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Special Board of Aldermen 12-21-2020 Page 21

Laau My name is Laau | live in New London, Connecticut | work at BBC. | just wanted to point out that |
have gone to Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun and they’ve told friends of mine that they didn’t have to wear
masks and they are not keeping the numbers down, there will be like 30 people around the roulette table.
And at BBC they are extremely strict and | think it’s really bad to punish the people that are coming to you
with honest feedback about what’s going on with their employees. | don’t know who is giving you the
numbers on Walmart or Home Depot or Target, but | know for a fact that these guys are upfront and
contacting the State as soon as they have what they consider to be a problem. And | think it is punishing
the people that are giving you honest data. Maybe there could be something else put in place to keep an
eye and monitor each place. That’s it.

President Wilshire

Thank you, very much. OK. We are going to end the Public Comment Period. New Business Ordinances?
Madam Clerk?

NEW BUSINESS — ORDINANCES

O-20-044
Endorsers: Alderman Thomas Lopez
RELATIVE TO A BAN ON CERTAIN INDOOR ACTIVITIES FOR CERTAIN BUSINESSES
STARTING AT 9:30 PM

e Anticipated referral to Board of Aldermen 12/22/20

ON THE QUESTION

President Wilshire

Do | have a motion?

Alderman Lopez

If so needed, | would make a motion to refer this to the Board of Alderman for the December 22™ meeting.

President Wilshire

So your motion is what? To recommend final passage?

Alderman Lopez

| mean typically we would have first reading and then we would refer it to a Committee so with the script we
all received was, was that | should make a motion to refer this to tomorrow's meeting.

President Wilshire
OK. Do you want to move it to the next meeting with a positive recommendation, Alderman Lopez?

Alderman Lopez

| mean if | make a motion to that nature, does that open discussion. | mean this wasn’t exactly a Public
Health Presentation, so | don’t even know what this format is.

President Wilshire

Do you have a motion Alderman Lopez?

Special Board of Aldermen 12-21-2020 Page 22

Alderman Lopez

Yeah | move to discuss.
MOTION BY ALDERMAN LOPEZ TO DISCUSS O-20-044
President Wilshire

Ok.

Alderman Lopez

I’d like to speak on the motion.
President Wilshire

You can.

Alderman Lopez

OK so | am frustrated by a lot of the feedback that | heard in the way that it indicates a lack of trust for our
Public Health Department. Our Board of Health which is not the Public Health Department, it’s two doctors
who have specialties in disease transmission and spread and then a pediatrician as well who has his own
area of expertise as well. These are medical professionals which | think have pretty good insight into this
situation. But my frustration isn’t with the people who were particularly speaking tonight, it’s more that as a
nation this is where we are at. We started this outbreak with believing that we could pray it away, or that it
would be gone by April and that it would not be a big deal even though all health professionals involved
were saying, no this is a major outbreak we need to be taking this seriously.

So there has been a lot of pushback as to the validity of the medical science and the public health
profession and whether or not they are qualified to make determinations. There’s been a lot of individuals
in the public of varying levels of expertise trying to educate themselves, trying to figure out who exactly to
listen to, what’s going on, what patterns are real. And we’ve gotten to the point where we will take what our
own Public Health Department is collecting as data in a transparent method. These are our staff members
that are paid to do this and were working double time through the summer, 7 days a week to manage this
outbreak and we are willing to dismiss them for a newspaper article that somebody searched for trying to
find a specific thing and that’s data. That’s information from now on. When the Board of Health made this
recommendation and when the doctor from the Board of Health spoke in public comment, he outlined
exactly why we were taking these steps or why we were recommended to take these steps in terms of
masks — covering your face versus masks not covering your face, social distancing behaviors associated
with drinking, that kind of stuff.

And that is not what people are choosing to address or comment on. They are instead choosing to focus
on 9:30, why that time? Which is | guess an argument you make for literally any time. Why do you open a
restaurant at a certain time, why is it after 9:30 is going to kill a restaurant? That’s not one of their reasons
for making this recommendation. When you look at the traffic coming from Massachusetts, that was an
early factor, but it is one that people have seized on as the only reason that we could possibly be doing this
while making the argument that if we put a curfew in place here in Nashua, then people will just go
elsewhere. That argument doesn’t seem to transfer over to there’s a curfew in place in Massachusetts so
obviously people from right over the border may be coming right here.

