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Special Board of Aldermen 07-01-2021 Page 23

have lost lives? Luckily those on Concord Street were not home at the time so there were no lost lives. But
there were houses that were houses that were right next to it. And | shudder to think of what would have
happened (inaudible — audio interference) the homes on Concord Street are basically wood-based and they
go up like a matchbox. And we have a lot of old homes as Alderman Lopez had brought up throughout our
entire City that are made of just wood base and so again | came with the idea that nope, we are not going to
do this. | was of the same mindset that Alderman Jette was. We are not going to increase this and listening
to the others speak and so on, | think we do need to give them the $418,000.00. So thank you.

President Wilshire
Alderman Schmidt?
Alderman Schmidt

Thank you Madam President. The economy is cyclical. There are times when you really have to tighten
your belt and everybody suffers. There were, what 10 years ago, 2010 — the State also decided to tighten
belts and hurt the City. And we had to tighten our belts. | wasn’t part of this Chamber at that time but | still
remember it. | don’t think this is the time to tighten the belt of the Fire or the Police, | really don’t. | think that
they are the boots on the ground, they are the people who save lives, they are the ones that show up every
single time. And if somebody has to wait an extra 10 minutes to get their registration done on their car so
be it, we can live with that for a little while. But we cannot have somebody with a heart attack waiting 10
minutes, that’s just not the City we are. We have to be proud of the service we receive and | personally am.

Also | don’t think there’s any fat in any of these budgets. We see to the penny where they plan on
spending. We see to the penny what the State is demanding from us, what the requirements are that we
have to live within. And there’s no question in my mind that there is nothing that we can really cut without
hurting ourselves. Now the study that was done on the Fire Department really surprised me in a couple of
ways. Now we know that there’s buildings in tough shape for the Fire Department, we know they need
updating. We know there’s many things that we could do to improve — something that really surprised me
was the morale, | remember that being an issue. And it is easy to see why it is hard for the Police or Fire to
feel that they are not important in the City. It’s very easy when you sit and you listen to people say well you
can cut out another $200,000.00 without really hurting anything. It’s not the truth, you can’t. This is
important money for important service.

And | really feel that taking this money out away from you is an embarrassment to the City if we do that. |

really feel that very strongly about it. And frankly, | pay taxes here too so | am not interested in raising my
taxes any more than anybody else is. But | am really grateful that you are here and listening to this. And

thank you very much. Thank you.

President Wilshire
Alderman Dowd?
Alderman Dowd

Just two quick things. One there are a number of things that the Fire Department could have asked for,
especially as a result of that report. They are not asking for us to build another station right now anyway
which would add at least one fire company; and now we are talking about cutting one? And the number of
developments that have gone on in this past year and are continuing to go on, with the same number of
people they’ve had, unless we cut their budget and they have less people. You know, we have got a new
high rise going on School Street. On West Hollis Street we have that wooden condo structure, the Hangar
Building is being renovated and that’s a whole building. And | don’t know how many new houses have been
built. | Know when | was still in real estate | sold a bunch of them. And there are a lot of them, | wouldn't
venture to guess — it’s in the 100’s — in the last year. And more importantly, we are building a 4-story new

Special Board of Aldermen 07-01-2021 Page 24

school down south, | want a fire truck there if we have a problem. Now granted, we are going to build it so it
is anti-fire, but you never know.

Alderman Lopez

Especially if it doesn’t have a road.
Alderman Dowd

That would be difficult.

President Wilshire

All set Alderman Dowd?
Alderman Dowd

Yes.

President Wilshire

Alderman Tencza?

Alderman Tencza

Thank you Madam President. Again just briefly, | think that the difference in the money restored by the
Budget Committee in the Mayor’s Budget is really minimal to include it for the Fire Department. | just also
wanted to point out similar to what Alderman Schmidt was saying, | think we should look at this a little
differently and be proud of the money we are funding for these Departments. Again, Police and Fire are a
source of pride for the Board of Aldermen, the City; certainly we tout all of their accomplishments and
everything they have done over the last — throughout their histories. And so again it is a good investment.

