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Board of Aldermen 11-13-2018 Page 16

these gaps and why do we have such wide variability and what are we going to do to try to prevent this
from happening in the future. | know that part of the gap is caused by how we handle new sales, how
we handle sales when we do an assessment, how we handle the capture of MLS data when we use
those pictures to try and prove the property cards and bring them up to better valuation and how we are
capturing these permits; where this data is coming from as far as the calculation of the permits to
determine valuation when we change those cards. They all play a factor.

What you find is that the sales data seems to be the strongest data to work with, it makes total sense, it
is what our assessor KRT uses, it is what we try to use. The sales data is the hard data. But what
happens is if you are one of those homes that has pulled permits, even had the permits captured, the
valuation or not had permits captured, the valuation on the permits is so low that you end up sliding
down and staying in the low level valuations for long periods of time and a house that sells gets
corrected usually pretty well, certainly when it is used in the sales cycle, it is up there nice and high with
the sales data where it sold at and all of these other homes tend to be sleepers. We are not closing the
gap, we are not catching up on these homes that are under permit work and using the MLS verification
data. They are just staying too low.

We have had some exchanges, | have had with Steve and | know the City Counsel put a quote in the
paper about the complexities of all this stuff. | think it is not as complicated for what is going on in the
City as we may want to think it is. My observations in the Assessing Office is you have an attendance
issue. You have to have a manager who is at work, it just has to happen. And that is a big issue, I’m
aware of it and | am pretty certain that management is aware of it. Somebody has got to be at the
helm.

The other issue is not all assessors are experienced equally. Wwe have some seasoned assessors and
we have some assessors that are very new at this, I’m talking just a couple of years. My observation
when | look at these property cards is a younger assessor is struggling to make the right decisions and
there doesn’t appear to be any oversight to assist in that. One case of that | can share with you
happens to be a house in my neighborhood that has been under probably 6 or 7 permits in the last 8
years. The owner is very wise to never let the assessor in, to deny entry all the time. The house has
slid under value tremendously. It is probably $150,000.00 under value; when the less experienced
assessor goes to the home to try and get in and is denied, the homeowner simply says, “Just to let you
know my kitchen now is average, no longer good and the bathroom | did 4 years ago is no longer good
it is average, and everything should be changed to average”. And the assessor changes all the data to
average. Why are we doing that? The property owner should not be standing at the door telling the
assessor what grade to put on their stuff, otherwise, we can all just send our card in with a mark up and
say, “here is how we view it, here’s what it is going to be”. That is a problem and that is just an
experience problem.

The same assessor visited an expensive property and the owner said, “I’m valued too high | just think |
need to come down” and the assessor said, “Sure | agree” wrote in the notes, “Il took him down”, took
him down pretty good. KRT rolls in the next year, this was 2017, takes them up a couple hundred
thousand, | don’t think down was the way it needed to go at all. But nobody is reviewing that either, that
is aproblem. That assessor is visiting homes where if they don’t get in or get a response at all, they
are closing the permit, walking away and assigning no value at all. That is what creates these issues
with permits when it comes to equalizing out their valuations. We clearly are struggling with that.

The other thing | did this weekend and what | hadn’t thought about, all this MLS data that is on-line, |
started realizing | can go and pull up pictures of houses and | can actually see what the kitchens and
the bathrooms look like. | can lay out pictures and look at the property cards and say, “what did the
assessor rate that as”. And | can tell you | pulled up 3 kitchens in my neighborhood, one a 1970
linoleum Formica kitchen, pretty disastrous, really needed a lot of work, got an average rating. The
house next to it was a 2005 kitchen, very open, nice countertop, white cabinetry, pretty nice-looking
kitchen got an average rating. The third kitchen is a flipping, drop-dead gorgeous granite counter top,

Board of Aldermen 11-13-2018 Page 17

custom cabinet, double sink, double oven, it got an average rating too. It is all the same assessor. So |
am now looking at pictures going, “What does it take, what are the guidelines in there”. | did the same
with bathrooms. I'd find a beautiful tiled bathroom, double sink, very lovely, gets an average rating. |
find a bathroom that almost looks identical gets an excellent. Ok, that all goes on the card and it is
supposed to make a difference in valuation but I’m finding in general that bathrooms and kitchens and
basements can raise valuations when you are looking at permits by $3,000.00. Well on a $400,000.00
why are we even bothering to waste our time at that, you are talking about raising the assessment
$60.00. Really when you got out and sell that house, you are finding the valuations are much higher.

