Special Board of Aldermen 06-21-2021 Page 14
assertion. | believe that he would hard pressed to provide any evidence of that at all. | watched several of
those meetings and | know that there were very few participants on line. Moving on to Page 9 it’s
essentially here saying backward that the Mayor put on the screen however it was hardly legible. Fire, over
6 years 27% increase over 6 years. 21% increase for the Police. 18% for school. City Hall 16%. DPW
15%. During that time the past 6 years essentially this Board of Aldermen has essentially been the same,
essentially the same people, there are a few changes. But these are the people that have been approving
these increases all the while people have been losing their jobs, people have been actually not looking for
jobs anymore because they could not find one. These are people that can’t pay their taxes and yet over
the past 6 years, we have been hiding the cost of government. |’d like to tell you that local government is
not an aristocracy. You don’t deserve it. You are public servants. And this Board of Aldermen has been
negligent in controlling the costs of City Government. And also it is the Mayor’s budget, you bear some of
that responsibility.
Now we have a correction in the State Law which reinstitutes Nashua’s spending cap, thank god, we have
some means of controlling this at least limiting the amount since the Board of Aldermen and City Hall does
not seem to have the capability...
Chairman Dowd
30 seconds.
Mr. Richardson ... to limit its spending. Thank you.
Mayor Donchess
Now the reason | say that there was more participation in the Master Plan is, you can get the details and
the numbers from Community Development Director Sarah Marchant. But we have 1,000 people
registered that have put input, it might even be 2,000 but she can give the exact numbers. But that’s why |
am saying that. We did not have that level of participation in the past. People could participate remotely
outside the public meetings.
Chairman Dowd
Next? Name and address?
Gary Hoffman 38 (?) Street, Unit D. A couple of things | just wanted to point out. First of all, | did
participate in the Master Plan and was one of those 1,000 people and | have to say it was more accessible.
| had never actually participated in it before and | think it is something the City should certainly continue. |
also want to stick up a little bit for the employees in City Hall. | registered my car recently by appointment
and | think that it was actually the smoothest that it had ever been. | made an appointment online, | got right
up there and it was actually the quickest it had ever — the process had ever been and | think it might be
something the City should really continue.
As for the tax increase, | understand it is a steep increase but we — and | agree people should be upset and
angry about it — but | think we are picking the wrong people to be angry about. | think we should be angry
at the State. They are the ones that are choosing to fully fund the pension system at 100% when almost
every expert out there says 80% is fine. If they did that, we would be — the last time we checked the State
Pension System was close to 70% funded — they did their investments a little bit better, you know, probably
it would be even more than that. They are choosing to downshift this cost onto the Nashua taxpayers and
every other municipality in the State. So | guess my question Mayor Donchess is the City of Nashua joining
with other municipalities in this State to kind of bring this issue forward to the State Legislature so they don’t
keep doing things like this.
