that report. Obviously as fast as you talked, you covered
a lot. But it is up to us to all go and look at this report and study it. | tried to read through it before tonight
but | am looking forward to going back and looking at it in more detail. But while you are here, one of the
things that struck me was that chart where you showed, | don’t know if | have the number correctly, it was a
small number, was it 2% of all calls are related to fire? Is that typical of fire departments? Is that typical is
that what we should be expecting or should we look, you know, a lot of those calls are emergency medical
calls. We do have an ambulance service that we are contracted with. Do other Departments handle those
medical calls like we do or do they contract out the medical part and concentrate on the more emergency,
you know, the fire calls and those types of things?

Mr. McCutcheon

Those are good questions. So the answer is typically if you are a Department that runs EMS, that your call
volume for fire-related calls are going to be somewhere in or around 3%. So whether we are looking at
Florida, New Hampshire, New York, Colorado, they are all about the same. The reason for that is the
introduction of Fire Codes. And with the introduction with Fire Codes the buildings that we are building and
are renovating are much less likely to have a fire to begin with and much better suppression detection
capabilities as well. So the number of fires we have are less. With that being said, the only way to get that
accomplished is through strong fire prevention. But for Nashua, that’s one of the areas where you are
really struggling because your prevention folks are really overwhelmed now.

As far as the EMS, the reason for Fire Departments responding to EMS calls is because typically they are
going to be within an area and they can get their faster and they can provide that First Responder tier to
someone to help stabilize them for when the ambulance gets there. So | would be a proponent of
continuing to maintain EMS response to emergencies. One of the first slides | showed where there was a
spike in EMS and it went back down, that’s where the Department expanded the EMS calls they were going
to but then reigned it back in because it was just getting to be a little bit much for what they had going.

But in Departments that run no EMS you are still probably only looking at 12%, give or take a little bit and
that’s simply because with the EMS gone all the other components get more representative. But the
number of fires is simply not what they were 10, 15, 30 years ago. Does that answer your question?

Special Board of Aldermen 03-23-2021 Page 14
Alderman Jette

Yes, it does. Thank you very much.

President Wilshire

Does anyone else have any questions for either Mr. McCutcheon or Ms. Harper? Alderman Klee?
Alderman Klee

Thank you Madam President. | guess my question, you probably don’t even have these numbers, but you
mentioned that the Fire Marshall and so on, that only 50% of those that happen after hours we can reach
someone to get out there immediately and that obviously the other 50% we have to wait to at least the next
day or next business day because you said it was a Monday through Friday type of thing. Do we have

numbers to those percentages? So how many of those incidents, the Fire Marshall, needing to get
someone out there, doesn’t happen for a few days?

Ms. Harper

We absolutely do. The 50% number came from the Nashua Fire Marshall's Division and they have a
spread sheet that showed exactly how many calls came in, how many people responded and which calls
had the holdover so that number is readily available from the Fire Marshall's Division. | don’t have it here
with me right now, I’m sorry.

Alderman Klee

From the Fire Marshall’s Division, OK. That’s OK. The reason that | had asked is | guess my question
would be as far as being able to do a proper investigation, | guess we would say, you would probably want

to have that happen as soon as possible and to delay it by a day or a couple days, if it is a weekend thing
could contaminate and hurt the process. Is that correct?

Ms. Harper

You are absolutely correct. And the chain of evidence is a concern as well. You want things to be left
intact to remain the way they were. And to your point, every day or two is going to lessen that and now we
are losing our ability to accurately identify what caused the issue and to get the correct answers out of that
situation.

President Wilshire

Are you all set Alderman Klee?

Alderman Klee

Yes | am.

President Wilshire

Alderman Lopez.

Alderman Lopez

Just two questions | guess, first in relation to other Fire Departments because this kept coming up when we
were talking about the Union contracts. How did you find our compensation level? And in looking at

Special Board of Aldermen 03-23-2021 Page 15

potentially getting additional inspectors, what are your recommendations regarding having other agencies
or other Departments of the City cross trained to support the Fire Department in doing inspections.

