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Board of Aldermen Page 16
June 14, 2016

Planning & Economic Development Committee ............... eee 06/07/16

There being no objection, President McCarthy declared the report of the June 7, 2016
Planning & Economic Development Committee accepted and placed on file.

Substandard Living Conditions Special Committee ..................e. 05/26/16

There being no objection, President McCarthy declared the report of the May 26, 2016
Substandard Living Conditions Special Committee accepted and placed on file.

WRITTEN REPORTS FROM LIAISONS - None
CONFIRMATION OF MAYOR'S APPOINTMENTS
Conservation Commission

MOTION BY ALDERMAN CLEMONS TO TAKE FROM THE TABLE THE APPOINTMENT OF
WILLIAM S. PARKER TO THE CONSERVATION COMMISSION

A Viva Voce Roll Call was taken, which resulted as follows:

Yea: Alderman Wilshire, Alderman Clemons, Alderman Dowd, 13
Alderman Caron, Alderman Siegel, Alderman Schoneman,
Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja, Alderman McGuinness, Alderman LeBrun,
Alderman Moriarty, Alderman O’Brien, Alderman Lopez,
Alderman McCarthy

Nay: 0
MOTION CARRIED

MOTION BY ALDERMAN CLEMONS TO CONFIRM BY VOICE VOTE THE APPOINTMENT OF
WILLIAM S. PARKER, 1 ROCKLAND STREET, NASHUA, TO THE CONSERVATION COMMISSION
FOR A TERM TO EXPIRE DECEMBER 31, 2018

ON THE QUESTION
Alderman Schoneman

| am the Aldermanic Liaison to the Conservation Commission and | attended the last meeting and Mr.
Parker was there and | said | would speak on his behalf tonight. | had a chance to speak with him to
make sure that he understood what the commission was all about and what his role would be there and
he does and he enthusiastically, as the Mayor said before, would like to serve on that commission.

A Viva Voce Roll Call was taken, which resulted as follows:

Yea: Alderman Wilshire, Alderman Clemons, Alderman Dowd, 13
Alderman Caron, Alderman Siegel, Alderman Schoneman,
Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja, Alderman McGuinness, Alderman LeBrun,
Alderman Moriarty, Alderman O’Brien, Alderman Lopez,
Alderman McCarthy

Nay: 0

MOTION CARRIED

Board of Aldermen Page 17
June 14, 2016

President McCarthy declared William S. Parker duly appointed to the Conservation Commission for a
term to expire December 31, 2018.

Oath of Office administered by Corporation Counsel.

Business & Industrial Development Authority

MOTION BY ALDERMAN CARON TO CONFIRM BY VOICE VOTE THE APPOINTMENT OF KIM
REAGAN, 30 TEMPLE STREET, NASHUA, TO THE BUSINESS & INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT
AUTHORITY FOR A TERM TO EXPIRE MAY 1, 2019

A Viva Voce Roll Call was taken, which resulted as follows:

Yea: Alderman Wilshire, Alderman Clemons, Alderman Dowd, 13
Alderman Caron, Alderman Siegel, Alderman Schoneman,
Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja, Alderman McGuinness, Alderman LeBrun,
Alderman Moriarty, Alderman O’Brien, Alderman Lopez,
Alderman McCarthy

Nay: 0
MOTION CARRIED

President McCarthy declared Kim Reagan duly appointed to the Business & Industrial Development
Authority for a term to expire May 1, 2019.

Oath of Office administered by Corporation Counsel.

UNFINISHED BUSINESS — RESOLUTIONS

R-16-030
Endorsers: Mayor Jim Donchess
Alderman Richard A. Dowd
Alderman-at-Large Lori Wilshire
Alderwoman Mary Ann Melizzi-Golja
Alderman-at-Large Michael B. O’Brien, Sr.
Alderman-at-Large Brian S. McCarthy
CREATING A SPECIAL REVENUE FUND FOR SCHOOL CAREER AND TECHNICAL
EDUCATIONS (CTE) TUITION FEES
Given its second reading;

MOTION BY ALDERMAN DOWD FOR FINAL PASSAGE OF R-16-030

ON THE QUESTION

Alderman Dowd

This was recommended for final passage at the Budget Review Committee and it’s creating a special
revenue fund where we can put the monies collected for CTE tuition from people outside of Nashua. It
allows the Board of Education to collect that money so that when we go to replace the equipment that’s

used in the CTE courses they will have some money to do that. That was the intent when the CTE was
built at the two new high schools but it’s just been a while for us to get to this point.