That is where the people who are actually involved in a sale are paying so much more and we are just
missing it. My husband and | spent a lot of time two and a half weeks ago looking at property cards.
There is something not right in the software in our opinion. It just, the yard items will be on the back of
the card and when you flip it over many cards, the yard items are not getting into the assessment at the
value that is on the back of the card by a lot. | don’t know why. Some of them go on, a lot of them
don’t. | just don’t understand it. Then the parameters within the database, | don’t know if it is because
we haven't calibrated that software in a long time. | don’t know if it is because we haven't changed
tables out in a long time. | still don’t have answers and | don’t understand how permits are captured.
There is just no documentation on it and I’m learning today that it is something that | might have to
access under Right to Know. | have to use an attorney to do that because | don’t know how to ask the
questions. But also it is quite possible that how permits are used, is not available for the public to know.
It seems silly and it seems like we should be able to know that but it is possible it isn’t.

So all | can tell you is what we see and | printed $400.00 of permit cards, I’ve got 400 cards now. I’m
looking at a good sample size and they just don’t make a lot of sense. It is just you know disturbing and
| think somehow we have to figure out what are the ways that we can do things better to treat these
properties more equally. The lack of policy and procedure, in my opinion, is a huge problem. Not
having a readable card for the public to understand their property card is very difficult. And not having
anyone in the assessor's office who can explain it, they don’t know what all those variables are. And
somehow | think when you punch in the buttons those variables are playing part of the role. The rating
of fixtures, you know I’d love to see the abating process in this city include not just sales data but
comparable in your neighborhood. Because you are going to find when you use comparable in your
neighborhood — my husband and | looked at comparable in our neighborhood that fly under the radar,
very comparable to our house. But they have just never been brought up; well when we compare
ourselves we are, the price of our home would be around $500,000.00 to $510,000.00 on the rating
with equal houses in our neighborhood. And | mean really good comparisons, if | use sales data I’m
going to come in closer to $570 or $580. And probably with a dispute in abating trying to make it
higher, that’s a big difference, $70,000.00 at $21.00 is $1,400.00 a year plus the increase you get in
your taxes over 5 years, I’m talking $8,000.00, $9,000.00 difference potentially that I’m going to be
paying because | bought the house 5 years ago and was sales adjusted. And the house that is sitting
there for 15 years our 20 years has pulled permits, stayed low, not captured, is down in the mud. They
can’t catch up to me and | can’t down to them, | can’t get there, that’s the problem. And that is what
frustrates the public, | think.

We just really need to do a better job and | think there has been a real lack of transparency. It has
been a really grueling process. The other thing | want to let you know, you shouldn’t have to come
forward with an issue and have your reputation suffer so much as much as my husband’s and my
reputation suffered. VWWhen we addressed these issues and put our package together for KRT we
always took the position that we wanted our valuation lowered to meet the expectations of our
neighbors. We used comparable in our neighborhood. We never requested that you raise people’s
assessments; we requested that we just be brought in line with our neighborhood. Unknown to me
when KRT decided to do a second and a third view of Berkeley Street, Berkley Street got reviewed 3
times. We were not aware of that and it was only Berkeley Street that took this second and third view.
A handful of homes, I’m going to say 10 properties were changed, 6 were raised again, some of them
pretty high. Steve had mentioned to me when | spoke to him that he had fully expected people to be

Board of Aldermen 11-13-2018 Page 18

calling him pretty upset. One of the homes went up an additional $200,000.00. When the letter came
out to the homeowners the second round, who none of them knew this was happening, there wasn’t
much of an explanation on why this happened. What do you mean. And they, of course, were no
longer to meet with KRT the process was done. You are in abating now. Some of them never went
forward because they didn’t have a problem and then all of a sudden the second round, their
assessments went up 15%. So that had no avenue and people were upset and | really believe that the
City would hang that on me.

| said to two of my friends, call into the assessor’s office ask them what happened and they were going
to call anyway. | said, “please find out what happened, ask them what happened”. And the message
that was given was someone on your street complained, and these assessments were raised. And |
was in the house of one of the people when the call was made and | just think that it is really
unacceptable for your assessing office to have that script for any of their staff to use. It shows me how
unwilling they are to accept responsibility for what is going on in there. You hang it on the public
instead of saying “Hey, we’ve got some issues over here, we’ve had some valuations get of whack,
we’ve made some mistakes and we are trying to correct them’.

