Board of Aldermen 2-12-2020 Page 22
So | don’t know if that is a reflection on how much support this project has in the community that we are
having trouble coming up with $1.75. Hopefully not but | think we have to identify pretty soon where this
money is going to come from. Hopefully we get the New Market Tax Credits and that takes care of it. But if
we don’t, as soon as that announcement comes out, hopefully it is favorable, but if it is not favorable, | think
we are going to have to have some discussion, not wait 18 months, force a discussion about how are we
going to continue this project or should we look at something that is going to cost less money. If we do
continue this project, where is the money going to come from. But | will vote for this.
Alderman Lopez
So just for context, | know Alderwoman Kelly is just going to hit the same area, but the concern that we had
with the Feasibility Study that they identified how much money could be easily raised. And | remember
bringing up at the time, like yeah you have $2.5 million dollars available in the community to be raised, | say
available, or sitting around. You have the most non-profit dense City in the Northeast and they are all going
to be competing for that. And we saw the Soup Kitchen project on the horizon, | mentioned that, |
mentioned Harbor Homes Older Point Project, the YMCA; there a whole bunch of other capital building
projects. They are all fighting over the same fundraising source, plus we just had an election. Well we just
had the municipal elections and we are in the middle of a primary season.
So there’s a lot of competition for that same general amount of money. So that alone was a concern that |
brought up previously that just because there is that much potential raised, that doesn’t mean it is all going
to go to our project. That relies heavily on relationships as Alderman Kelly and Alderman Klee have
mentioned be cultivated which is why when we were originally discussing this, | was under the impression
that we would be using a non-profit like intermediary, whether it was Great American Downtown or City Arts
Nashua or somebody who had existing relationships and reputation in the community and we really didn’t
do that. Like we waited a whole year, Great American Downtown created their own fundraiser like they had
a pop up art gallery and then they didn’t’ know where to spend the money.
So | think the public has been chomping at the bit to do this and if anything we have been squandering,
that’s where my concern is coming from. We had a lot from Stella Blue that the owner said they would
open a whole new day, they were hiring more people and they sold their business to a new partners. We
had a lot of support from Dave Manganello with Riverside Barbeque, and Riverside is closed. Riverwalk
was looked at as the example of all the live performances and they switched over to like, | like talk behind a
desk for four minutes, | guess. | don’t even know what to call it. But it is definitely not the same music
venue that we were talking about. So there is a lot of passion in the community when we were first doing
this and that’s where a lot of the confidence that we could fundraise and built and | don’t know that that
really panned out because of the way we did it; hiring a consultant, building Committees, and all the
political process took time. And they had to develop their relationships and figure out what they were going
to do. | also would want to point out that the Soup Kitchen’s fundraising mechanism also includes grants
and endowments and other pursuits, we have been focusing mostly on donors just dropping money.
So they are very different situations in terms of what they have been using as a strategy for bringing
revenue in; it doesn’t reflect on our inability to fundraise with PAC. | think we have just been getting in our
own way, just making it too complicated and not focusing on the passion and energy that originally gave us
the authority to do this. People showing up and voting and increasing voter turnout in order to weigh in on
this on the ballot, that was something that gave us the validity and authority to move forward as a Board.
Several Board Members that are currently here campaigned largely on that platform of we need to be
progressive and we need to be aggressive. So this is what my concern is, is that we are losing that
momentum because we are not focusing on how are we going to actively as a Board be engaged in helping
this thing along and moving it forward. We are being treated as a pariah that is only useful at the every end
of every extended deadline.