But | know that there were some concerns about how their budgets have increased over the last 6 years. |
went back and | looked at the numbers and if you take out the fringe benefits which the Departments really
have no control over and you look back at the Fire Department’s budget over the last 10 years, yes it has
increased over the last 5 or 6 years, but over the last 10 years it has only increased at a pace of 1.5% per
year. So again, | think we should be proud that we are making the decisions to kind of restore their budget
to where it should be or it should have been all of the last years and | hope that going forward, | think that
the Fire Department, as a liaison, | can say that | think that they know that going forward their budget and
these increases are not always going to be able to be what we have been — the 3% and 4% that we have
been able to give in the last several years. But really what we have been doing is playing catch up for the 4
years previous when their budget only went up about 1.0% a year. So again | hope that we can support this
and keep the firefighters on the road and in their fire houses. Thanks.

President Wilshire

Thank you. Alderman Cleaver?

Alderman Cleaver

Thank you Madam President. | am very impressed with the Budget Committee’s work with all the
Departments and their work and | think we have done extremely well, especially Fire and Police. And | think

we have the duty to pass this budget as is, without any cuts. Itis already bare bones if you will and | think it
is outstanding as it is, and we are very fortunate that we have been able to get it under control and keep it

Special Board of Aldermen 07-01-2021 Page 25

as low as it is. So | am in favor of the budget as is, very strongly in favor of no cuts and passing our budget
as it has been prepared. Thank you very much.

President Wilshire

Thank you. Anyone else? The motion is to reduce the Fire Department Line 90120 by $418,771.00.
Seeing no further discussion, would the Clerk please call the roll?

A viva voce roll call was taken which resulted as follows:
Yea: Alderman Jette 1
Nay: Alderman O’Brien, Alderman Klee, Alderman Dowd,

Alderman Caron, Alderman Lopez, Alderman Tencza,

Alderman Schmidt, Alderman Cleaver,

Alderman Harriott-Gathright, Alderman Wilshire

10

MOTION FAILED
President Wilshire

Are there any further motions on the budget? OK the motion before us is to amend by adopting Resolution
21-142.

Alderman Dowd

To the golden rod copy.

President Wilshire

The golden rod copy, yes — by Roll Call. Would the Clerk please call the roll?
Alderman Klee

Just one clarification, I’m sorry. We are approving the $368,438 ,438.00 for the General Fund Appropriation
and the $142,390,499.00 to the General Fund Revenues, correct?

Alderman Dowd
Yes.
A viva voce roll call was taken which resulted as follows:
Yea: Alderman O’Brien, Alderman Klee, Alderman Dowd,

Alderman Caron, Alderman Lopez, Alderman Tencza,

Alderman Jette, Alderman Schmidt, Alderman Cleaver,

Alderman Harriott-Gathright, Alderman Wilshire

11

Nay:
MOTION CARRIED

Alderman Dowd

Madam President, | think we are ready for the final reading on R-21-142.

Special Board of Aldermen 07-01-2021 Page 26

President Wilshire
Yes, | am.
UNFINISHED BUSINESS — RESOLUTIONS

R-21-142
Endorsers: Mayor Jim Donchess
Alderman Linda Harriott-Gathright
RELATIVE TO THE ADOPTION OF THE FISCAL YEAR 2022 PROPOSED BUDGET FOR THE
CITY OF NASHUA GENERAL, ENTERPRISE, AND SPECIAL REVENUE FUNDS
Given its second reading;

A viva voce roll call was taken which resulted as follows:

Yea: Alderman O’Brien, Alderman Klee, Alderman Dowd,
Alderman Caron, Alderman Lopez, Alderman Tencza,
Alderman Jette, Alderman Schmidt, Alderman Cleaver,
Alderman Harriott-Gathright, Alderman Wilshire
11

Nay: 0
MOTION CARRIED

Resolution R-21-142 declared duly adopted as amended.
PERIOD FOR GENERAL PUBLIC COMMENT

Jim Tolner Yes | just want to thank the Mayor and the Board for their hard work on this budget and | am
sure you are very happy that this is resolved. And | appreciate the support. Thank you.