Board of Aldermen Page 18
June 14, 2016

Alderman Moriarty

Career and Technical Education, | am a big fan of it. Mid-skilled and advanced manufacturing jobs is
something | could talk about for a long time. I’m all for it and we should have this in the school budget
and we should have it in the city budget but | am voting against this particular resolution which creates
the special revenue fund has the effect of bypassing the spending cap. Oddly enough the laws that
allow us to create the special revenue fund do not require ten votes which is kind of strange because in
all of the other cases where they are bypassing the spending cap they require ten votes. | urge you to
think about that and vote no. Thank you.

A Viva Voce Roll Call was taken, which resulted as follows:

Yea: Alderman Wilshire, Alderman Clemons, Alderman Dowd, 10
Alderman Caron, Alderman Siegel, Alderman Schoneman,
Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja, Alderman O’Brien, Alderman Lopez,
Alderman McCarthy

Nay: Alderman McGuinness, Alderman LeBrun, Alderman Moriarty 3
MOTION CARRIED
Resolution R-16-030 declared duly adopted.

R-16-033
Endorser: Mayor Jim Donchess
AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR AND CITY TREASURER TO ISSUE BONDS NOT TO
EXCEED THE AMOUNT OF TWO MILLION TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS
($2,200,000) FOR THE PURCHASE AND INSTALLATION OF A CITYWIDE TELECOM
SYSTEM

Given its second reading;

MOTION BY ALDERMAN WILSHIRE FOR FINAL PASSAGE OF R-16-033 BY ROLL CALL
A Viva Voce Roll Call was taken, which resulted as follows:

Yea: Alderman Wilshire, Alderman Clemons, Alderman Dowd, 12
Alderman Caron, Alderman Siegel, Alderman Schoneman,
Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja, Alderman McGuinness, Alderman LeBrun,
Alderman O’Brien, Alderman Lopez, Alderman McCarthy

Nay: Alderman Moriarty 0
MOTION CARRIED
Resolution R-16-033 declared duly adopted.

R-16-035
Endorsers: Mayor Jim Donchess
Alderman Ken Siegel
Alderman-at-Large Daniel T. Moriarty
RELATIVE TO THE RESCINDING OF AUTHORIZED UNISSUED DEBT
Given its second reading;

Board of Aldermen Page 19
June 14, 2016

MOTION BY ALDERMAN SIEGEL FOR FINAL PASSAGE OF R-16-035
A Viva Voce Roll Call was taken, which resulted as follows:

Yea: Alderman Wilshire, Alderman Clemons, Alderman Dowd, 14
Alderman Caron, Alderman Siegel, Alderman Schoneman,
Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja, Alderman McGuinness, Alderman LeBrun,
Alderman Moriarty, Alderman O’Brien, Alderman Lopez,
Alderman McCarthy

Nay: 0
MOTION CARRIED

Resolution R-16-035 declared duly adopted.

R-16-036
Endorsers: Mayor Jim Donchess
Alderman-at-Large Lori Wilshire
Alderman June M. Caron
Alderman-at-Large Mark S. Cookson
Alderman Tom Lopez
Alderman-at-Large Michael B. O’Brien, Sr.
Alderwoman Mary Ann Melizzi-Golja
UPDATING THE FINANCIAL STANDARDS FOR THE CITY’S WELFARE GUIDELINES
Given its second reading;

MOTION BY ALDERMAN WILSHIRE FOR FINAL PASSAGE OF R-16-036
ON THE QUESTION

Alderman Siegel

While | believe that this is well intentioned | don’t believe that this is something we should adopt. This
increases the amount of money that we are giving away and | don’t believe that’s warranted and | don’t
think that we have an obligation to do that and so | would urge that we don’t do so.

