A regular meeting of the Board of Aldermen was held Tuesday, November 22, 2016, at 7:30 p.m. in the
Aldermanic Chamber.
President Brian S. McCarthy presided; Deputy City Clerk Judy Boileau recorded.
Prayer was offered by Deputy City Clerk Judy Boileau; Alderman Don LeBrun led in the Pledge to the
Flag.
The roll call was taken with 13 members of the Board of Aldermen present; Alderman Wilshire and
Alderman Cookson were recorded absent.
Mayor James W. Donchess and Corporation Counsel Steven A. Bolton were also present.
REMARKS BY THE MAYOR
| wanted to speak with you about the Safe Stations Program which began on Thursday. The model is
after Manchester which started a very similar program in early May. The way this works is that any
person who wishes to seek help, treatment or recovery, can go to one of our six fire stations and talk with
a firefighter and taken in and then will be picked up by Harbor Homes and transported to either a shelter
like the Maple Street Shelter where Tom works or to the medical detox beds that they have at High
Street. Harbor Homes will work with the person and enable them to get into a longer term treatment
program. We have all heard how serious a problem this has been in Nashua and throughout the State of
New Hampshire. We have parents and grandparents who are stricken with grief over children or
grandchildren who are caught in addiction. We have the neighbor who says someone is dealing next
door and we have the teachers who report they have kids in their classrooms whose parents are involved
with heroin and come to school without enough food and care. Of course there are the deaths and
overdoses that we have seen, seven deaths in September and seven deaths in October and fortunately
of one so far this month. | think this is an important response that the city is making here to enable
people to have another route towards recovery. The results in the last five days have been good, at least
two people have gone into the stations and more people have called. | went over the Harbor Homes
today because of a Thanksgiving dinner that they have and they told me that they think six or seven
people have come into their program and a number of them have been sent to Farnum and other
treatment facilities as a result of the Safe Stations initiative. Many people participated in what | think is a
big step forward and a big success, Chris Stawasz from AMR; AMR responds to every medical call
anyway, including all of the OD’s. He understood the program well from Manchester and was definitely
very critical. Our fire department chief and all of the firefighters who are participating at each of the
stations, our health department who helped provide additional training to the fire fighters beyond the
Narcan training that they have already received. Harbor Homes is participating, Peter Kelleher and
everyone over there making sure that this program works. The Opioid Task Force and the hospitals and
other people have been very involved and they all have been necessary in making this possible. The
one thing that | am asking from the city is that Harbor Homes does not have the funds to cover the cost of
transportation on an indefinite basis so | propose that we allocate $20,000 for the remainder of the fiscal
year out of the contingency account. Peter Kelleher is the head of the partnership for successful living
where Harbor Homes will come to discuss this at whatever committee this resolution goes to. We've
talked about the fact that he can report on what the real costs are after 90 days or so and as we gain
experience with the program and see what the cost of transportation might be we can use the funds to
reimburse Harbor Homes for that purpose and | hope in the end you will endorse that expenditure.
On a lighter note, we have the Holiday Stroll coming up on Saturday and | hope everybody can go. Paul
Shea has done a great job this year and has gotten the usual 50 different performances of music going
on and has gotten additional food trucks. It’s usually a very successful night for downtown. We have the
enhanced holiday lights that have been put up by the Parks & Rec Department. These were funded
through the budget which you appropriated and in addition an allocation made by the Downtown
Improvement Committee. Everybody got together and chose the additional lights that you see. | think it
is something that we can build on in the future if we care to. | wish everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving.