Laurie Ortolano 41 Berkeley Street. Just a couple of things. You know | want to remind you that when
Alderman Tencza talks about the impact of a 4% increase on property valuations, you are failing to
recognize that next year is a reassessment year and we are going to get a new 2022 tax rate once Vision
reassesses all the property. And we have not had really any information from the City that | know of that
has talked about the impact and the balancing between the Commercial and Residential properties. | can
tell you looking at the abatements right now, there’s a lot of big commercial abatements, | think the
valuation is for assessment reduction is somewhere around $68 million and | know the commercial
properties during KRT’s update were valued around $3.7 million and residential was around $6.3. We were
able to balance that off 50/50 but you are seeing the commercial drops substantially more with potentially a
higher vacancy rate.

| Know what the economy is doing when it comes to home prices and | will tell you something, you’ve got a
big issue coming your way with senior citizens and | addressed this to you already but the Board ignored in
this budget. Your exemption program for senior citizens based on hardship for 75 and older is $224,000.00
is your max exemption. Well when that was set, KRT in 2018 the average home price was $260,000.00
that means seniors could get a pretty good exemption at $224,000.00 and at 80 years or older it was
$280,000.00. But look at what has happened now, the average home price in Nashua this year, it is not
even finalized is probably closing in on $430,000.00 to $450,000.00. Your seniors are not going to get an
exemption at all like they got. They are going to be paying $224,000.00 of taxable income. And you had,
according to your MS1 you are giving $160 million dollars in tax exemptions to senior citizens on your MS1.
That is primarily out of your residential total assessment of $6.3 billion. That's a substantial amount. So
you have just swung a whole bunch of seniors out there and that 4% increase on top of a Vision

City of Nashua City-Wide Pedestrian Infrastructure Conditions Assessment and Ranking

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Zoom to

SADES Curb Ramps

SADES Sidewalks

SADES Crosswalks

Figure 1: Example SADES interactive map of curb ramp ADA attributes.

Phase 2: Data Analysis and Mapping

SADES provides an analytical approach to the ADA assessment of assets. {n addition to a qualitative
categorization (Good/Fair/Poor), NRPC will create a spreadsheet model that maps both binary (yes/no)
and numeric characteristics to ADA ratings, assigned attribute weights, and allows for scoring of
individual assets on a relative scale of 0-100.

All maps, GIS data, and spreadsheets developed under the project will be prepared and delivered to the
City in a compatible ESRI format for integration in the City’s GIS.

pg. 2

Special Board of Aldermen 07-01-2021 Page 27

reassessment update is going to be a pretty difficult pill to swallow and | wouldn't be surprised if you don’t
see ...

Alderman O’Brien
30 seconds.

Ms. Ortolano... the need higher. So | think the tax impact assessment was too superficial and | think that
the increase to this budget was unacceptable. Thank you.

President Wilshire

Anyone else from the public wishing to give public comment? Seeing no one. Remarks by Members of the
Board.

REMARKS BY THE MEMBERS OF THE BOARD OF ALDERMEN

Alderman Dowd

| want to thank the Budget Committee for all their nights out and their hard work on the budget. It is, of
course, a tough year, but | have been dealing with the budgets in the City for 40 years. | don’t remember
one when we came in and said, “man this is a great year for the budget”. | know there are ups and downs
but they are never above that line it says, “hey we got a great budget”. | think that we have done a very
good job protecting our Police and Fire Departments and in doing so, protecting the citizens and the tax
payers of the City of Nashua where these services are critical. Other services aren't critical. | have full
respect for everybody that works for the City and support them wholeheartedly and | applaud them for
coming in at the numbers they came in at. But Police and Fire are extremely important. And it’s not like
these two groups were asking for all kinds of new things. No. They were trying to keep things pretty much
as they’ve had them in providing a great job to the City of Nashua.

