Board of Aldermen 2-12-2020 Page 24
The other point | want to make is there was some suggestion that maybe this Board should try to dig and
find out who are the donors? So you know there was some discussion that we should somehow like find
out who the donors are or how much has been raised. At a Planning Board Meeting, this was on the news,
there was a Planning Board Meeting up in Bedford, New Hampshire where they went to build a new project
where the Macy’s used to be, they want to put some apartments and things like that. One of our local
business owners was mentioned at the Planning Board meeting as somebody that wanted to definitely put
a restaurant in there and you know, you want to have that. It was Surf, Michael Buckley went on Channel 9
and said, “absolutely | 100% never said | am putting a restaurant up there”. And | doubt that Michael
Buckley would go back to Bedford even if he was planning on doing it because he was outed at a public
meeting for what his private plans were going to be. And | don’t blame the man for being upset at that. So
when we are talking about big donors for a project like this, and the Capital Campaign is saying we want to
keep it in our quiet phase, that’s why. That’s why. So there are big risks to this, we have to have faith that
the Capital Committee is doing what they say they are doing, we have to have faith that our Director of
Economic Development is going to get those New Market Tax Credit, that’s his job, that’s what we pay him
to do.
President Wilshire
No pressure.
Alderman Clemons
If it doesn’t happen then we are going to have to have a discussion. But the bottom line is that we need to
extend this deadline in order to have that discussion. So thank you.
Alderwoman Kelly
| am just going to put one final point on this. | think that Alderman Schmidt really put it nicely. There are
people who were sitting on this Board because we were at that very first meeting and one of them until 1:00
in the morning when it was voted down. And | remember feeling of the room and the people who came to
speak (inaudible) Michael Buckley yes there were people who spoke against it as well but the feeling was
what do we want to do as a City. What do we want people to think about when they think about Nashua.
And | think that pulling the rug out from under we invested and | think it is easy to kind of forget those things
and the energy and what we are looking forward to in looking in these dollars and cents. | think you need
to keep an eye on the big picture while we are still looking at the numbers and the fiscal responsibility and
the things we have to do as Aldermen to make sure this project is on track. So that’s my final thought.
Alderman Lopez
So | want to agree with Alderman Kelly that energy and that passion is what is driving the project. | just also
want to say that we, if this project fails, it's because we let it fail. It is something that | have said before.
And if this project doesn’t meet its guidelines then we need to acknowledge our role in that too. So this
Board is entrusted with oversight and with the responsibility that goes along with the authority that we have
and the opportunity to enable projects like this to move forward. We need to take this very seriously and
need to continually be involved and not look at ourselves as an extraneous factor but rather as a necessary
governance and prompt to get things done. So to Alderman Clemons’ point, | don’t want to interfere and
alienate donors or anything like that. | do think we need to be diligent and | think we need to have further
discussions about how exactly we should be diligent appropriately, but we need to move this project
forward and we don’t want to be waiting for my 8" term, hopefully, for this thing to be built because as
Alderman Klee pointed out earlier this is the center of some of the poorest areas in Nashua. We really
need the economic opportunities and developments. | am thrilled that we are losing in some ways in our
metrics to the Soup Kitchen because | would not want to build this on the bones of people being gentrified
or put aside, their needs not being met .