A Viva Voce Roll Call was taken, which resulted as follows:
Yea: Alderman Wilshire, Alderman Clemons, Alderman Dowd, 8
Alderman Caron, Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja, Alderman O’Brien,

Alderman Lopez, Alderman McCarthy

Nay: Alderman Siegel, Alderman Schoneman, Alderman McGuinness, 5
Alderman LeBrun, Alderman Moriarty

MOTION CARRIED
Resolution R-16-036 declared duly adopted.

Board of Aldermen Page 20
June 14, 2016

R-16-037
Endorsers: Alderman Richard A. Dowd
Alderman-at-Large Lori Wilshire
Alderman June M. Caron
Alderman Ken Siegel
Alderwoman Mary Ann Melizzi-Golja
Alderman-at-Large Michael B. O’Brien, Sr.
Alderman Tom Lopez
Alderman-at-Large Brian S. McCarthy
AUTHORIZING THE TRANSFER OF UP TO $1,146,336 FROM THE SCHOOL CAPITAL
RESERVE FUND INTO CAPITAL PROJECT ACTIVITY “SCHOOL HVAC IMPROVEMENTS”
FOR THE PURPOSE OF IMPROVING HVAC SYSTEMS AT VARIOUS SCHOOLS
Given its second reading;

MOTION BY ALDERMAN DOWD FOR FINAL PASSAGE OF R-16-037
ON THE QUESTION
Alderman Dowd

There are several schools that have been complaining about the air quality in the schools and this is
going to do a significant amount of work at Mt. Pleasant, Fairgrounds and one other school. This will be
to improve the quality of the air, the temperature of the air of the schools so that the students can
continue to learn better. It’s not the final solution which would require a project.

Alderman Moriarty

The school HVAC improvements, we have been doing a lot of them over the past years on the average
of $6 million and $9 million per year. It’s a lot of good work has been made and this school capital
reserve fund, in my belief, should be devoted towards not maintenance but | had the impression it was
for special capital improvements and so | am going to be voting no on this.

Alderman Siegel

| am somewhat astonished, there’s a problem in this school where students and teachers are literally
having trouble breathing and functioning so | think under those circumstances one has to be a little bit
circumspect about how one defines how funds are used. Presumably they are used to better the health,
safety and welfare and education of our students and given that they are having trouble breathing and
functioning, | would suggest that this would be one of the highest profile things we can do.

Alderman Moriarty

| will just repeat that we are spending between $6 million and $9 million per year for HVAC
improvements. We are not punishing the children by voting no on this.

Alderman Siegel

If a majority of this Board agree with that statement, that we are not punishing the children then in fact we
will be punishing the children and the staff. Again, | would urge passage of this.

Alderman Dowd

This school is not slated for one of these HVAC projects that he’s talking about that does an extensive
renovation of the school and this school is going to take a unique renovation to do the final correction.
These are interim steps so the kids can go to school and be able to breathe when it’s really hot.

Board of Aldermen Page 21
June 14, 2016

Alderman Lopez

| really don’t understand why we are collecting taxes if we are not making sure that kids can breathe in
the schools, it seems like kind of a no brainer.

Alderman Moriarty

| would like to point out one last time that we are spending between $6 million and $9 million so the
children can breathe. At the Joint Special School Building Committee, there is a project that’s on-going
and there was sort of an end of the year sweeps that there was money that was left over from other
projects that were being collected in order to plus up an existing contract. So, the money is being spent
out there and to portray this as voting no as somehow we are making kids not be able to breathe is
completely misleading.