My husband and | took a blasting call at 10:00 at night from a neighbor over that phone call. And | just
feel that that wasn’t handled correct and I’ve seen that happen to us before. So | think we can work on
how we treat people who come forward with a concern. It just shouldn’t torch your reputation. Thank
you.

REMARKS BY THE MEMBERS OF THE BOARD OF ALDERMEN

Alderman O’Brien

Thank you, Madam President. | just want to say | thank my good friend and colleague Alderman Dowd,
your words on Brian really echoed the way that | feel too. | lost a very good friend as we all did, a
mentor, I’ve known Brian for many years; his lovely wife Gloria, his kids and you know it is just such a
shock to us all but | do feel a hole in the heart and I'll miss a friend. | really thank the time that | had
that he was here and the special things that he did for me to help me along. | consider it an honor to
have known him.

The second thing is on the city elections, | like to compliment the City Clerk for a fine job. To all the
candidates that those that were standing with me in the pouring rain holding totems, and I’d really like to
thank the voters. It was pouring out and you got out the vote and it was one of the better turnouts in the
City history. Thank you, you showed that the process really works and that is key.

The third is | would like to congratulate you Madam President on your election Board President. As
your Vice President, | promise that | will try to do everything that | can to assist you in this endeavor and
| promise that before the Board. And | thank the Board for their support in electing me to this position.
Thank you very much.

Alderman Gidge

Yes | knew Brian for a long time and he was always the person that was playing not bridge but large
games where he could see everybody and what was going on. It is quite interesting, | was wondering
to myself, I’m saying I’ve got to know more of what is happening across over there, they should know
what is happening here because that is what Brian did. If we don’t pick that up something is going to be
missing. And also, my wife and myself obviously to his family it is awful really and I’m sorry.

To the individual the clerk who awful times during these elections especially this one it broke a record, it
was history and again standing and the people working at the elections, | mean come on, it was
unbelievable, in rain! I've never seen so many younger women with children coming in. | have never
seen that before.

City of Nashua, New Hampshire

Uncompleted Project Status Report

FY2016
Division:
Department:

Public Works

Engineering/Parks & Recreation/Street/Solid Waste/Wastewater

Per NRO 5-134-c, the Financial Services Division shall report to the Board of Aldermen the status of all uncompleted projects.

“Project type” as defined by the ordinance is any one of the following:

(1) An endeavor requiring expenditure in excess of $50,000
(2) The purchase, construction, replacement or rehabilitation of any physical facility, including but not limited to, roads, buildings,
bridges, and sewerage, with an anticipated life in excess of ten (10) years
(3) The acquisition of tangible personal property with an anticipated life in excess of ten (10) years
(4) The acquisition of land or any interest in land
(5) Surveys or studies relative to the aforementioned categories
6) Contractual services provided to the city”

Funding Required
Project Accounting Unit Activity # Account Budget Funds Percent to Complete
Project Name Type Brief Description of Project ‘Account (if applicable) Name Source of Funding _ Amount Funds Expended | _Encumbered Complete Project
Headworks Project (2) |Headworks Project 69.6200.950 2033 Design Headworks State Revolving Loan Funds 3,800,000 323,269 3,181,853 9% 294,878
Project
Scum & Tank Drain Upgrade @) [Scum & Tank Drain Upgrade 69.6200.975 2034 Scum & Tank Drain ‘Wastewater Equipment 645,302 556,665 65,730 86%, 22,907
Upgrade Replacement Fund
Pump Station Upgrade (2) ‘}Pump Stations Upgrade 69.6200.975 2035 Pump Stations Upgrade |Wastewater Equipment 1,750,000 159,556 15,121 9% 1,575,323
Replacement Fund
Security Equipment at WW (2) {Security Equipment 69.6200.950 2036 Security Equipment State/Federal Grant Funds 94,500 - $2,532 0% 11,968
Amherst St Traffic (2) JAmberst Street Traffic Improvements 60.5200 2050 Amherst St Traffic General Obligation Bonds 1,004,000 8,644 1,012 1% 1,570,963
Improvements Improvements
Other - Contribution 507,000
Trust/Reserve Funds 69,619
Soil Wall (2) |Landfill soil wall construction 68.6000.950 2400 Landfill Soil Wall Solid Waste Appropriation 682,445 411,617 114,935 60% 158,893
Transfer from General Fund
Landfill Gas Expansion (2) Expansion of the landfill gas collection 68.6000.950 2401 Landfill Gas Expansion {Solid Waste Appropriation 428,120 392,572 - 92%) 35,548
system General Fund Appropriation
LED Lighting (2) |LED Street Lighting 60.5200 2051 LED Street Lighting General Obligation Bonds 2,200,000 - - 0%' 2,200,000
Labine - Legacy Park (2) [Park and Playground Equipment Labine 77.5150 2057 Park and Playground Contribution 155,000 - 0%! 245,336
Legacy Park Equipment Labine
Leeacv Park
General Fund Appropriation and 55,000
Escrow
Federal Grant Funds 50,952
Trust/Reserve Funds 35,336