As far as salaries, firemen — how many people do you know that run into burning buildings? How many
people do you know that go under the concrete of a caved in building to try and save people? You know?
That fire down in Massachusetts, 100 and some odd degrees out there and the firemen are running into the
building and coming out with heat exhaustion and ending up in the hospital. Firemen do a great job; Police
do a great job. And we can’t shortchange them. And nobody likes to pay taxes, | think that goes without
saying. And this year if we had any cooperation from the State of New Hampshire, we wouldn’t have had
an increase. We may have even had a decrease even with the additions we made. So that’s what needs to
be fixed and | still want to see those people that run the State Pension Plan come down and talk to us.

Alderman Klee

Thank you Madam President. And | want to echo the words that Alderman Dowd said. | really would like to
get the people from the Pension Plan, the retirement group here to try to explain to us and the taxpayers
here of Nashua why these numbers keep going up and so on. And I'd like to also thank the Budget
Committee, you did a thankless job. Truly it is and | wasn’t able to attend all of them for various health
reasons, but | have watched them all. And | don’t want to you fought amongst yourselves but you
discussed amongst yourselves...

Alderman Lopez
Robust.

Special Board of Aldermen 07-01-2021 Page 28
Alderman Klee

Robustly, yes. And everybody on both sides made very good points and | think you did come up with a
good budget and | thank you for that. You made our job here a little easier because you ferreted it out
during the meetings. I’d also like to just kind of comment again on the fire on Concord Street. When the fire
happened it was called in by the local ice-cream truck gentleman who was going by and saw the smoke
and called the fire. And as a result of that, he got stuck there. He could not leave because there were
hoses all around him and he made a bad situation good by giving the children who were being displaced as
they got out of school, he gave them popsicles and different things to try to soothe them. He also gave
popsicles and | believe water to the firefighters that were there. So instead of sitting there and being grump
and so on he reached out. | don’t this gentleman’s name, but I’d like to publicly thank him.

Alderman Lopez

Hazy ice. He lives in Ward 4.
Alderman Klee

Hazy Ice, who lives in Ward 4 but he helped out those in Ward 3 so | would like to publicly thank him for
that. And | want to make a reminder that 4"" of July is coming up this weekend. We are having a firework
display at Holman Stadium and | pray that that’s where it stays. | know it won't, but | know there will be
some private ones. Let’s not put our firefighters and our police to any extra work, keep them at home and
where they belong. And please stay safe this weekend. Thank you.

Alderman Lopez

Ironically Hazy Ice could not join us for the Tree Street Block Party because the Fire Department was
helping us with the road closure and he kind of got deflected a little bit. But we appreciate you, both of you.
Nashua Fire actually helped us with our road closure and had to go respond to a fire so the Nashua PD and
their Command Center were surprisingly well positioned as well. We had a really good event. | want to
thank all the City Departments that participated too in the Touch a Truck event because there’s a lot of City
services that they don’t really get a chance to meet the bus driver when they are not like hurrying on and off
of it. They don’t get a chance to talk about the Token (inaudible) which is a really helpful way to be able to
pay for transportation to and from things. Even the Solid Waste Department was there and demystifying
sidewalk pickups and solid waste pickups and all that kind of stuff for residents is really, really helpful.

| want to thank the organizers that worked with me, a lot of residents were contributing their time really as a
labor of love. One couple that has been volunteering regularly for years the wife was in and out of the
emergency room like 3 different times and they still found time to help. One of our food providers lost two
close relatives in a week and was pretty close to Reverend Perkins as well and still made time to help. And
just the amount of problem solving and overcoming adversity that | saw just in organizing a simple street
party was very inspiring. And we need it because we are coming out of COVID-19, we were originally
planning this thing when we were still unsure of whether vaccines were going to be effective and all of that
kind of stuff and people stuck to it. So | want to thank everybody that helped organize the Tree Streets
Block Party.

| do also want to comment a little bit on some of the public comment that has been made and the opinions
that have been offered. | am concerned about the ratio of private properties to commercial properties —
residential properties to commercial properties as well. But | would point out that there was probably some
role in how the residential properties were more intrusively and thoroughly assessed because of tireless
advocacy on the part of a small group of people who are now going to present as though that had nothing
to do with this sudden shift of ratios and how people’s property taxes are going to be going up because
their houses were assessed at a higher value. People try to take on political positions and they are not
necessarily taking on any position of responsibility for the results of those actions. It is frustrating to see.