A Viva Voce Roll Call was taken, which resulted as follows:

Yea: Alderman Wilshire, Alderman Clemons, Alderman Dowd, 12
Alderman Caron, Alderman Siegel, Alderman Schoneman,
Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja, Alderman McGuinness, Alderman LeBrun,
Alderman O’Brien, Alderman Lopez, Alderman McCarthy

Nay: Alderman Moriarty 1
MOTION CARRIED

Resolution R-16-037 declared duly adopted.
UNFINISHED BUSINESS — ORDINANCES

O-16-003, Amended
Endorsers: Mayor Jim Donchess
Alderman Ken Siegel
Alderman Don LeBrun
ADMINISTRATIVE ENFORCEMENT OF ORDINANCES
Given its third reading;

MOTION BY ALDERMAN SIEGEL TO AMEND O-16-003 IN ITS ENTIRETY BY REPLACING IT
WITH THE GOLDEN ROD COPY PROVIDED WITH THE AGENDA

A Viva Voce Roll Call was taken, which resulted as follows:

Yea: Alderman Wilshire, Alderman Dowd, Alderman Caron, 9
Alderman Siegel, Alderman Schoneman, Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja,
Alderman O’Brien, Alderman Lopez, Alderman McCarthy

Nay: Alderman Clemons, Alderman McGuinness, Alderman LeBrun, 4
Alderman Moriarty

MOTION CARRIED
MOTION BY ALDERMAN SIEGEL FOR FINAL PASSAGE OF O-16-003 AS AMENDED

ON THE QUESTION

Board of Aldermen Page 22
June 14, 2016

Alderman Siegel

| am going to go through a variety of comments that hopefully address some of the objections that were
made in public comment and deal with a little bit of the history with this and how we got here and correct
some very, very clear misconceptions about this legislation because | think certain people may have
literally read the wrong copy of the legislation, that’s all | can ascertain. There are communications on
your desk from Attorney Nicosia and myself. The attorney is stating that he asked for a continuance of
this legislation. This is not a court of law and you can see from my reply that | did not deny that nor did
President McCarthy as that is not how this Board operates. When legislation is referred to the full Board
it is strictly the power of the full Board, as a legislation body, to decide what to do. Should we, as a
legislation body, eventually vote to table this or do something else or kill it entirely, that is wnat we shall
do. It is not up to me or Alderman McCarthy, and in fact, that would be improper as we operate as a
legislation body so | don’t understand how that was even stated. | also want to say that the landlords
were very much included in this process and | will explain why that is exactly the case. This legislation
was originally referred to the Personnel/Administrative Affairs Committee so for those that were objecting
to how it ended up in the other committee it originally went there and was then sent back up to the full
Board of Aldermen and re-referred back to the Substandard Living Conditions Committee. The reason
was very specific, it was because a lot of the testimony associated with code enforcement and the
discussion about the tool kit for code enforcement, which by the way, had little or nothing to do with the
Country Barn discussion, occurred in that committee and it was felt that there would be a sufficient level
of expertise in that committee to have a meaningful discussion to forward the agenda of making the
legislation appropriate for all parties concerned. It was the will of the full Board of Aldermen to refer and
it was referred and committee meetings were held. There were two committee meetings held and when |
say the landlords were included in the committee meetings, let me be specific, Attorney Peter Nicosia
who represented the landlords was explicitly included in the discussions, he came into the horseshoe
and was a full participant in all of our discussions. That, by the way, as everyone on the Board knows, is
at the discretion of the committee chair and is not a requirement. We could have just said | am sorry but
you have sit there and make your public comment and then be done with it. As the committee chairman |
felt that was not forwarding anybody’s agenda. The idea was to get as much open discussion as
possible and as the legal representative and the elected spokesperson for the landlords that were in the
audience there was a general consensus that he was the right person to be at the meeting and he was
invited and was a full participant. | might say a very full participant as he had a lot to say. Some of it was
agreed to and some of it was not, that’s what we do in committee and that’s what we do at the full Board
of Aldermen, that’s how we deliberate. This idea that somehow the landlords were not involved in the
discussion to me is a misnomer unless they believe that their paid representative did not, in fact,
represent them. They were represented so that’s a misnomer, I’m sorry. | would also point out that the
landlords that were involved; to my understanding they were meetings at the Nashua Public Library in
which a lot of them discussed this legislation. Ve were not invited, | would have been happy to have
attended. City officials were not invited and I’m sure they would have been happy to attend. Nobody told
us about them and as for the notion of us not informing people about when these meetings would be
held, in fact, e-mails were explicitly sent by our legislative manager to Attorney Nicosia informing him
exactly when the committee was going to be meeting so that as much as possible, his constituents,
which are paying him, would be informed. To the extent that he did not communicate that to them, if that
was what occurred, that is out of our control but we went above and beyond and that was a professional
courtesy that | felt was reasonable. Now, there is a statement in Attorney Nicosia’s memorandum which
you received which states that the legislation was not amended and that this had gone through the
committee process and appeared back at the full Board of Aldermen tonight unchanged. We just voted
to amend the legislation with the golden rod copy in which it had been changed. One of the specific
changes that were made was to put the warning procedure back in to make it explicit, that it’s in there so
instead of there being nothing, which there is now, there is no codification of discretion now, it is exactly
what was asked for which was to address our fears that going forward there may be unreasonable code
enforcement agents in place and that there is nothing in the legislation that talks about discretion. Well,
it's in there. Please refer to the goldenrod copy to page 8 where that is explicitly put in there. My