Page 10

Board of Aldermen 11-13-2018 Page 19

And then families coming in, | was shocked at how many people came in during the pouring rain. So
we all should be happy about that and again, to Brian’s family, we are awfully sorry, our family is.

Alderman Harriott-Gathright

| too am thankful for everything that Mike and Ken said but | want to say thank you Patricia. We did
have some conversations a little bit at the polls, but thank you for your concern. And to Brian’s family,
you have our deepest sympathy. And to all the aldermen that are sitting here that have been with him a
lot longer than | have been, but | too want to say he was a mentor to all of us, even the newbies,
because whenever you asked him something, he gave you so much history and he would give you both
sides of the coin. That's what | appreciated about Brian, so he truly will be missed.

Alderman Dowd

I’d like to thank Trish and all her people. | had an opportunity to visit three of the Wards in the pouring
rain and all of them were handling huge crowds and did a fantastic job. I’ve never seen so many
people at Ward 2, | wanted to ask some of them where were you in the last election. But | think we had
over 50% of the registered voters. So that’s great, but where were the other 50%. | hope that some
day we can see 75% and | figure that’s about as high as we will ever get. But for everybody that got out
to vote, thank you for voting in the pouring rain. | think that it ran as smoothly as possible, except for
one ward maybe. So thank you Trish.

Alderman Klee

Thank you, Madam President. | want to start off by giving my condolences to Brian’s family and to all of
you who served so long with him. Brian McCarthy’s name is truly, truly synonymous with the City of
Nashua and | keep saying to people over and over again, his fingerprints are all over. I’m sorry. | just
keep thinking over and over again, we’ll never hear him hit that gavel again, but as hard as it is for us,
his family is going to suffer over the next couple of months, the holidays coming. | really wish them well
and | know people like Alderman Dowd and Alderman O’Brien and Alderman Wilshire and so on, all of
you who have known the family for so long will be there to help support them. They are lucky to have
you as we were to have him.

As far as the election is concerned, | want to thank all of those people that came out in the rain and for
someone who stood there for 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. with just a couple of breaks, yes it was wet and it
was amazing to see how many people did bring young children. | kept making jokes teach them young,
maybe we will get to the 75% based on the number of young people that we saw coming. I’d like to
thank Trisha Piecuch for all that the City Clerk did and everybody that was there. | left that gym just a
little bit before 1:00 a.m. It was a very long day and everybody did everything they could with the
machine that kept breaking down, you kept coming in and took the wings off or some sort just to help
get through. There were a lot of people that were complaining that they didn’t think their vote was going
to count. | kept reassuring them with our City Clerk and everybody there, their vote would count, their
vote did count. | told them if they had issues they could contact your office in the morning. | hope you
didn’t have too many complaints.

As far as the elderly tax exemption and so on | feel strongly that the City will do the right thing by it. And
the Veteran’s Tax Credit, | believe we are already at the max as far as that is concerned and that falls
under the State to set that maximum. So | believe that our City does everything that it can for the
elderly, the disabled, the blind and the veterans. But we also have to remember that every time we do
all these wonderful things for these groups, there is another group that has to take on that burden. And
I’ve gotten calls from that group and they are understanding but they still feel that we have the opposite
effect, that they are scaring away for our young. But | still believe that we will do the right thing here in
the City.

