City of Nashua AVSG LP
By: James W. Donchess, Mayor By: Babak, Alizadeh, President
O-21-082
ORDINANCE
REQUIRING LEGISLATION AND RELATED INFORMATION TO BE AVAILABLE
CITY OF NASHUA
In the Year Two Thousand and Twenty One
The City of Nashua ordains that Part I “Administrative Legislation”, Chapter 5
“Administration of Government”, Part 2 “Board of Aldermen”, Article III “Rules and Order of
Business”, Section 5-27 “Dating, signing, recording, publication and printing of ordinances” of
the Nashua Revised Ordinances, as amended, be and hereby is further amended by deleting the
struck-through language ard adding the new underlined language as follows:
“§ §-27. Dating, signing, recording, publication and printing of erdinanees
legislation.
A. Each-ordinance All legislation shall bear the date of its passage, as attested by the
City Clerk and the President of the Board of Aldermen and, if necessary, the date
of its approval by the Mayor or of its reconsideration or enactment by the Board
of Aldermen notwithstanding the objection of the Mayor.
B. All ordinances legislation which are is enacted shall be recorded by the City Clerk
in the order in which they were are passed.
C. The City Clerk shall cause all ordinances passed by the Board of Aldermen to be
published by title one day in a newspaper of local circulation; but whenever the
City shall make a general revision of all its ordinances, no publication of such
revised ordinances shall be required in any newspaper.
D. Immediately after the passage of any ordinance, the City Clerk shall cause the
same to be printed upon sheets uniform in size and style as the Code, and
sufficient in number to meet the public needs.
ORDINANCE O-21-082
E. All legislation will be available at City Hall and on the City’s website, including
information on all reading dates of the legislation, the committee(s) the legislation
was assigned to, the committee meeting date(s) when the legislation was
discussed, and the dates of final passage and approval, including any veto
information.”
This legislation shall take effect following its passage.
ORDINANCE:
PURPOSE:
ENDORSERS:
COMMITTEE
ASSIGNMENT:
FISCAL NOTE:
LEGISLATIVE YEAR 2021
O-21-082
Requiring legislation and related information to be available
Alderwoman Elizabeth Lu
Personnel/Administrative Affairs Committee
None.
ANALYSIS
This legislation requires City of Nashua legislation and information related to the legislation to
be available publicly and on the City’s website.
Approved as to form:
Office of Corporation Counsel
wr Vie (Lore.
Date: | “Desemntar 2oH
6:00 PM AGENDA CAUCUS OF THE BOARD OF ALDERMEN DECEMBER 9, 2021
PRESIDENT LORI WILSHIRE CALLS ASSEMBLY TO ORDER
2. PRAYER OFFERED BY CITY CLERK SUSAN LOVERING
3. PLEDGE TO THE FLAG LED BY ALDERWOMAN-AT-LARGE SHOSHANNA KELLY
4. ROLL CALL
5. CAUCUS OF THE BOARD OF ALDERMEN
6. REMARKS BY THE MEMBERS OF THE BOARD OF ALDERMEN
Committee announcements:
7. ADJOURNMENT
A special meeting of the Board of Aldermen was held Tuesday, December 7, 2021, at 7:00 p.m. in the aldermanic
chamber as well as via Zoom teleconference.
President Lori Wilshire presided; Deputy City Clerk Allison Waite recorded.
Prayer was offered by Deputy City Clerk Allison Waite; Alderwoman-at-Large David C. Tencza led in the Pledge to the
Flag.
To join by Zoom — please refer to the agenda or the website for the meeting link and telephone number.
Let’s start the meeting by taking a roll call attendance. When each member states their presence, please indicate if
participating via Zoom state why you are not meeting in person and whether there is anyone in the room with you during
this meeting which is required under the Right-To-Know Law.
Deputy City Clerk Waite called the roll and asked them to state the reason he or she could not attend, confirmed that
they could hear the proceedings, and stated who was present with him or her.
The roll call was taken with 10 members of the Board of Aldermen present and 3 via Zoom: Alderman Michael B.
O’Brien, Sr., Alderman Patricia Klee (via Zoom), Alderwoman Shoshanna Kelly, Alderman Richard A. Dowd,
Alderman June M. Caron, Alderman Thomas Lopez, Alderman David C. Tencza, Alderwoman Elizabeth Lu, Alderman
Ernest Jette, Alderman Brandon Michael Laws (via Zoom), Alderman Skip Cleaver (via Zoom), Alderman Linda
Harriott-Gathright, Alderman Lori Wilshire.
