Board of Aldermen 2-25-2020 Page 11
Alderman Jette
So last night at the Budget Review Committee meeting, we discussed this. We thought that this wasn’t
going to be taken up for another couple of weeks, but | understand the urgency. But | had a question about
the Resolution, the analysis provided by the Legal Department, Attorney Bolton, had language in there
saying that that there’s an Ordinance that talks about the permit fees and that the Ordinance does not
provide authorization to waive those fees. So | questioned if we are not authorized to waive the fees, can
we, in fact, waive the fees by Resolution overriding an Ordinance. | put a call into Attorney Bolton’s office
today, | don’t know if he was in or not, but | haven’t received any answer. | was wondering if he could
address that question that we had.
Attorney Bolton
The analysis perhaps could have been worded better. The intention was to explain why it was necessary to
adopt this Resolution and why the waiver provision in the Ordinance itself did not apply to this situation.
Board of Aldermen has the authority to do away with the entire building code in the City of Nashua, not that |
would advise that. So the much lesser measure of waiving permit fees in a particular case for a good cause,
is within your authority so long as you are not doing it out of any illegal motive, discriminatory basis or
something like that. | don’t think that applies here.
Alderman Jette
OK could | speak further? As | said last night at the Budget Review Committee meeting, this is a wonderful
project. The people who are coming in, this Building on Hope Organization, has done wonderful things
throughout the State and they are coming in and providing volunteer labor, design, talent, material, at no
cost to the Police Athletic League. You know, renovating a building in an area of Nashua that needs
renovation. It would be, you know, the end result is going to be a great thing for the City. After | thought
about this, you know, the amount of the building fees are estimated to be between | think $1,300.00 an
$1,800.00 which is not a large amount of money. Certainly it is not going to break the bank for the City to
waive that. But it is also an amount that probably could be raised privately. | am wondering about, you
know, this is a wonderful organization, the Police Athletic League is a wonderful organization.
But there are a lot of wonderful organizations in town; Habitat For Humanity is a great organization. They
are building projects all over town. You know the Soup Kitchen is renovating a former school building and
that’s going to be a wonderful project. | am sure there are a lot of non-profit organizations that do wonderful
things in the City and to you know — Rivier University is a non-profit organization. | am just wondering if we
are going to waive the fees for this project, are other organizations going to wonder why they would not be
eligible for the same type of waiver. And if we are going to waive fees for non-profit organizations that are
doing wonderful things in the City, you know, should we amend the Ordinance to provide that the fees be
waives for non-profits? Or if we are not going to do that, you know, | mean | think we ought to have a
discussion about whether these organizations should raise the money for the fees or whether we are going
to waive all the fees. So for those reasons, | have trouble, although | think this is a wonderful project, | have
trouble supporting waiving the fees in this case. | don’t know if | am missing something, | don’t know if
people have other knowledge about what our policy is for other non-profits. Is this an exception or is this
something we do all the time?
President Wilshire
It is not something we do all the time Alderman Jette. This is the first time I’ve seen this actually.
Alderman Jette
That’s what | thought.