We are asked to look at all of the data that restaurants have as being accurate, more accurate than our
Public Health Department’s data that is collected, more accurate than epidemiologists. But we don’t see
that data, that’s not transparent, that’s not anything that we have access to right now. We don’t have any of
the records or the bookkeeping from any of the businesses that are saying anything from they will 100%

Special Board of Aldermen 12-21-2020 Page 23

close and get rid of all of their employees and never open again to this is going to hurt them and they are
going to have to scale back and only the single mothers are going to be the ones who hurt. We are hearing
a lot of claims that are going all over the map from one side while expecting a perfect understanding of
public health to come from another and | don’t think that’s a fair status quo. | think Public Health has made
recommendations and provided data based on those recommendations. | think as Aldermen, we’ve been
here before. If anybody has a short memory, the first time we passed the masking ordinance we had a lot
of public opposition to that too that was specifically organized to be against that. When we had to pass the
amendment to the mask ordinance, because people weren't taking it on themselves to actually do it and
restaurants were enabling that, specifically according to the complaints that we had. We still got a lot of
pushback from that. And even after we passed that ordinance the State of NH came in, just prior to
enacting its own Statewide Mask Ordinance and fined several places that they had been investigating
repeatedly that are pretty defiant and still maintaining that it is impossible to expect anybody to wear a
mask if they are standing next to an oven.

So the restaurant industry has had a learning curve as has everybody else. | don’t think they are the only
industry in the entire City of Nashua that has put considerable amounts of money and resources into
personal protective equipment. | would argue that probably nursing homes, hospitals, any human services,
our own City Hall, has also implemented extremely strict oversight. | know a lot of programs have just
straight up closed. | know that most of the year the Senior Center was closed. Hearts Peer Support has
been closed, the library has struggled. So this is something that is affecting the entire community, it’s not
just the restaurant industry. We aren’t targeting the restaurant industry because it’s a restaurant industry,
we are targeting it because it is the industry that doesn’t have to wear masks when they are doing
business. That’s how the ordinance is written specifically. Now we have, as was referenced by one of the
speakers, asked about the possibility of some places that might be able to do business while wearing
masks of a different kind such as gambling or that type of thing. And that is going to be up to the
businesses of whether they are open to it and whether they can come up with a business model for it.

If their business model says that they need to close entirely for the entire day instead of cutting three hours
off in the evening which were identified as the highest risk due to mostly drinking and not eating food at
restaurants or dining or that kind of thing then that’s unfortunate and that’s something that we do have to
look at from an economic perspective. But this is the Board of Public Health. We are being given a
recommendation for public health reasons. Our failings when it comes to economic supports and coming
up with creative ways to help businesses in the wintertime, the same way we did over the summer and our
failings at social structures and social supports, whether we are using the COVID money that was given to
our State specifically to address COVID needs, to help people keep from getting behind on their rent or not,
whether we are marketing that to people. Those are different issues. We need to be having those issues
be tackled by those Committees and with those recommendations both as an economic issue. Our Board
has a Planning & Economic Development Committee which should have been meeting to discuss this and
as a Human Affairs issue where we look at, these are extraordinary times, maybe we need to be making
sure that more people can access the supportive services we have. Personally, my job is to be an
Alderman and to focus on the City of Nashua. | know there are several state representatives here who have
that larger scope at the State level. So | am sure they can take action when they are in session, but | don’t
have any faith in the State helping us.

When they said they were going to help with extra unemployment, they immediately implemented a system
of overloading their own unemployment system and then trying to stagger out the number of people who
could apply for it based on the last letter of their name and other witchcraft. Most people didn’t even get the
benefits that they were entitled to and just gave up. But those are the systems that should be in place and
that’s where we should be applying our effort if we are going to be looking at a statewide approach. With
regards to a statewide mandate, | mean the data in Nashua and our Public Health Department is
recommending we do that here. | don’t know what is happening at the State level, but | do know that the
logic of saying, well one City shouldn’t do anything because the state isn’t doing anything is the same that
the state of Massachusetts faces, why should Massachusetts put a curfew in when the entire country isn’t
doing that?

