Board of Aldermen 4-14-2020 Page 5
President Wilshire
Mayor, do you wish to address the Board?
Mayor Donchess
Thank you. Well Madam President, we are now into the Coronavirus Crisis for a number of weeks. The
City Employees are working hard to continue to deliver services to our citizens, our residents while at the
same time trying to enforce social distancing, physical distancing whereby in many cases working remotely.
Many of our City Employees are working 7 days a week on the Coronavirus Crisis. | want to thank all of
them for doing that.
Right now Nashua is in a relatively good position, we have 96 cases in Nashua. In New Hampshire there
are more than 1,000. But we see down south of the border of the border in Massachusetts that there are
many more cases than we have up here, in part because of all the measures we are taking to do the
physical distancing. In addition, unfortunately, we have 7 deaths in Nashua so far. The hospitals though
are in good shape, there are about 10 positively confirmed Coronavirus cases in the hospitals. However, if
you know someone whose family has been seriously impacted by this, which | do, it really brings home that
even a single case is quite a tragedy.
But in any event, many people in the community are contributing and working very hard to meet this crisis.
For example, we have many people making masks for everyone in the community or hospitals, first
responders, we want to thank all of them. Also, over the weekend a company by the name of SoClean
from Peterborough delivered 3,000 masks to the City, including 1,000 N95 masks. | want to thank Jorge
Ortiz who is the Nashua resident who has been very kind enough to make this happen. Thank you So
Clean and thank you to Mr. Ortiz.
What we have on our Agenda, Madam President, the first item is the necessity of transferring another
$200,000.00 into the Coronavirus effort. As you previously recall Madam President, the City has
appropriated $150,000.00. We have on the line Administrative Services Director Kleiner as well as
Emergency Management Director Kates who can in the absence of time for a Committee Meeting are going
to report to you regarding the need for these funds. But of the money appropriated so far, we have
$13,000.00 left. We are seeking approval tonight, so we hope you will suspend the rules for $200,000.00
more.
What we need this for is for additional cleaning which we have been doing very extensively in City
Buildings, but also for PPE, or Personal Protective Equipment; masks, and the like for our employees and
First Responders and others. People working even in Public Works who we want to wear masks and who
are picking up garbage, working on other Public Works duties. So in addition to that, we are the first line of
defense sort to speak with respect to the Alternative Care Site which is located out of Nashua South. That
needs to be outfitted now with some oxygen equipment in case people need to go there and they need
oxygen. Although we are being asked to front this money, the Governor has assured the City both privately
and all of the communities of New Hampshire publicly that FEMA and the State will reimburse us 100%
with respect to any funds expended at the Alternative Care Site.
In addition, we will get at least 75% on all the money we are spending internally, the PPE and everything
else that we are spending money on. So we will be reimbursed, but we do need to have money available
now in order to do that. But as we discussed previously, Madam President, because we need this money
immediately really, in order to inform the Board in more detail as to the need for the money and exactly
what it will be expended for, we do have Ms. Kleiner and Mr. Kates on who will report to you regarding
those issues. So in conclusion on that item, | am asking the Board to suspend the rules and pass R-20-
027 tonight so that we can proceed with our Coronavirus efforts.
Also, | wanted to address, Madam President, two other items that are on the Agenda. The next one is R-
20-029, this is just on for a first reading; no need to act on this tonight. But we are proposing that various