Ms. Harper

So it wasn’t specifically a staffing study but as we walk through the process | would tell you that we did not
get complaints about the compensation level. You know there were concerns at the time we were there
because the contract had not been ratified. | think there was an overwhelming feeling that through
contractual bargaining that they were pretty satisfied with the benefits. So | didn’t see that as being an
issue that we see in many places that we go. And when it comes to cross training, there is absolutely an
opportunity to do that to think outside of the box. But you need to be able to manage that. There’s no value
in having people do these inspections if you are not bringing them back into the main system, managing
them, making sure the correct data is getting into the right place and that it is being used widespread. So if
you had the resources and you’ve added somebody to the office that could oversee that program and make
sure it was being done accurately and consistently it would absolutely be one way that you could fix that
situation.

President Wilshire
Chief, did you want to weigh in on this?
Fire Chief Rhodes

Thank you. To Alderman Klee’s point, there’s a lot of these things that by State RSA that we must
investigate, the Fire Marshall’s Office. We must investigate deaths, we must investigate serious injury, we
must investigate carbon monoxide calls. Also, if | may to answer part of Alderman Jette’s question that the
EMS calls, those also encompass motor vehicle accidents which we probably have 5 to 10 of those a day
that we go to. Nashua is a very busy City. Carbon Monoxide calls are in there under hazardous conditions
so there are probably oh my goodness, 50 different codes that we could use in the National Fire Incident
Reporting System but they were broken down into ESCI’s chart into more broader terms.

The whole thing about response time is, so 20 years ago you had 17 minutes to get out of a building.
Today, it is fact, you have about 3 minutes to get out of the building and as witnessed by those poor
individuals last night in New York at that senior living facility. That is something we don’t want to have. We
live in New England, we have a lot of old buildings. Yes we have a lot of retro-fitted buildings. But when
you look at all of the new construction they are putting up in our community now, it is light weight, wood
construction. We are not building the robust ordinary construction which is block and concrete walls. We
are not building timber framed buildings which are our mill buildings along the riverfront that have been
converted to housing units. So it’s looking at the 2% number, it takes a lot of a deeper dive, there’s a lot
more variables that come into play for that.

President Wilshire
Thank you. Alderman Clemons?
Alderman Clemons

Thank you, | appreciate it. So my question is related to | guess response time as well and | noticed that
you kind of, during the presentation you kind of danced around the issue of whether or not we need a new
fire station or not. | guess my question would be does your report say anywhere where in the future we
may need an additional fire station or do you think that with the — or would you recommend rather that we
relocate a couple of them to more strategic locations and that 6 stations could be good for the next, | don’t
know, 20 or 30 years let’s say?

Special Board of Aldermen 03-23-2021 Page 16

Mr. McCutcheon

That’s another good question. We did address that, and so what I'll tell you is right now the coverage is
sufficient to provide the demand that you have. However, over time as you begin to develop more along
the Riverfront, get bigger sub-divisions or multi-level buildings there north of the airport or out in the
southwest that there could be a need. We did an optimization, your stations are pretty well sided today so
probably anything, you know, relocations would be additional stations. So what | would say is that station
location optimization is only one piece of the puzzle. You need land, you need it to be zoned in the right
way and grade and highway access and all that stuff. So there’s several other factors, so what | would
suggest is when you reach a point where you can see your performance beginning to deteriorate or there’s
just an area that you simply can’t service to the same level as the rest of the community, so at that point
evaluate those factors and the other factors you think are important and make the best decision with the
data that you have at the time. Does that answer your question?

Alderman Clemons

It does. You don’t think we are at that point yet where we should be planning ahead for that, based on
where we know the growth of the City is going to go or things like that? Or is that something that should be
purely data driven?