Board of Aldermen Page 23
June 14, 2016

statement is that the attorney’s that spoke are working off of the wrong copy of the legislation possibly
and | think they are doing a disservice to their constituents, that’s my opinion. | don’t know what actually
happened there but | can only ascertain that from the comments that nothing changed because that’s not
the case. | would also point out that there has been mention of an unreasonable timeframe, ten days or
what not, please refer, again, to the discretion clause in which it specifically talks about a reasonable and
certain timeframe. The reasonable and certain timeframe in committee that we talked about was
explicitly dependent on what the nature of the problem was. If you are doing a roof it is very reasonable
to assume that is going to take quite a long period of time and in fact the way things work is that as long
as there is some due diligence to pursue a remedy for a problem then there is no issue. This ordinance
addresses the instance where code enforcement is notified of a problem and at that point there is a
waiting period where there can be a full remedy and if a phone call is made that this is remedied or the
reporting tenant for example, doesn’t follow-up then code enforcement has no action and nothing
happens. Now we get to the point where there is follow-up and at this point, assuming that people are
reasonable, which is generally the case, and in fact codified, a warning is issued in which they talk about
it. Remember that the warning is only issued in the event that there has been no effort at that point to
correct the problem so we are now at the point where no effort has been made to correct the problem
and we are going to issue a warning and hopefully something will be done, again the timeframe is not
specified in the legislation, this ten days is a mythology and | don’t know where that came from. There is
no hard limit; everyone recognizes that there are different problems that require different timeframes so
that is kind of silly in that sense. You literally have to be a willful violator. As far as the notion of an
Appeals Board, we currently have a code system. There was some reference to all of the different
clauses that were in the legislation, all that is the restatement of the existing code, there are no new
clauses or magic police powers, we just restated what is in the blue book and | might also say that this
ordinance goes beyond the scope of landlords. Not a single restaurant owner has testified that there is
an issue and restaurant owners are covered. Anybody with life/safety issues is covered. This is general
enforcement of ordinances by the code enforcement department. The idea that somehow we are going
after people and this is going to be an additional expense, right now if the city were to be a police state or
to “go after people” our only course of action would be to take people to court. Now, everybody who
owns property most likely is a corporation which means you can’t represent yourself in court and you are
hiring an attorney. That attorney is going to click out at about $250.00 per hour and up and there’s going
to be a retainer fee and that’s a whole heck of a lot of money that’s going to occur. That’s the remedy
right now; go to court so a vindictive city government would go and rototill everybody in court if that’s in
fact the police state tactics that we are talking about. By the way, there is no Board of Appeals right now
so right now we are in a situation where code enforcement exists and there is no Appeals Board that we
have right now and you would go to court. That’s your first step. This is codifying discretion and
providing an intermediate step which you don’t even get to unless you are willfully violating the
ordinances. | rarely get too wrapped up in legislation and | understand there are two sides of an issue
and just for example, the pension fund legislation, it was a hard fought discussion and | felt strongly and
other people had reasonable objections and that’s fair, it didn’t pass. In this case | have actually yet to
hear a reasonable objection. | have heard objections but I’ve heard objections based on the wrong
legislation and | haven't heard anything reasonable associated with the exact legislation in front of us so |
would defer to our city attorney to comment on whether this would be unconstitutional or not and in fact |
would like to ask through the chair if Attorney Bolton might be willing to weigh in on a statement that was
made that somehow this is unconstitutional or there is no due process in here since | am not an attorney
and we have an attorney present.

