Board of Aldermen 2-12-2020 Page 5
So it’s quite a lengthy presentation but there’s a lot of concerns. | think people are just basically concerned
about the runaway costs and | think again it somewhat of a trust that you had to meet that deadline, sort of
a sunset deadline of 2 years. You didn’t meet it and | think there’s a very strong message in that. So |
think you are really kind of ignoring the will of the voters on this one. And | think you should really take that
into consideration on your vote tonight.
Rich Lannan Good evening, Rich Lannan, 11 McGrath Road in Pelham, with offices here in Nashua. As
the Mayor said, | am going to try to be brief. | have a couple different topics because | spoke a couple times
last week and | won’t be repetitive. | think one of the things that | hear in social media is about how this is
really about downtown Nashua and that’s the only benefactors. There has been a lot of testimony from
different people and even in the study how that’s really not the case. How this is really a Performing Arts
Center, not just for downtown, but the City as a whole and the whole area.
And two quick examples that just happened; Deb Novotny and myself were very recently in Nashua at the
Milford Rotary at noon today at their weekly meeting. We were invited to go there because they were
interested in hearing about this Performing Arts Center. They had about maybe 40 or 50 people. Deb and
| both spoke, kind of an update, similar to what we did here a week ago, showed a form and asked
questions. They had some great questions. But while we were having lunch, Deb and | were having lunch
with a couple people and the conversation just was about, “yeah that would be great”. And Milford Rotary
is like Milford, Amherst, Mount Vernon, Wilton, sorry if | missed a town so it is from that area. And they
talked about you know sometimes they would come down to Nashua and hit you know MT’s, Martha’s,
whatever, but a lot of times people on their way will stop because those places might be busy the night
before a performance so they are still going to maybe eating in Milford. If you are coming from Hudson
maybe eat somewhere in Hudson. So it’s not just Nashua.
There was a lot of discussion about the fact about how the surrounding towns and Milford and was a very
positive, a lot of great questions and answers. We were literally approached by a couple people at the end
of the meeting who said, “We'd like to get together with you”. We don’t know if that means dollars and
cents, we hope so. But they wanted to know more about because | know one of them has a business in
Nashua but they are up in Milford. So it shows that even Rotary out of Nashua has an interest in this.
There was also talk about a lot of the donors, probably downtown businesses; well a lot of them are. But
as an example, and | know Deb at the last presentation talked about 30 plus lead donors. We are not just
talking downtown businesses; we literally — one of those 30 people is a restaurant on Daniel Webster
Highway and they really saw it and myself and another gentleman on our Committee met with them. One
meeting, a couple of follow up e-mails and they have committed to be a donor because they want their
name and be part of the building because they are part of Nashua even though they are very close to the
Massachusetts line and it is a national chain.
So it just shows that this is not just about downtown. And one last thing that kind of threw me back,
because | looked some minutes too. And a couple years ago, more than that, when we were talking about
this, we actually had 2 different gentlemen that came kind of unexpectedly to talk to the Board of Aldermen.
One was the head of the Currier Museum that has, there’s nothing in Nashua they are in Manchester and |
remember him quoting that they consider themselves the State Museum, they represent the whole State.
He talked a lot about the fact of how important this should be to Nashua. And Peter Ramsey, the Palace
Theater, who was mentioned a few minutes ago, he not only came and showed up, he talked passionately
and may look at him as a competitor but he talked passionately about if Nashua doesn’t do this, they are
missing out on maybe a once in a lifetime thing. I’m not quoting him but those are the words, and then he
invited about 8 of us and | believe 1 or 2 Aldermen that came. Alderman Klee came and there might have
been another Alderman that at the time came as well. He invited us to tour and brought us through and
told us, you know, “you guys shouldn’t do this” or maybe, “you should do this and think about this and that”.
He was giving us a lot of great ideas, volunteered, “Call me anytime, gave us his card”. And this is
somebody, they are more theater oriented obviously than we are, so itis a little different but it just shows
that people even outside the region that have no gain to this whatsoever can see.
