Board of Aldermen 01-12-2021 Page 29
Alpine Grove was welcoming us back but we are following the rules. No we are not supposed to be
congregating together like that. So we decided that yes, we still needed to do something, even if it’s for our
children. So we still will have a youth speaker as usual but the adult speakers will be probably several for
maybe 10 to 15 minutes as to what that’s about. So | am inviting all my colleagues here and Statewide and
everywhere else as usual and the community at large. So there will be something sent out for that and that
will be on Monday approximately 9:00 a.m. and we figured it would be probably an hour, hour and a half on
Zoom or so.
But | also wanted to mention that First Baptist Church who are celebrating their 39" year Celebration of MLK
and let me see, | did pull it up here. | think | pulled it up. | Know it’s Saturday and | think Mr. Mayor is still
here, probably had more; | did have it up on my screen, | don’t know what — oh there it is. OK Saturday,
January the 16" at 7:00 p.m. the Keynote Speaker is the Reverend Dr. Willard Ashley Senior and he is Co-
Chair of Anti-Racism Coalition of Faith. They also have musical performances by First Baptist Church Choir,
New Hampshire Gay Men’s Choir, Julia Leonard, Vocalist Soloist and other musical performances. And that
will be online as well so | will send this out to Donna so hopefully she can share it with everybody else so that
if you want to be in attendance on Saturday, which is usually a good time, great time, and great speeches.
And actually for Monday as well, anyone in the Public that wishes to join, we will be happy to have you. Any
comments you want to make, we will be happy to have that as well. So thank you.
President Wilshire
Thank you. Anyone else? Alderman Lopez?
Alderman Lopez
Yeah | just want to first correct my colleague Alderman Tencza. The organization that did all the work at PAL
is called “Building on Hope”. They are a small group of people and they’ve done some pretty amazing
projects. They are definitely worth checking in and we were really lucky to have them choose Nashua as a
community. PAL | won’t say is lucky because they are a force multiplier they usually hit way outside their
weight class; not only when they are boxing but when they are doing other programs. So we are just lucky to
have PAL.
| wanted to express my condolences to DPW at the loss of Andre. | wanted to thank the Board of Health for
taking the time to come out and present. And for all the work that Public Health and Healthcare Providers
have been doing behind the scenes, after hours, over the weekends to try to get us all through this. | wanted
to also thank Alderwoman Klee, it's been awhile but we did, since Christmas, but she took the lead on
Operation Enduring Welcome’s Christmas Tree decorating competition this year. We still had Veterans
decorating their hallways and trying to celebrate the Holidays as best they could. We had food donated by
Soel Sistas and then again for New Year's by Chick Fil-A. So it’s little things like that that | hope help people
get through this difficulty.
As Alderman Clemons pointed out, there is a lot of very unfortunate decisions made in the Capitol over the
week and a lot of them were by President Trump and by people who | believe were trying to represent him.
But I’ve gotten a lot of calls from people locally, a lot of concerns about how safe they feel. And all | can do is
remind them that this is Nashua, we are all neighbors we all Know each other. You can still contact your
Alderman, you can still contact your State Representatives. New Hampshire is a small State and | like to
think that we are a little bit closer together. To the people who decided that they were going to get caught up
in the mob and run off with podiums and violently attack Police Officers, | can’t soeak for the President but
you betrayed everybody who believes in the same things as you. Because that’s also what | am hearing a lot
of is people saying, Look, | believe in this but | would never have done that. And that’s wrong to take away
from other people.