Attorney Bolton

It was the unanimous opinion of the three lawyers in the city’s legal department that this ordinance would
be constitutional if adopted.

Board of Aldermen Page 24
June 14, 2016

Alderman Clemons

| read Attorney Nicosia’s statement and where it says that there were no changes and | think what he
meant, because | had a conversation with him, is that when this was brought back through committee
and it went to the Substandard Living Conditions Committee, the discussion that was had in the
committee was at lease to me and to several other people that were present, that the ordinance was
going to come back and it was going to look a lot different than what it looks like now. That there was
going to be an appeals process put in there, a mandatory warning was going to be put in there, there
was going to be a clearer definition of what some of the fines were and what some of the definitions in
the ordinance were. | have to say that when | got the initial e-mail with what is now before us, the
amended version, my first reaction was nothing has changed. None of the things that were discussed in
the committee were adopted into the ordinance. The closest thing that came out of that was the
discretionary warning but it’s not a mandatory warning. That language is already codified so it’s not
anything new either. When you hear that terminology that there were no changes and you understand it
from that perspective then yes there were no changes. | had worked with one of the city’s attorneys to
go over how to put in a mandatory warning. | had asked the chairman of the committee to put that on the
agenda and | was denied. | left it at that and | didn’t want to bring it forward here tonight but there is an
alternative out there and the alternative would require a mandatory warning. Why | feel that is important
and why | think that this doesn’t pertain or why there should be a mandatory warning is because right
now we have codified the discretionary warning but there is no fine associated with it. This ordinance
seeks to put in a fine so if we are going to fine someone then we should at least warn them ahead time.
If we don’t have the decency to put that mandatory warning in our ordinances, why bother having any
warning at all, you may as well take out the discretionary warning too and just hope that the code
enforcement officers use some kind of discretion. | am not necessarily against putting in these fines but
it has to be done in a way that gets the community involved, that gets the landlords involved and the
property owners involved and it does it in a way that everybody can come out and say that | am satisfied
with the outcome of this because | compromised here or there. We do not have that in front of us
tonight. What we have in front of us is an ordinance that isn’t going to change anything with either of the
two properties that are of concern to us. What are we going to do when we go to Temple Street and
there are bedbugs? We have already been told tonight by the Mayor that when we go there they fix the
problem. | suppose we could fine them but | am sure that they could slap up their rent by another $10.00
per room for a week and cover the fine. It’s not going to solve the problem. They will pay the fine but the
reality is the person that’s going to end up paying the fine is the person that is renting the room. The
same thing with the Country Barn Hotel, this isn’t going to change anything. The only instance that was
given at the Substandard Living Conditions Committee where this might be useful is when the Fire
Marshall has a problem, like the ovens in restaurants that need to be cleaned and right now what they do
is play this game of cat and mouse so maybe in that case a fine would help because the restaurant
owner wouldn’t want to get a fine. To say that this is somehow going to clean up the properties of the
worst offending landlords is incorrect, it’s not going to do anything because you can’t put a law like this
into place and change an immoral person’s behavior. They will say here is the table of fines and | will
multiply that by how many rooms | have and |’m going to increase the rent on everybody, that’s just
reality. What we really should be focusing on here is going back and seeing how this schedule is going
to actually help us. | think there are some ways where it could be useful but in this form and without a
mandatory warning, | cannot and will not support it. | don’t think that it’s fair to say that because I’m
against this or if somebody votes no that they don’t care about the bad properties in this city. In fact, |
think that by voting no on this and maybe tabling it and bringing it back to committee, | think that’s going
to show those property owners that maybe we should retool this so that we can come up with something
that really is going to go after them and really is going to solve the problem because this isn’t going to do
it.