Board of Aldermen 11-13-2018 Page 20
Alderman Laws

| just wanted to thank Trish again, she is amazing. And | want to echo kind of the sentiment here; it is
an amazing thing that so many people went out and voted — 50%, we can obviously do a lot better. But
| just wanted to throw a joyful high five to every person who registered to vote for the first time and
made it out to the polls. It is a beautiful thing and this only works if people participate. So thank you.

Alderman Lopez

So when you put the dollar in the vending machine and it keeps coming back out, that is really
frustrating. So doing that several thousand times is what the ballot workers went through. So if you are
listening, Blue Wave, if you guys can fix the ballot machines.

| also wanted to remark on the passing on another leader in our communities, Frank Chimento the
coach at the PAL Gym passed away this week too. While he was definitely a lower key leader as
compared to Alderman McCarthy, he touched a lot of lives, he trained a lot of boxers. He turned a lot of
people around who were trying to express themselves physically and just needed a way to do it
positively and in a way that was empowering and that’s what boxing is in a lot of communities. That’s
what it is on Ash Street and for the PAL community. Frank was the guy, he was the guy who oversaw
and coached and he made sure everybody signed in. For me personally it was nightmare, because |
did boxing for about a summer because | was trying to train for my blackbelt and | figured | would get a
little leg up. It turns out that running marathons is fine, training for your black belt is fine, boxing is
where | had to draw the line. So Frank is tough, he was always energetic, he was always positive, he
was the nicest guy I’ve ever met. I’ve never seen him angry, but I’ve never tried to push those buttons.
He will be very much missed. His service will be this Friday.

Then | wanted to express gratitude to Alderman McCarthy for his leadership, because they say leaders
create leaders not followers. | think that is what he did. He took it very seriously, his role as a mentor,
and | think a lot of us have been touched by that and have been encouraged by it. So | would
encourage everybody as Alderman Gidge did, do the research, learn the Mason’s Rules and the
Robert’s Rules so you can compare the two. Learn the City history, read your packets, get involved
and inspire others and don’t just come in and attend the meetings. Prepare for them, learn about them
and be part of it and | think that is the best way we can continue Brian’s legacy. So thank you Brian.

And then in Thanksgiving | just wanted to announce that the Boys & Girls Club Thanksgiving Dinner is
going to be tomorrow night at 8:00. Then the Harbor Homes Thanksgiving is going to be next Tuesday,
all are welcome.

Alderman Caron

| took would like to give my condolences to the McCarthy family. | not only knew Brian in the circle but
as an employee of the City and he was very giving timewise, especially when we were putting together
the Stellar Stadium Complex. So we can take a little lesson from him too to use civility in this chamber.
It works, compromise works, and Brian will be greatly missed.

The other thing is the election not only Trisha but the whole staff, the moderators, and Selectmen and
all those people that work at the polls from 6:00 in the morning until way past closing time, they deserve
a lot of congratulations. | know that in Ward 7, because of the problems they were having with the
yellow sheet voting sheet, they decided to throw them in the box and then put them through the
machine later so that they weren’t jamming up. | know that they had just called your office and you were
off somewhere else dealing with another machine. We need better paper | guess.

The other thing is if you have not been to the Senior Outing, like | have, it is a wonderful thing. We
have a lot of fun, we are going to the Marriott for the first time. | will give you a history, when we started
this we were at Alpine Grove and we would 600 people there. Now we have about 300 to 400, we give

Board of Aldermen 11-13-2018 Page 21

a lot of gifts away. We have entertainment and we have a lot of fun in probably 45 years. So thank you,
and | was 5.

And then finally | wish you all a Happy Blessed Thanksgiving and next week hug all your family and
give them a lot of love.

Alderwoman Kelly

Thank you | just wanted to thank everyone in the community that came to the Soup Kitchen Auction.
There was a great turnout, | Know the Mayor was there, Alderman Tencza was there and it was really
just a wonderful success for the Soup Kitchen. It is on my mind too coming up on Thanksgiving so
making sure that people in our community are food secure is no small task.

| wanted to thank you Alderman Wilshire for stepping into this role of leadership and you as well
Alderman O’Brien and won't belabor but | do want to say thank you so much to Trisha, it was an
incredible day. | went to every Ward and | saw that things were going smoothly. | appreciate that.

| don’t think | can add too much more to what has been said about Brian. He was an incredible leader,
he was an incredible asset to our community. | know that as a new Board Member | learned a lot from
him in a very little time. So it is a big loss.

