Board of Aldermen 02-23-2021 Page 3
Alderman Schmidt
| am present and alone in my office.
Alderman Laws
| am here, | am alone and | can hear everyone.
Alderman Cleaver
Present and | am alone.
Alderman Harriott-Gathright
| am present, | am here in this room alone and | can hear everyone.
President Wilshire
| am here, | am alone and | can hear everyone.
City Clerk Lovering
You have 14 in attendance.
President Wilshire
Thank you. Also with us this evening is Mayor Donchess and Corporation Counsel Steve Bolton. Mayor, do you
wish to address the Board?
REMARKS BY THE MAYOR
Yes thanks Madam President. Well first | wanted to report to you regarding the pandemic and the status of our
efforts to try to limit the spread of the virus as much as possible. As you saw, we had a spike in cases as we saw
across the country in December and January and early February. But in recent weeks, for Nashua those numbers
have gone down and we’ve seen a decline really across the State and across the country which is a very good
thing. But we still need to be careful to take precautions with our masks, with our social distancing, with avoiding
large gatherings.
Now we currently, this week, have about 200 active cases; that is down from almost 600 about a month ago.
We are running a positivity rate of a little over 6% of the tests being conducted in Nashua. That means that of
the people being tested for COVID-19 6% are coming up positive. Now that is a better number than we were
getting, again, a few weeks ago. The number went up to 12% or 13% during that period when we saw a lot of
new cases. But we still have what they call “community spread”, there are still people catching the virus that
has no known exposure. So, again, we need to continue to be careful. Our Public Health Department is
continuing to work nonstop on this not only running testing clinics, helping people who have tested positive,
their patients, but also now administering some vaccine. They ran an equity clinic this past week at Saint
Aloysius of Gonzaga with grant funds for people that are more vulnerable to the disease, more likely to
contract it and in neighborhoods where people are less likely to be vaccinated and have access to
vaccinations. So that, of course, took place right in the middle of the tree streets. Again, they will continue to
work hard, we will continue to do everything possible we can to limit the spread of the virus.
Also, Madam President, and | wanted to mention one of the items on tonight’s agenda which is the agreement
for the School Street Housing for 150 units of housing. That was approved by the Budget Committee recently.
As we know this would add 150 units of needed housing; smaller units in the part of the market where we have
seen the largest increase in rents over the past 5 years. The studio and one bedroom is where we’ve seen the