Alderman Benjamin Clemons and Alderman Jan Schmidt were recorded absent.
President Wilshire turned the meeting over to Chairman of Budget Review Committee Richard A. Dowd.
Chairman Dowd
Okay. This evening we have public hearings on four bond resolutions R-21-197, R-21-189, R-21-193 and R-21-202.
If there are no objections, | like to move the first item up to R-21-202 up to the first so that we can address that since |
think most of the people here are concerned with that particular legislation.
PUBLIC HEARING
R-21-202
AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR AND CITY TREASURER TO ISSUE BONDS NOT TO EXCEED THE AMOUNT OF
TWO MILLION FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS ($2,500,000) TO PURCHASE PROPERTY ABUTTING
GREELEY PARK LOCATED AT 15 BARTLETT AVENUE (MAP 57, LOT 3)
Alderman O’Brien
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Before us this evening is R-21-202 authorizing the Mayor and the City Treasurer to issue
bonds not to exceed the amount of $2,500,000 to purchase property abutting Greeley Park located at 15 Bartlett
Avenue, Map 57, Lot 3.
Chairman Dowd
| believe that Alderman Klee wants to introduce this legislation.
Alderman Klee
Yes, | do. Thank you, Chairman Dowd. Jeff I'm not ready yet but this is the two slides that | sent to you. So | want to
start by answering the question that why didn't we make an offer before the sellers created a Purchase and Sales
Agreement to Thorndike? The answer simply is, is to the best of my knowledge it was never listed publicly and that
city is not in the habit of chasing obituaries. So at another meeting, | made a comment that this is not about NIMBY -
not in my backyard. It's about saving my park. That's how | said it. Then | was commented to someone who came to
me and said, well, it shouldn't be isn't my park. It should be rather it's our park and that's truth. It is our park, really is
our park. It's not Ward 3’s park. It is the city park. The thing that we have to continue to remember is that once
anything happens to that park, it's probably gone forever. | don't mean the park is gone forever. I'm just talking about
the abutting area. So it's important for us to have this discussion, consider all the options that could be possibly at our
Special Board of Aldermen 12-07-2021 Page 2
disposal, and | want to be fair here to everyone, and | want to show a couple of slides so the public can see exactly
where this property lays beside Greeley Park. | joked at one point that at the map 15 Bartlett is like a puzzle piece
that kind of fits into the armpit of Greeley Park.
And as you can see here, Jeff, if you can show that first slide, please. This is a slide that was shared with me from
Mr. Geisinger from Thorndike. You can see exactly how this fits - that piece of property actually fits into it. The
reason | wanted to show this is because he also was kind enough to kind of show where he was planning on
developing the area and then he pointed out where the woodland that's abutting Greeley Park. You can see that up in
the upper left hand corner. That particular piece also has some wetland in it. And then you kind of see that mustard
green, | used to call it baby poop color is the open space. It's kind of down towards the lower portion and that medium
green is the buffer area. But that yellow portion right in the middle there is the development area. | show this
because | do want to be fair. | do want to show that there are woods that are going to stay there. So when | refer to
how all the woods are going to be removed, and so on, there are things that are going to stay there. This is
conservation land and he does have to maintain a certain portion of non-developed land, so to speak.
Jeff if you could show the next slide. Thank you. This was given to me by a constituent who also wanted to show
how that piece of property kind of fit into the whole landscape and the property that's owned by the city. So obviously
Greeley Park is owned by the city. Then you see that little tiny piece of parcel of land. That, too, is owned by the city.
So | just want to show how important it is that this piece of property fits in there and right across - diagonally across
from that owned by the city property to Greeley much of that is forested area. So kind of continues that forestry in that
land. If you look over to the right hand side, you can kind of see where those 43 homes are going to be spread
throughout all of this. Now I'm showing you all of these things and I'd be remiss if | didn't say that the sellers did send
a letter or actually their legal office sent us a letter. Jeff, you can stop now. Thank you. Stating that they plan to
continue with the sale to Thorndike and continue to move forward with that. So | do want to make that very clear. The
city, in my opinion, we should still continue going. We should still continue doing all that we want to do and | showed
these slides to be fair to everybody to show where the buffer areas are to the properties, to show that little piece of
woodland area that's going to be there, but also to show how this truly truly fits into that. Once that is developed,
there is no going back. You can't go oops | made a mistake. You can’t put those trees back there. So this is
extremely, extremely important.