Special Board of Aldermen 12-21-2020 Page 24

There is a point where politicians have to take leadership and they have to start separating out what their
responsibilities are in terms of obligations to people’s lives. | don’t want to ruin somebody’s life by having
them lose their job. But! don’t want to ruin somebody’s life by enabling a scenario where they lose their
life. A lot of the places that are most vulnerable and are suffering the highest casualties from COVID-19
aren't getting them by their own activity. People from long term facilities aren’t going out and partying like
crazy, it is the staff and the people who are delivering things and the people who interact with that
themselves that are doing it.

So I'd love to believe the public saying, well why don’t you give us a chance why don’t you start working
with us, at this point we understand what is going on, we should stop. That is not what I’ve seen, that’s not
the trend that’s been happening. We have been talking about this micro issue particularly since
Thanksgiving and the numbers have not gone down. There’s been plenty of visibility all of the restaurants
have been involved in this conversation that are here tonight and we haven’t seen a reduction of
transmission. I’m sure the Board of Health would have liked to be off the hook for that and I’m sure the
hospitals that are treating people right now in their ICU’s and the staff that are also working right now would
love to have less people to treat so that they could go on making money on actually lucrative things like
elective surgeries and that kind of thing.

This is a pandemic which is affecting all areas of business, all areas of the community and we can’t expect
only one sector of it to shoulder the burden. And while that’s true of the restaurant industry it’s also true to
the health industry as well. We can’t expect doctors to treat people who are intentionally taking more risk
than is necessary and we can’t facilitate that behavior either.

Unidentified Speakers Talk about your script. Yeah what’s up with the script?

Tom Lopez

Well the script does say that Public Comment is over to start with, but we were all given scripts where
different assignments are made for who is going to make motions and who is not. So as the Liaison for the
Board of Health, | am the one who made the motion for bringing this up for discussion.

Unidentified Speaker Are you going to work tomorrow?
President Wilshire

Alderman Clemons?

Alderman Clemons

Thank you President Wilshire, | appreciate it and | want to thank everybody that came tonight to speak. It’s
a rare occasion when 115 people, actually at one point | think we were at 125 people come to address the
Board of Aldermen. That’s a very rare and unique occasion and I’ve witnessed it maybe — on my 10 years
or so that I’ve been on the Board and off, I’ve witnessed it maybe 3 or 4 times. So | want to thank
everybody for coming and speaking this evening. | think what we have here is a problem that really is a
Federal problem that hopefully they are getting close to some kind of an agreement in Congress but it is,
from what | can tell, extremely short on its, on the wants and needs for people and | don’t think that it is
going to deliver the same kind of results that we had this past spring, which was we had extra
unemployment benefits, we had the $1,200.00 cash benefit, we had moratoriums on evictions.

When we closed down and the State shut down at the beginning in April, there was protections in place to
help people who were struggling and to help people who were hurt by the shutdowns. And even then, we
saw a lot of our friends in the restaurant business close right here in Nashua, throughout the State,
throughout the Country, because they couldn't survive being shut down without knowing when the next
paycheck was coming. And | understand what has been said this evening, | understand the hardworking
people who are here, who are trying to make a living. We need, in my opinion, | am going to support them

Special Board of Aldermen 12-21-2020 Page 25

this evening. Essentially we have businesses such as Boston Billiards who is well represented here tonight
but also some of the other restaurants, Liu Lui, the Flight Center, Stella Blu there is more. These places are
responsible, they play by the rules, they listen to the guidelines that come down from the Governor. They
listen to our ordinances, they enforce our ordinances, they make sure that they are taking extra
precautions, to make that people are healthy, to make sure that their patrons are abiding by these laws as
well. If the Board of Health thought that there was a problem and that there were individual restaurants
where there was a problem, | didn’t see that come out.

But | would think that if there was these places where there was COVID hot spots in restaurants because
there were places where people weren't following the rules after 9:30, that those should be identified and
that those folks should be paid a visit by our Nashua Police Department and have them cited for not
following the health codes. But! don’t believe that that came out of the meeting. Furthermore and
probably more disturbing than anything else is that | would venture to guess that the biggest offenders of
not following social distancing rules and not abiding by the mask ordinance and things like that are places
that close before 9:00 and before 9:30.