Alderman LeBrun

| feel compelled to explain my no vote on this. | either misplaced or | do not have the amendment and
therefore | felt compelled to vote on something that | had no knowledge of.

Board of Aldermen Page 25
June 14, 2016

Alderman Moriarty

We did listen last time and | want to take credit publicly for at least doing that even though our lovely
local newspaper editorial attacked us. | am still on the fence on this, | could be persuaded either way but
| wanted to mention one thing in support and that is that everybody knows that | am sort of a liberty
minded person and I’m very small government and my instincts have always been from the beginning to
vote no because | think we ought to keep restrictions on the government. Once you offer the
government a power it’s very hard to take it away so | am very cautious when it comes to giving them
power. The best analogy | would use in this case would be the police department. The laws are written
to give them the ability to give someone a fine for speeding and I’ve had the police department do traffic
enforcement on Searles in Ward 9 and they will report back how many citations they gave and how many
warnings they gave. We live life already in Nashua benefitting from the intelligent thought of our elected
officials and our employees, specifically the police department who know when to give a warning. The
Mayor has already said that our code enforcement are good people and they are going to use good
judgement and | believe that if we were to pass this that all of the good landlords our of city are not going
to suddenly get piled under with fines and that the code enforcement is going to know just like the police
department does when to give a warning

Alderman Siegel

First to address my colleague, Alderman LeBrun’s concern, the amended version was attached to the
agenda provided at the meeting so that’s with you. If you looked at the legislation that is under O-16-003
on the website, that was not the legislation that is attached to the agenda. It’s very important to be
discussing the legislation we are voting on with the additions of the discretionary warnings. | want to
address this issue of the mandatory warnings which we had extensive discussions within committee and
in fact, after the first meeting in which this was brought up which generally everybody regarded as a very
cordial discussion, it was, we took all of the input and went back and said okay, what does this actually
mean in practice, is this going to work and if it’s fine we will put in there. There was no knee/jerk reaction
to say | don’t care what anybody says we are not going to put it in, in fact, the leaning went the other way
around. It was to say unless there is a reason to keep this out we will put it in so why was mandatory
warnings not put in? Let’s keep in mind this is not just a landlord/tenant ordinance, this is code
enforcement and Bill McKinney who is our building inspector gave the very specific example, a real life
example, of contractors that are effectively serial violators. They will come in on a job site and do
something completely out of code and completely illegal. If a mandatory warning were issued or required
then from job site to job site and they would go without any consequence whatsoever. With a
discretionary warning most contractors, as you can imagine, are completely legitimate so you give them
a warning they will say I’m sorry and the job there is no issue, that’s not a problem. But with that
mandatory warning it becomes something just literally that you can institutionalize (inaudible) and less
face it, somebody that is willfully violating is an unethical person. Nothing in the existing codes is
anything more than codified common sense and in fact, many times life/safety issues. The idea that we
would mandate a procedure which would specifically allow behavior which is negative is not okay and
that’s why it’s not in there. Now, to address this whole police state issue which may be overhanging that
was mentioned and | know it was not a specific topic but there is a need for government oversight. |
mean could you imagine a situation where we viewed our health department as a police state because
we came to a restaurant and the refrigerators were temped out at 65 degrees and food was in there and
we said do you know what, we will not empower code enforcement to do anything, we are going to have
a mandatory warning, which by the way, would refer to all code enforcements. So spoiled meat, no
problem just let it go. Again that’s an extreme example, it’s not something that is going to happen but
this idea that there is a police state and that we empowered us with new powers, we haven’t done
anything, the codes are the codes, it’s just here is an intermediate step other than going to court, again,
the police state would just be rototilling everybody and taking everybody to court. This does not do that.