You're going to hear from a lot of people | believe. We've been getting e-mails back and forth. People are saying well
don't develop this land either. And maybe that be true, but this particular one as you can see is so important, my
feeling, to the health of Greeley Park. Well yes there are some people who say not in my backyard. | know for a fact
that not too long ago there was a piece of property not too far from here that had two or three homes that they wanted
to develop and certain people stopped that because they didn't want to in their backyard. This isn't so much in my
backyard as it is to save our park. The city's park. A crowning jewel of the city. | think it's important that the
conversation goes on even though they've said they do not want to sell and they're going to move forward, | think we
still need to have this conversation because | think the safety of this park and saving this park is extraordinarily
important. So from here, I'm going to pass it back to Chairman Dowd. Thank you very much for letting me speak.
Chairman Dowd
Just to reiterate a couple things. | did hear from the developer's attorney today. They are still going to honor the
purchase and sale and buy the property. We did get a letter from the owners of the Barker's saying they had no
interest in selling it to the city and that they didn't want the city to interfere with the purchase and sale agreement,
which technically we can't interfere with. So the sale is probably going to go through and we may be tabling the
motion in the Budget meeting tonight because there's no action that we can probably take at this point in time. If the
development does go through, it's going to have to go through the Planning Board and all the concerns brought up by
the neighbors can certainly be aired at the Planning Board and I'm sure there are a number. If in the future for some
reason the property becomes available again. Then we could entertain the city purchasing it at that time. But at the
moment, | don't believe there's a course of action that we can take to purchase the property. Okay. Any other board
members have any comments? Okay with that, | will open the public hearing on R-21-202 and | will now entertain
testimony in favor. Please go up to the microphone and state your name if you'd like to comment. You do have a
three minute time limit soon as you start talking the clock will start. State your name and address for the record.
Testimony in Favor
Paul Metzger
Paul Metzger, 25 Columbia Ave., Ward 3. Joseph Thornton Greeley gifted 125 acres of land to the City of Nashua in
1896. That land became what we know today as Greeley Park. This year 2021 marks 125 anniversary of it. The
Special Board of Aldermen 12-07-2021 Page 3
plot of land in question is parcel 57-3 15 Bartlett Ave. This 13 acre parcel of old growth forest is effectively a
peninsula that juts into Greeley Park surrounded on two sides by Greeley and on a third by the city on property parcel
65-216. You the aldermen of Nashua, have a unique and singular opportunity. Never before has this plot of land
come up for sale and no matter which way your decision goes, it will never be up for sale again. You will go down in
history. The 15 of you Aldermen Caron, Cleaver, Clemons, Dowd, Harriott-Gathright, Lu, Jette, Kelly, Klee, Laws,
Lopez, O’Brien, Schmidt, Tencza, and Wilshire, you will go down in history as the ones who decided the future of
Greeley Park.
125 years from now will be the year 2146. It's unfathomable to think about what life in 2146 will be like. Just like the
aldermen 1896 trying to comprehend life in 2021. But in the year 2146 during the 250" anniversary of Greeley Park,
how will the aldermen and citizens of Nashua remember you? Will they look down on you with contempt and disdain
for allowing a condo development to be built in the midst of Greeley Park? Or will they look down on you with
admiration and pride for having had the forethought and long term strategic thinking to keep Greeley Park as it is for
generations to come to save this rare urban forest and for having done your part to help combat climate change?
What do you want your legacy to be?
There's a petition on change.org to stop the development and have the city purchased the land and officially add the
forest to Greeley Park. As a 5 pm that yesterday, there were nearly 3,000 signatures on it. Of those 1,248 where 44%
were Nashua residents with 70% of those 872 signatures outside of Ward 3. On top of these were 1,138 signatures
across the US and 448 across the globe from 42 different countries. Now you might not care what people from
Germany and England think about this, but people from 42 different countries...
Alderman O’Brien
Thirty second.