I’ve been to some of them, I’ve seen that, | don’t go back. | walked into a couple places here in Nashua
and | don’t Know what’s happened, I’ve put in my reports, but as far as | know, | didn’t get any follow-up |
don’t know if they've been spoken to or what has happened. | am not going to name names but these were
places that | went into well before 9:00 at night, never mind 9:30 and as far as | am concerned this does not
address the true issue and the true issue to me is making sure that people are abiding by the laws that both
this Board puts into place and also the Governor has enacted an order to keep us safe in restaurants. So
with all of that being said, | have no intention of supporting a curfew, instead | am going to support the hard
working men and women of Nashua in the restaurant industry. Thank you.

President Wilshire

Thank you. Next | have Alderman Harriott-Gathright.

Alderman Harriott-Gathright

My question is actually to whoever is representing Corporate Counsel through you our Chair, our President,
| think | am a little confused as to what’s happening right now, because | thought this was something we
were moving to the next day. So it looks like now we are going to end up voting on this tonight, is that
correct?

President Wilshire

Alderman Gathright, tonight we were here to listen to the public and here to decide whether to pass this
ordinance or not and send it on the Full Board tomorrow night for a final vote.

Alderman Harriott-Gathright

Ok | guess | am struggling with that because we have the Full Board here tonight, so we are voting rather
to take it to the Full Board and do this again tomorrow. So if that’s the case, then | am going to ask to move
the question.

MOTION BY ALDERMAN HARRIOTT-GATHRIGHT TO MOVE THE QUESTION BY ROLL CALL

ON THE QUESTION

Unidentified Person Interrupts Vote

O-16-004

Endorsers: Alderman Benjamin Clemons
Alderman-at-Large Michael B. O’Brien, Sr.
Alderman Tom Lopez
Alderman Richard A. Dowd
Alderman-at-Large Brian S. McCarthy

EXTENDING HOURS OF SALE OF ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES BY ON-PREMISES LICENSEES

e Personnel/Administrative Affairs Committee Recommends: Indefinite Postponement

NEW BUSINESS — RESOLUTIONS

R-16-020
Endorser: Mayor Jim Donchess
AUTHORIZING AN AGREEMENT TO RESTRUCTURE THE DEBT OF CLOCKTOWER HOUSING
ASSOCIATES LIMITED PARTNERSHIP

R-16-021
Endorser: Alderman Richard A. Dowd
APPROVING THE COST ITEMS OF A COLLECTIVE BARGAINING AGREEMENT BETWEEN
THE NASHUA BOARD OF EDUCATION AND THE NASHUA ASSOCIATION OF SCHOOL
PRINCIPALS FROM JULY 1, 2015 THROUGH JUNE 30, 2018

R-16-022
Endorsers: Alderman June M. Caron
Alderman Don LeBrun
AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO APPLY FOR AND EXPEND THE COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
BLOCK GRANT (“CDBG”) AND HOME INVESTMENT PARTNERSHIP PROGRAM GRANT FOR
FISCAL YEAR 2017

R-16-023
Endorsers: Mayor Jim Donchess
Alderman-at-Large Lori Wilshire
RELATIVE TO THE ACCEPTANCE AND APPROPRIATION OF $28,600 FROM THE NEW
HAMPSHIRE HIGHWAY SAFETY AGENCY INTO POLICE GRANT ACTIVITY “FY16 SUSTAINED
TRAFFIC ENFORCEMENT PROGRAM (STEP)”

NEW BUSINESS — ORDINANCES

PERIOD FOR GENERAL PUBLIC COMMENT

REMARKS BY THE MEMBERS OF THE BOARD OF ALDERMEN
Committee announcements:

ADJOURNMENT

Special Board of Aldermen 12-21-2020 Page 26
President Wilshire

Frankie, if you don’t stop interrupting like that we are going to disconnect you. Ok on the motion to move
the question, would the Clerk please call the roll?

Alderman Clemons

Parliamentary inquiry?

President Wilshire

Alderman Clemons?

Alderman Clemons

Refresh my memory on what the vote or what the motion was, please?
President Wilshire

There was no motion.

Alderman Lopez

Yeah | made a motion to open for discussion so we would have to make a motion to refer it to the Board of
Aldermen.

Alderman Harriott-Gathright

The motion that he put before us was for discussion.

President Wilshire

Correct.

