Special Board of Aldermen 06-21-2021 Page 22
Mayor Donchess
Well the process that is used is that there is a Citizens Advisory Council which meets with all these
agencies and makes these recommendations. | mean there is no input by me as the Mayor or from the
Aldermen. The Citizens Advisory Counsel, it has become a group of citizens headed by a guy who is very
dedicated and they all are. They meet with all the agencies or at least they take applications from all the
agencies and they make recommendations to the City based upon what they see as the needs based on
the presentations made by the various agencies. Now those amounts go up and down. Sometimes
somebody gets a lot more than they did before; sometimes they get less. But has not been my habit nor
the habit of the Aldermen to question these recommendations because we are trying to make it non-
political. They way this got started believe it or not, when | was Mayor before we put this system into effect.
And the point is so that is not, you know, who knows the Mayor or who knows the Aldermen or whatever. It
is based upon and certainly reasonable people can disagree as to the best allocation and certainly maybe
you are right, maybe the money should have gone somewhere else than what it did, but this is a group of
citizens, volunteers who are giving their best effort to try to come up with a series of recommendations that
meets the needs of the community and responds to the applications and presentations made by these
various agencies. So it is not political, it is not the Aldermen, it is not the Mayor, it is a group of citizens
who make these recommendations. And we generally just follow them and enact them. | don’t necessarily
agree with everything that they have suggested but | don’t change it because the idea is we want the
citizens to decide and not inject any kind of special influence. | haven’t changed anything for the years that
I’ve been Mayor even though maybe | didn’t agree with some of it. But | don’t know, they are the ones that
listen to the presentations. Anyway so they do their best and we try to follow their recommendations.
Beth Scaer 111 East Hobart Street. Last year, Mayor, | called into your virtual budget hearing and you said
that you cut everything to the bone and then | asked about the Arlington Street Community Center which
was closed at the time and you said it was absolutely necessary. Well it is still closed, it is going to be
closed for 18 months according to your budget and the Director is getting paid in your budget $84,000.00,
$84,152.00 and what is she doing? She’s providing virtual programming, the internet is flush with virtual
programming for kids, we don’t need to pay anyone to provide that. She’s making some kits, that’s nice but
that’s a lot of money $84,000.00. The Emergency Management Director who | assume must have really
been straight out this year gets $95,000.00; the Chief Public Health Nurse $95,000.00; the Waste Water
Project Engineer $85,000.00; Plant Operations Supervisor $83,000.00; Fire Training Officer $90,000.00;
Fire Mechanic $78,000.00 and she’s working from home making virtual programs for kids. Meanwhile she
is serving Crown Hill, those kids need programming. Their parents were at home with them because you
know school wasn’t in session because you know everyone was virtual. The Boys & Girls Club was taking
these kids in. The Arlington Street Community Center could have taken them in but it is still closed. This is
a huge waste of money, It shouldn’t have been in the budget last year, it shouldn’t be in the budget this
year.
| filed a Right-to-Know request to get all the details and | am still waiting for that, you Know, her emails, her
reports, because it is hard to know even what she has been doing. And Mayor | would ask you to find out
what she’s been doing and how she earned this salary. | don’t think it was deserved. Thank you.
Mayor Donchess
Well certainly we agree that the Crown Hill neighborhood, a traditional neighborhood in Nashua is a
neighborhood that has a number of families in economic distress and needs support. And we opened the
Arlington Street Community Center to help them. Now the salary is not $84,00000 the salary is actually
$58,000.00 but like the schools, most of the service has been from online. But those services are still
helpful for the children involved. Just as a testament to some of what has been accomplished, the Director
of the Arlington Street Community Center has been working with a lot of the families at the housing at
Marshall Street and East Hollis which is affordable housing. And they were so appreciative of all of the
effort and help that the Center and the Director had given to their tenants that they donated a basketball
court to the City paid for it completely by them in back of the Arlington Street Community Center. The idea
that nothing is happening because it is online during the pandemic | don’t think is correct.