Mr. McCutcheon

| think being data driven helps take a lot of the emotion out of the argument because the data is what the
data is. But at the same time, you’ve got travel time overall that is just slightly above industry standards and
the goal for industry standard. Your turnout performance | think is as much as anything effected by building
design and your stations absolutely need a whole of TLC. And so before for me, if it was my decision,
before | invested $2 to $3 million dollars into a station | would want to make very certain that configuration
was going to meet my needs, that it was in the right location for what we have for our demand today and
that when we invest that money we are going to see it pay off on the back end for that investment.

Alderman Clemons
| appreciate that answer, thank you.
President Wilshire

Alderwoman Kelly?

Alderwoman Kelly

Thank you. | was surprised, | was like, “Oh am | next’? My question was around the percentage of people
in our community who are either disabled or speak another language. And | just thought that was sort of
striking and | was wondering if that’s a typical number or if that’s fairly high?

Ms. Harper

It’s actually indicative of what I’ve seen in a number of the communities that we’ve done in the recent
months, about 25% give or take. You are on the higher side of that but | think to us what the bigger issue is
the fact that you have such a significant population of people that don’t speak English but | didn’t see any
evidence of programming to address that. You know, we go to a lot of communities that have that kind of
numbers but they have got multi-language community risk production programs. They’ve got people that
are on the fire departments that speak those languages that are going out into those areas. And| think
that’s really the disconnect in Nashua is that the population has changed, you have got these people that
don’t speak the language and you are not meeting them in their native tongue.

O-16-018
Endorser: Alderman June M. Caron
ESTABLISHING TWO FIFTEEN MINUTE PARKING TIME LIMIT ZONES ON PORTIONS OF
ARLINGTON STREET AND GILLIS STREET
e Committee on Infrastructure Recommends: Final Passage

NEW BUSINESS — RESOLUTIONS

R-16-077
Endorser: Alderman Richard A. Dowd
APPROVING THE COST ITEMS OF A COLLECTIVE BARGAINING AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE
NASHUA BOARD OF EDUCATION AND THE NASHUA TEACHERS’ UNION, LOCAL 1044, AFT,
AFL-CIO FROM SEPTEMBER 1, 2016 THROUGH AUGUST 31, 2017 AND RELATED TRANSFERS

R-16-078
Endorsers: Mayor Jim Donchess
Alderwoman Mary Ann Melizzi-Golja
RELATIVE TO THE ACCEPTANCE AND APPROPRIATION OF $87,573 FROM THE STATE OF NEW
HAMPSHIRE, DEPARTMENT OF SAFETY “STATE HOMELAND SECURITY GRANT PROGRAM”
INTO FIRE GRANT ACTIVITY “2016 HAZMAT WIDE AREA MONITORING”

R-16-079
Endorsers: Mayor Jim Donchess
Alderman-at-Large Lori Wilshire
RELATIVE TO THE ACCEPTANCE AND APPROPRIATION OF $61,900 FROM THE STATE OF NEW
HAMPSHIRE, DEPARTMENT OF SAFETY “STATE HOMELAND SECURITY GRANT PROGRAM”
INTO POLICE GRANT ACTIVITY “2016 TACTICAL AND HAZMAT ROBOT”

R-16-080
Endorsers: Mayor Jim Donchess
Alderman-at-Large Lori Wilshire
RELATIVE TO THE ACCEPTANCE AND APPROPRIATION OF $49,364.76 FROM THE STATE
OF NEW HAMPSHIRE, DEPARTMENT OF SAFETY “STATE HOMELAND SECURITY GRANT
PROGRAM” INTO EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT GRANT ACTIVITY “2016 INFLATABLE SHELTER”

NEW BUSINESS — ORDINANCES
O-16-021
Endorser: Alderman June M. Caron
CHANGING THE NAME OF THE REVIEW AND COMMENT COMMISSION TO THE CITIZENS
ADVISORY COMMISSION FOR COMMUNITY GRANTS
Q-16-022
Endorser: | Mayor Jim Donchess
ESTABLISHING AN ENVIRONMENT AND ENERGY COMMITTEE
PERIOD FOR GENERAL PUBLIC COMMENT
REMARKS BY THE MEMBERS OF THE BOARD OF ALDERMEN

Committee announcements:

ADJOURNMENT