Alderman Harriott-Gathright

And we all know that when it comes to the Board there’s discussion, so | ask to move the question.
Alderman Clemons

Ok but I’m not sure what ...

Alderman Lopez

You have to make another motion to move it to tomorrow if you want to have the conversation tomorrow
Linda, which you could do.

Special Board of Aldermen 12-21-2020 Page 27

President Wilshire

The motion is to move the question, would the clerk please call the roll?
A viva voce roll call was taken which resulted as follows:

Yea:

Nay: Alderman O’Brien, Alderman Klee, Alderwoman Kelly, Alderman Dowd,
Alderman Caron, Alderman Clemons, ...

Alderman Lopez

Abstain.
President Wilshire
On what grounds are you abstaining Alderman Lopez.

Alderman Lopez

| still don’t understand, the question | think that Alderman Gathright is trying to do is have us discuss this
tomorrow night. But the only motion | made was to have the conversation we are having.

President Wilshire
You can’t abstain if you are here and you don’t a conflict Alderman Lopez.

Alderman Lopez

| am not saying | have a conflict | am saying | don’t answer the question so | would prefer not to vote yea or
nay.

President Wilshire

The motion was to move the question.

Alderman Lopez

Madam President, what is the question that we are moving?
President Wilshire

She wants to end debate.

Alderman Lopez

Ok, | am ok with that, then, yes.

(Roll Call Continues)

Special Board of Aldermen 12-21-2020 Page 28
A viva voce roll call was taken which resulted as follows:
Yea: Alderman Lopez, Alderman Harriott-Gathright 2
Nay: Alderman O’Brien, Alderman Klee, Alderwoman Kelly, Alderman Dowd,

Alderman Caron, Alderman Clemons, Alderman Tencza, Alderman Jette,

Alderman Schmidt, Alderman Laws, Alderman Cleaver, Alderman Wilshire

Alderwoman Lu 13

President Wilshire
And we do have Alderman Lu with us.
Alderwoman Lu
Thank you Madam Chairman. My vote is no.
MOTION FAILED
President Wilshire
So that motion fails. Could | get a motion on the Ordinance? Alderman Clemons.
Alderman Clemons
| am going to move to recommend indefinite postponement.
MOTION BY ALDERMAN CLEMONS FOR INDEFINITE POSTPONEMENT BY ROLL CALL
ON THE QUESTION
President Wilshire
Alderman Gathright?
Alderman Harriott-Gathright
Ok, what | was trying to get to and | think wasn’t getting accomplished was the fact that if we are going to
discuss it tonight, then will we be able to vote on this tonight, rather than push it to the Board of Aldermen
tomorrow because every last one of us are here tonight. As | remember the rules, if we do that tonight it
doesn’t have to go to tomorrow. And | don’t have a problem with the conversation, but | have a problem if
we are going to have a 2 hour conversation tonight and then go into it the next day with the same rhetoric,
that’s the essence of it.
President Wilshire
Attorney Clarke?
Alderman Harriott-Gathright

That was my question.

Special Board of Aldermen 12-21-2020 Page 29
President Wilshire

OK | am going to try to clarify that for you Alderman Gathright. Attorney Clarke? This is a Special Board of
Aldermen Meeting, there’s no reason we can’t make a motion for final passage this evening?

Dorothy Clarke, Deputy Corporate Counsel

Yes, that is correct, you can have a final vote tonight.
President Wilshire

OK. Thank you.

Alderman Harriott-Gathright

I’m good.

President Wilshire

Thank you Alderman Gathright.

Alderman Harriott-Gathright

Ben can you pull yours out so we can continue?
President Wilshire

Alderman Clemons?

Alderman Clemons

Well | am going to amend my motion, instead of recommend Indefinite Postponement, | am going to make a
motion to move for Indefinite Postponement and settle this this evening. Thank you.

MOTION BY ALDERMAN CLEMONS TO AMEND HIS MOTION TO MOVE FOR INDEFINITE
POSTPONEMENT AND VOTE ON THE ORDINANCE AT THIS SPECIAL BOARD OF ALDERMEN
MEETING

ON THE QUESTION

President Wilshire

Ok.

Alderman Harriot-Gathright

Thank you.
President Wilshire

Ok, we can do that. Thank you. Alderwoman Kelly.