Alderman Jette

| too want to acknowledge the passing of Brian McCarthy. He was a resident of Ward 5, longtime
Alderman of Ward 5 and Alderman-at-Large for a much longer time. He was very helpful to me when |
came on the Board although he never forgave me for voting against the Performing Arts Center; didn’t
seem to understand my explanation that | had promised that | would vote the way the Ward voted. The
Ward voted against it so that’s the way | voted. He seemed to think that his vote should have been
more persuasive than the rest of the Ward, but he will certainly be missed.

| do want to congratulate Ward 5 for a 58% turnout, second to only Ward 1. | want to congratulate the
new Ward 5 representative, Dan Toomey, Mike Peterson, Allison Nutting Wong and our new Senator
Melanie Levesque, hopefully they will represent the City of Nashua better than the people they
replaced.

| do want to mention | understand what the Mayor said about the DRA’s review of the Assessing
Department. But! think Ms. Ortolano has brought up some serious issues that deserves answers and |
think that, hopefully, our assessing department and the Mayor will look at those issues and come up
with a better way of doing things to improve that department. | Know that we are the beginning of
investigating these things, if there are problems, | hope that the City will be responsive in resolving
them. If there are not problems, then | think that we ought to be able to explain that and satisfy her
concerns.

Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja

Again, as | said Brian’s loss is a loss for the City and to many of us in many different ways. | think as
has been stated, the best thing we can do is to continue to carry on and you will vote to support
Performing Arts Center legislation, right.

Just to further comment on the passing of the boxing coach at PAL, | know some of you knew Frank.
Frank was honored at one time at one of the PAL dinners. | first met Frank | was just thinking about
this like 14 or 15 years ago and he was up supervising a couple of police officers drawing electric lines
through the ceiling of what is now the PAL gym. He oversaw the updating of the PAL Gym and if you
haven't been there, it is an amazing facility wnere many young men and women in our community go to
box recreationally and some of them very seriously. Under Frank’s guidance we’ve had Silver Glove

Board of Aldermen 11-13-2018 Page 22

winners. We have had some amazing boxers come out of Nashua because of the coaching Frank has
provided them.

With the regard to Fire Commission it is always nice when something comes in under budget and we
can re-appropriate that money so thank you to them for their management of the Spit Brook Road
Station and congratulations to Kevin Burgess on his being appointed to the Board. Thank you.

Alderman Tencza

Thank you, Madam President, and | am happy to say and to Mr. Vice President, congratulations to both
of you. | think we are all looking forward to continuing the good work that we have started here in this
term of the Board of Aldermen. Thank you to Madam Clerk and her staff, all the election staff, it is a
marathon day with really little issue throughout the day. It is another testament to the City of Nashua.

And then finally | just wanted to send my condolences again to the McCarthy family. The thing | took
from the services is that Alderman McCarthy had a vision for the City and he was lucky enough in 25
years to see some of that vision coming to fruition with the High Schools, with the development of the
southwest quadrant of the City. | think we should all consider ourselves lucky that we get to attempt to
carry on some of that vision as well with the downtown and with the Performing Arts Center project that
he championed right from the beginning.

The other thing | took away from the service is that clearly he was an exceptional man because he has
an exceptional wife and an exceptional family. Anyone who was at the services knew what a
tremendous job his children did in capturing in really kind of capturing Brian’s personality and
everything that he stood for. My one concern for his son going forward is that apparently he takes
advice from Alderman Laws and no one knows where that will lead him but other than that | am sure
they will remember their dad and be well-served for the rest of their lives. Thanks.

Alderman Schmidt

Thank you, Madam President. Election day was a rollercoaster for us. We were there in the dark, it
rained, it rained some more, people came by, a lot of people came by. Ward 1 again came in number
one. Next time | think we’ll do a challenge and see if some other Ward can try to beat us, you’re not
even close. But the other thing that happened during all of these people who were coming and going is
that many people stopped by and wanted to talk about Brian. Many, many people that | did not know
they walked up to me and said, “you know he was a wonderful man, he did this for the City or he did
that for the City’ and over and over again it was just astounding the number of people that he affected
in this City. Thank you Brian, we are going to miss you deeply.

