Special Board of Aldermen 06-21-2021 Page 23
Paula Johnson again. | am still here in Nashua. | want to go back to the General Government because |
thought you said that you couldn’t do that before because | have a question on that. And my question is
Great American Downtown, that used to be $40,000.00 now it’s $50,000.00. What exactly is Great
American Downtown doing with that $50,000.00?
Mayor Donchess
Well they are supporting our efforts to create activity and expand the tax base downtown. Now please keep
in mind that the downtown is a profit center so-called for the City. The City is 31 square miles, one quarter
of that, one quarter mile so less than 1% is the central business district, Main Street and the Mill Yard area.
That area of the City generates $6 million dollars in tax revenue. That’s far more than the services that are
generated downtown. Now wait, there’s virtually no students, a few students but not very many, no
garbage collection it’s all commercial so there’s plowing, police and fire. So if we through creating new
activity downtown can bring more people down there, can make people enjoy it more, can increase the
strength of those small businesses and grow the property tax base, maybe the $6 million will become $8 or
$10 or $12 and we can pay for schools in your neighborhood or police or fire or whatever it is using the
money that is generated there. So keep in mind that area generates a lot of money that helps pay for
services through every neighborhood.
Ms. Johnson That sounds good for paying schools in my neighborhood. | live in Ward 5 but my kids went to
school in Ward 4 so which one was my neighborhood, where | lived or where my kids went to school? So |
mean six and one half a dozen of the other but anyway, let that be.
Chairman Dowd
Your time was up, you asked a single question, you got an answer.
Ms. Johnson OK I'll get back in line. That’s OK.
Laurie Ortolano 41 Berkeley Street. Onward to the Assessing Budget. Mr. Mayor, | think you really
misrepresented the improvements that have gone in Assessing. It has been an enormously painful
process. And you don’t understand what citizens are trying to get at with information when you look at the
improvements that were made by the Director. Property record cards that were ordinarily available to the
public in November did not become available until the end of January. | had to send emails into a chief to
request probably over 200 property record cards for him to email them to me because | had no access to
help with abatements. It was absurd and frustrating. And any email to the Director to say when are these
property record cards coming on line, we are 3 months late, there was no answer. Nobody could figure it
out. The software update which was supposed to take a few months took 16 months and we had a lot of
trouble with the software. There were a lot of errors and things that didn’t work well. We instituted a new
policy in there where records aren’t open despite our Charter saying that we can come to City Hall and
inspect records that are readily available. The Director put a 5 day Right-to-Know standing on open
records so you couldn’t go in and look at a property record file anymore and | believe that remains. | think
that’s actually illegal and that may be something | go to Court on. It’s ridiculous, you took it away. So when
you say there’s tremendous improvements down there, | think it has been hair pulling. Have you looked at
the new computer systems that are up down there, the two at the cubicles? The software is so complex that
| don’t think that any citizen is going to ever figure out how to print a property record card. I’m going to
have to spend 5 or 6 hours figuring out the menus myself; it’s not simple, no instructions at the counter.
Have you looked at how the office space is set up for citizens? You took 45 square feet of countertop that
the public could come in and use and reduced it to about 6. Where does the public put their papers, their
notebooks, their drawings, their information they want to share with an assessor, you took it all away. You
took away the research space so people like me could never go back in. You didn’t leave a computer in an
open area where a citizen like me could research away from the cubicles, you reduced the computers from
3 to 2. | am not happy with what you did in there and | don’t think you made it better or easier or simpler for
property owners.