Paul Metzger
...care right about the decision that you're about to make. You know what the right thing to do is. You know what the
highest and best use of this land is. | hope that you have the courage to do what is right.
Chairman Dowd
Anyone else who would like to speak in favor of this legislation?
Penny Ferreira
Good evening. Thank you for letting me speak. My name is Penny Ferreira and | live at 3 Birchwood with
my husband John Ferreira. I've been a resident of Nashua for almost 21 years now.
With all due respect, | Know it may seem like you can't affect the purchase and sales but Greeley Park belongs to the
citizens, the taxpayers in the city. Through my research of trying to determine what | was going to say, it came to my
attention that the builder has to follow the zoning and the land use that the people have every right to determine and
also through their voice how the land will be developed as the people see fit.
Also, this has been so quickly done. | only found out about it three weeks ago and | wonder the change.org petition
was wonderful and | thank Paul for doing that, but how many of the other people in your individual wards don't even
know that this is happening, and how many of those people actually go to Greeley Park on a regular basis and use it
for all different types of programs. | respect - my mother's a realtor, my husband's a builder. | respect the fact that the
family has the right to do whatever land that they inherit but also as a taxpayer, | have a right to say how any land is
developed in this town and especially over where Greeley Park is where it abuts in three places with 43 houses
slotted to go in. Any work that is done there, any development is going to greatly change the aesthetics and the
function of how the citizens can use that park. Also, | want to refer to the Master Plan that just got approved two
months ago. It is loaded with verbiage about that the recommendations and the conservation preservation element is
to identify most of the scenic areas in Nashua, determine if the existing land meets the regulatory structures sufficient
to protect the scenic attributes in the face of development. It's the job of the aldermen to protect that. | can't tell you
what to do but | can ask you to listen to the voice of the people that you represent. If you read this in detail, the job is
to protect such scenic areas through acquisition and conservation easements.
Now we can ask the builder to put in a bigger easement but when you walk down behind the swing sets in Greeley
Park, you're going to see the houses. Trees are going to come down. You're going to have a traffic issue.
Special Board of Aldermen 12-07-2021 Page 4
Alderman O’Brien
30 seconds.
Penny Ferreira
I'm just asking you to please consider tabling this and go back to constituents and ask them are they willing to have a
bill. There is a way that the children, the listing agent, the builder, and the citizens of this town can come up with a
better solution and | know that you can be a part of that. Thank you
Chairman Dowd
Just before we proceed, | just wanna make a point that it's adjacent to Greeley Park. It is not part of Greeley Park.
And so you would state your name and address for the record.
Bob Born
Sure. My name is Bob Born. | live at 28 Farley Street with my wife. The property at 15 Bartlett must be used as the
people see fit. No as the developer sees fit, not as the seller sees fit, as we see fit. I'm asking you to use your good
conscience and learn about what we believe is a fit use for the property. There are a number of subjects | could |
could speak on that | think are all relevant to your decision. They include wetlands, agricultural use, traffic,
infrastructure, safety, greenspace. | suspect there's a few more of those. All address traffic. Traffic on the northern
entrance to Nashua - Concord Street. Imagine that neighborhood around Greeley Park. Imagine the day when
Bartlett Street is so congested that it only has room for one lane of traffic. That's today. Certain times during the day.
Imagine the day when an ambulance driver has to get out of their vehicle and ask people to move their cars so he can
leave. That's that neighborhood. That's today.
Imagine being able to drive - can't drive to work because the traffic is so thick, so heavy at 7:30 in the morning and
2:30 in the afternoon. That's today. Imagine the nightly school activities when all the students are being asked, the
parents are being asked to park along the streets creating one lane traffic on multiple streets. That's today. Imagine
negatively impacting the activities at Greeley Park - concerts, school activities, youth (inaudible), Santa in the park,
prom pictures, wedding pictures, the kiddie pool, freight night, movies in the park, the art show because we think that
a development is the right thing to do.
| beg to differ. Can you use your good conscience and make a good decision...?
Alderman O’Brien
30 seconds.
Bob Born
...in favor what the people see fit for this property. Thank you.
Chairman Dowd
Anyone else that wishes to speak in favor of this legislation?
