Board of Aldermen 5-26-2020 Page 33
President Wilshire
Thank you. Alderman Jette.
Alderman Jette
Thank you, Madam President, | think that we’ve had a long tradition of allowing public comment at our
meetings, which we had to unfortunately suspend because of the way we are doing meetings now. But we
recently had the public hearing on the Budget and | thought Alderman Dowd, as Chairman of the Budget
Review Committee, did a great job at that meeting, the public was able to speak through the WebEx
System, just like we are able to speak now at these meetings. | think that showed me that we are capable
of allowing public comment even though we are doing these meetings in this new format. | would like to
recommend that we restore the public comment periods as provided in Section 5:14A, subparagraph 9A
and 16. | would encourage you, Madam President, to talk to the IT Department about whether or not that
can be done. | think the Budget Review Public Hearing showed that it can be done. And so | would
encourage us to explore that with the IT Department. Thank you.
President Wilshire
Alderman Lopez?
Alderman Lopez
So with respect to the idea of public comment, | would like to hear or see some kind of solution to that too. |
would be concerned about the bandwidth because I’ve noticed that both President Wilshire and Alderman
O’Brien are on limited bandwidth with a little like alert mark next to them. Is this OK with me? Because |
think | just watched Alderman O’Brien low his nose in low Resolution. But! wanted to additionally express
my gratitude towards the people of Nashua for putting up with basically all the stuff going around with
COVID-19. We talk about the Public Health Professionals, we talk about the First Responders and how
they are putting themselves in the lines, but the everyday Nashuan has accepted enormous discomfort out
of the thoughtful of others whether it is struggling with your children to make sure that they can pass a
completely reinvented school system; doing homeschooling, whether it is struggling economically to figure
out how to make ends meet under completely new circumstances or simple things like pulling together to
make and produce masks.
After last week’s meeting, | was aware that there was a protest that was going to be held on Saturday night
that was being organized by anti-mask protestors. | was in the area so | stopped by to talk to some of them
and they were passionate, they disagreed specifically with me when | identified myself as a sponsor of the
mask ordinance. But they were civil and they, as much as we disagreed where they were coming from,
they were involved, they were sharing their opinions and they were doing something to exercise their
Constitutional Rights in their own type of passion. So | appreciate that. And then the next day | was at the
mask give out event for United Way at City Hall. | agree with the umbrella proposal because | got
sunburned pretty bad. But | was very impressed with how many people came by and took masks not for
themselves but for their loved ones, shared that they were really concerned and they were trying to make
sure they could go shopping safely. | asked Latha Mangipudiif she had any of her homemade face masks
through the New Hampshire Maskateers and she was able to have 100 of them right on the spot. So | am
just really impressed with how people are pulling together in their own ways., whether it is making sure that
we support each other in this current time of COVID-19 or whether we support each other and making sure
that we do transition from this time because these times can’t last forever and we do need to ger the
economy back on track. We have to do it in a way that’s safe for all of our residents. But | think in Nashua,
everybody is doing their best to look out for each other, even if they don’t all agree on the way, we are a
community that cares about each other. Thank you.