Special Board of Aldermen 07-01-2021 Page 29

When people who are serving in the State Legislature and do not live in Nashua take it upon themselves to
modify our spending cap against the opposition of all of our elected officials that were sent to the house and
using parliamentary tricks and maneuvers in order to achieve it, that is discouraging. It speaks to their
moral character, it speaks to their credibility of their ideals and it is definitely not going to reflect in how
effective their overall government is. If your platform politically has to be, | am going to sabotage other
people to make them look bad so that | can look good by comparison, you are not doing anything other
than tearing things down. So! applaud my fellow aldermen who have been focused during their terms here
on building the City of Nashua up, being an inclusive place, being a welcoming City, working on
development and forward thinking and creative ways to be economically responsible to be fiscally
responsible to build the tax base and to grow a City that | think we are all proud of. So thank you
everybody.

Alderman Jette

Thank you Madam President. So | want to thank my fellow aldermen for pointing out various areas in my
way of thinking about trying to support the Mayor in reducing the Police and Fire budgets. | hope that with
4" of July coming, you know, | hope the Police still respond to complaints from Ward 5 about fireworks in
spite of what | said tonight. And if there are any fires, | hope the Fire Department comes and doesn’t cross
our Ward off the list. We don’t have a Fire Station in Ward 5 so | hope that doesn’t deter them from
responding if necessary.

We all do what we think is best in the interest of the City and even though we disagreed on these issues, |
appreciated your statements and your sentiments and in the end we all voted for the budget. So thank you.

Alderman Schmidt

Thank you Madam President. I’d like to thank the Mayor for the budget. | think he helped produce a nice
tight budget and it was pretty amazing to see what happened. Thank you very much. | also wanted to
thank the leadership of Alderman Dowd on our Committee. The work he has done on this, nobody
understands how much he does to help create a terrific budget. Thank you very much. One more point |
wanted to make, | was watching the Board of Education the other day and at the end of it, Sandra Ziehm
took a moment to talk about the people who had come to complain about various things. That day it was
just about masks and she said, when we sit up here, we do a lot more than you would ever know. We pay
attention to every aspect that we need to. You may come here just to talk about masks but that’s a tiny part
and we'd really like you to understand if you want to be part of what happens, you need more than just one
issue. You really need to think about the entire job that we do. | thanked her for that because | don’t think a
lot of people realize that it is a big issue to talk about the budget but golly, you know, making sure
somebody’s stop sign gets put in place is really important to a lot of people too. And it is a terrific job that
we get to do to protect the citizens that we serve. We are public servants after all, this is a terrific job and
when | hear complaints about how we are doing so poorly | just have to shake my head and think about
Sandra Ziehm and thank her very much for making the point. Just one more thing, the people who were at
the meeting that day, there was a lot of anger and there was a gentleman there who was standing up in the
back with his arms crossed and you could feel that it was unpleasant and that shouldn’t happen, that’s a
business meeting. If there are comments that you need to make, you make a comment, we do that here.
And when your comments are done, the business goes on. And | am really very grateful for how this Board
manages that. And | think the Board of Education is under a little stress right now and we need to support
people who are working on it. Thank you very much.

Alderman Cleaver

Thank you Madam President. Alderman Schmidt took one of my words but | want to express my
appreciation to the Mayor and all the Department Heads for an outstanding job in the budget process and
especially also to Chairman Dowd and the Budget Committee for an outstanding job; very, very well done,
many, many hours of work to do that and to get to where we are right now. And also lastly | would like to
wish everybody a very safe and happy 4" of July.