Tim Sennott
Thank you. My name is Tim Sennott. | live at 62 Underhill Street in Nashua here in Ward 7. I'm speaking tonight to
illustrate a little bit of what Alderman Klee said and that this is not a not in my backyard situation. A little about as far
as from Greeley Park as you can get. | had some prepared remarks tonight but given the information that we learned
tonight, | thought I'd come and address those.
You still have an opportunity here tonight. You have an opportunity to take the information that you hear, and the
testimonies from these residents, and be aggressive in your discussions with the developer, and the seller. The
developer has already articulated that they are not interested in developing property where it is not supported. You're
hearing a lot of passionate testimony tonight that this is not supported. | hope that in the opportunities you have as
the leaders of this city to speak with the developers that this is communicated to them. That many people in this city
are not interested in this development occurring abutting Greeley Park. We speak about the difference between
Special Board of Aldermen 12-07-2021 Page 5
property abutting the park and property on the park. A gentleman back here | overheard said is a difference without
distinction. Frequent users of Mine Falls Park will tell you that the area over by Whipple Street where UPS is was
drastically affected by the clear cutting that took place over there. Trails that were very lushly populated by wooded
area immediately now abut an industrial area. It does make a difference. Just because it's not in the park doesn't
mean it doesn't affect the park. We still have an opportunity. | support this legislation. | support going forward with
aggressively trying to purchase this land and preserving Greeley Park. Thank you
Chairman Dowd
Anyone else like to speak in favor of this legislation? By the way, a lot of these things that you're pointing out if the
purchase does go through, all of these things you're pointing out should be brought up to the Planning Board because
they make all the decisions that you are now talking about. Those decisions are not made by the Board of Aldermen.
If the property were available for purchase, then the Board of Aldermen can take actions to try and purchase it. At the
moment, it's not available for purchase but if it does go through the developer and he did say today that they are going
through with the development, they will still have to go through the Planning Board and the Planning Board can be
heard on all the things that you're talking about tonight. Okay.
Andrea Rebeck
Thank you. My name is Andrea Rebeck. | live at 111 Atherton Avenue in Nashua, Ward 3. | agree with those who
feel the chance to add these 13 forested acres to Greeley Park is a rare opportunity that the city of Nashua should not
pass up. But I'm going to address a couple of other points tonight. One financial, one technical. Many opposed to
creating this bond. We haven't heard from them yet but I'm assuming that they are concerned about the debt that the
city is incurring with a bond like this, spending more of our tax dollars, and frankly I'm concerned about that too. But |
also know that a city that does not invest in improvements is a city that is dying. Nashua is definitely not dying. The
city has invested heavily in creating housing downtown, has benefits to the business community which needs more
housing to attract and retain its workers. The city is helping to pay for our new performing arts center, which benefits
all of us who enjoy the performing arts.
| understand there's another bond being considered tonight for $21 million for riverwalk improvements. Wow. $21
million dollars. Well a lot of us enjoy hiking along the riverwalk. So supporting a bond that's about 1/10 the size of this
one is actually a small investment in a very important development for Greeley Park. As Alderman Clemons said last
night when | watched him on Zoom, Greeley Park is not a neighborhood park. It belongs to the entire city as you have
heard. | used to live in Ward 8 and believe me, | enjoyed Greeley Park while | lived there and | enjoy it even more
now. And since it does serve the entire city as the city grows, the park should grow. And about the only place it can
grow is the subject of this bond proposal.
Now what to do if the owners don't want to sell to us? Well, there's not much we can do. It's their property. But I'll tell
you as a retired architect who has been involved with several developers and has reviewed many site plans, from just
a quick glance at the one presented to us by this developer, this plan has problems. There are numerous technical
issues that need to be resolved before it can be approved and many changes will be required.
Alderman O’Brien
30 seconds.
Andrea Rebeck
I've seen developers walk away when faced by these requirements. So | would urge the Board to keep its options
open in terms of a bond to purchase the property. Thank you.
Chairman Dowd
Anyone else that would like to be heard in favor of this legislation?
Robert Lodi
Thank you Mr. Chairman. Robert Lodi, 12 Bartlett Avenue. Appreciate the opportunity to come and address you
tonight. One point | want to make with respect to Mr. Geisinger’s comments. | understand he sent a letter to you with
respect to this that he's going to move forward. On November 17* he stood up in front of 60 residents, | think some of
you may have been here, | know it was recorded, and he told us a number of things. One of which is if the city