President Wilshire

| would like to share your praise for the City Clerk and all our poll workers who worked so hard last
week and turned out a great election. | don’t know what more | can say or can be said about Brian
McCarthy that you haven’t all said already. Brian was a friend he was a mentor, | loved Brian for who
he was. He was a visionary, he brought this City to places where it may not have gone. The last thing |
really can say about Brian is he left this City a better place for having been here.

Committee announcements:
Alderman Dowd

The Joint Special on the 15"" was cancelled because on the 19" we are going to be assessing the
construction managers for the new middle school project. We have three people that put in bids for
construction manager. Then later in the month, | think it is the 28" and 29", we will be reviewing the
five architects that have put in bids for the new project. One of the last things that Brian did is to review
two documents that Sunday for me, going forward in this project. One is a Guide to Safer Schools

Board of Aldermen 11-13-2018 Page 23

which he agreed with and | am going to make sure that everyone on the Board of Education and the
Board of Aldermen gets a copy of this.

The other was a document that | put together because we have a lot of new people on the Joint Special
School Building Committee that talks about how to evaluate proposals and what to look for and
formulate questions. And the members of the Joint Special will be getting that package as soon as | get
it from Ms. Lovering. Those will probably be going out tomorrow.

Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja

Ms. Lovering just informed me that December 17" is available so we will reschedule Strategic Planning
for that date. Also PEDC will be Tuesday the 20" at 7:00 p.m. This is not a committee announcement
but | forgot to extend this invitation. Paul Shea from GAD was at the last PEDC meeting and invited all

of the Aldermen to join him and walk at the beginning of the Stroll. So | will just repeat that invitation to
all of you, hopefully it will be a pleasant evening. Thank you.

Alderman Lopez

Can we have a better turnout than we did at the Veteran’s Day Parade? It was just me and Patricia and
her dogs. And the dogs were the ones everyone was cheering for. And the Mayor was there, sorry.

ADJOURNMENT

MOTION BY ALDERMAN O’BRIEN THAT THE NOVEMBER 13, 2018 MEETING OF THE BOARD
OF ALDERMEN BE ADJOURNED
MOTION CARRIED

The meeting was declared adjourned at 9:04 p.m.
Attest: Patricia D. Piecuch City Clerk

City of Nashua

Office of the Chief Financial Officer

229 Main Street - Nashua, NH 03060 (603) $89-3171
Fax (603) $89-3233

To: Mayor Jim Donchess and Members of the Board of Aldermen
From John L. Griffin, Chief Financial Officer

Date: November 13, 2018

Re: Assessing Department Information

The purpose of this communication is to provide information related to a letter you received from
Mr. and Mrs. Ortolano of 41 Berkeley Street dated October 23, 2018 Rev. 2. In my position as
Chief Financial Officer, I have administrative oversight over the Assessing Department and am
open to exploring all suggestions to provide an even more efficient and effective operation.

The Board of Assessors is empowered by the City Charter and guided by State Statutes,
Department of Revenue Administrative Rules and local legislation. This board is ultimately
responsible for all assessments in the City of Nashua and must review all applications for
abatement.

The State of New Hampshire Department of Revenue Administration (NH DRA) reviews and
monitors the City of Nashua’s Assessing Department. Their most recent review dated June 6,
2018 was very favorable as to the work produced by the Assessing Department.

Several of City staff have met with and/or have had conversations with Mrs. Ortolano including
the Mayor, Chief of Staff, Corporation Counsel, Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer/Collector,
Chief Assessor and several members of the Assessing Department. I have also been informed by
the principals of KRT Appraisal that they have spoken with Mrs. Ortolano. KRT Appraisal is the
firm retained by the City of Nashua to conduct the 2018 Revaluation.

As part of their letter, the Ortolano’s expressed the following concerns numbered 1 through 9. I
offer a response after each concern.

1. Permitted work does not appear to be consistently recorded.
Response: A review of the first four properties on Appendix 1 demonstrates that this
conclusion could be inaccurate.

12 Berkeley Street - Home never assessed ~ has stayed at an assessed value of $243.9K
for 8 years.

The property was assessed at a value of $291,900 until 2013. In 2013 the assessment was
reduced to $243,400 as part of a citywide Revaluation. Property values during this time
generally went down as a result of the recession in 2009.