Special Board of Aldermen 07-01-2021 Page 30

Alderman Harriott-Gathright

Thank you Madam President. | too would like to echo that, the Mayor’s Budget as well as Alderman Dowd,
thank you. And | too like Alderman Klee came here not sure how | wanted to truly vote on this but after
hearing all the testimonies and realizing that everything that was being said truly was true, you know, you
couldn’t deny that we do have the best in both our Fire Department and our Police Department. So | too
changed and | voted yes. | am happy | did. And | have two announcements. Saturday with the Black
Heritage Trail of New Hampshire, Southern NH Outreach of Black Unity and the Greater Nashua Area
Branch of the NAACP, we will be celebrating the reading of Frederick Douglas’ speech Saturday, July 3% at
12:00, it will probably go to about 1:30 at the Library on the Commons. And last but not least for those that
don’t know Reverend Dr. Bertha Perkins passed last Tuesday, the founding pastor of New Fellowship
Baptist Church at 50 Ash Street. And we will be celebrating her wake on Friday, July 9" at 5:30 until 8:00
at 50 Ash Street. However, the funeral service will be Saturday morning at 12:00 P.M. at the First Church
at the top of the hill in Nashua. | think that’s Concord and Main Street at 12:00 P.M. And we will be having
a repass and that will be announced later as to where that might be. Thank you.

Alderman O’Brien

Thank you Madam Chair. | think Alderman Dowd, excuse me, Madam President, Alderman Dowd did bring
up a good point. Some of the emails that | have gotten have come up and said, OH the pension system, |
don’t believe in the rollbacks that the State of New Hampshire has done. Folks, the current delegation from
the City of Nashua that represent and | am proud to be with them up at the State House fought hard this
year to represent Nashua against a pretty difficult tide. The current wasn’t with us. But it seems like there’s
been a lot of emails not really believing that. So | think in defense of the Mayor, what the Mayor says is
100% true. So | think we need to make the people aware that we are not claiming the boogey man is in the
room, he is there. And | agree with Alderman Dowd, so | would like to make a formal request, it is
summertime, that we contact NH Retirement System, see if we can have a representative, perhaps maybe
Marty Carlen could come down and give a presentation to this Board, advertise it so that the citizens can
see that we are not being Chicken Little saying the sky is falling. That you can hear it right from the horse’s
mouth and | think it’s high tide and Madam President | am willing to work on that if you so wish.

President Wilshire
Thank you Alderman O’Brien. | would just like to congratulate the City on being the fourth best run city in
the United States. However, | think Alderman Jette sells himself and the rest of us in this room short when

he doesn’t include all of us in that process. We help shape and form the policy decisions that go on in this
City. So the Mayor does a great job, his staff does a great job but we do too.

Alderman Lopez

Don't be lazy, keep doing a good job.
President Wilshire

That’s all | have. Committee Announcements.

COMMITTEE ANNOUNCEMENTS

Alderman Caron

Next Tuesday the 6" at 7:00 Personnel / Administration has two public hearings; one on the gambling and
the other one increasing the members of the Health Department Board. Then we will take up the
Legislation concerning the Police Commissioners. So thank you.

Special Board of Aldermen 07-01-2021 Page 31
President Wilshire

Any other Committee Announcements? Seeing none, do | have a motion?

ADJOURNMENT

MOTION BY ALDERMAN O’BRIEN THAT THE JULY 1, 2021, SPECIAL MEETING OF THE BOARD OF
ALDERMEN BE ADJOURNED, BY ROLL CALL

A viva voce roll call was taken to adjourn the Board of Aldermen meeting which resulted as follows:
Yea: Alderman O’Brien, Alderman Klee, Alderman Dowd,

Alderman Caron, Alderman Lopez, Alderman Tencza,

Alderman Jette, Alderman Schmidt, Alderman Cleaver,

Alderman Harriott-Gathright, Alderman Wilshire
11

Nay: 0
MOTION CARRIED

The meeting was declared adjourned at 10:50 p.m.

Attest: Susan Lovering, City Clerk