A regular meeting of the Board of Aldermen was held Tuesday, March 8, 2022, at 7:30 p.m. in the aldermanic chamber
and via Zoom teleconference which meeting link can be found on the agenda and on the City’s website calendar.
President Lori Wilshire presided; City Clerk Susan Lovering recorded.
Prayer was offered by City Clerk Susan Lovering; Alderman Tyler Gouveia led in the Pledge to the Flag.
Let’s start the meeting by taking a roll call attendance.
The roll call was taken with 15 members of the Board of Aldermen present: Alderman O’Brien, Alderman Sullivan,
Alderman Klee, Alderman Moran, Alderman Lopez, Alderman Jette, Alderman Clemons, Alderwoman Kelly, Alderman
Comeau, Alderman Dowd, Alderman Gouveia, Alderman Cathey, Alderman Thibeault, Alderwoman Timmons, Alderman
Wilshire.
Mayor James W. Donchess, Corporation Counsel Steve Bolton, were also in attendance.
President Lori Wilshire asked for a Moment of Silence for Renny Cushing. Renny Cushing was a 25 year (that I’m aware of)
State Representative that passed yesterday. | know a lot of us served with him and were friends with him so if we could just
take a moment of silence. Thank you.
President Lori Wilshire
Mayor did you wish to address the Board this evening?
REMARKS BY THE MAYOR
Yes, thank you Madam President. | just have a few things. First we have received today our Ukraine flag and we will be
doing a flag-raising ceremony next Tuesday - a week from today - at 5:30 in front of City Hall to recognize and support the
freedom and independence of the Ukrainian people. We have reached out to a number of groups and people in Nashua
and in New Hampshire in hopes that some Ukrainian Americans or as many as possible will be able to join us and of
course you are all invited and | encourage you to attend.
On many occasions | reported to you about the COVID numbers and they got pretty high this past winter. They are
dramatically better, | mean we still have COVID, but the positivity rate, which is the percent of people who test and turn
out to have COVID is 4.8% as of early this week and that is down from almost 30% not so long ago. The number of new
cases per 100,000 within the last 14 days, which is another measurement that is commonly used, is down to around 200
and that was close to 3,000 a few weeks back, so that’s good news. The hospitals have felt a lot of relief so things at
least for the time being are quite a bit better.
| wanted to mention to you Madam President one of the things that’s on your agenda tonight which is my nomination of
Matt Sullivan as the Community Development Director. He has been serving as the City Planning Director for some time
now - almost a year and a half. He previously worked for the Town of Wolfeboro and the Strafford County Regional
Planning Commission. He has done a very good job and has received outstanding reviews by people throughout the City.
We solicited applications and received some from around different areas of the Country. We had an interview team
consisting of Lisa Fauteux, Tim Cummings, Deb Chisholm who works in Community Development, as well as Noah
Telerski. They interviewed several people and unanimously came back and said they didn’t even think it was worth going
to asecond round. That Matt Sullivan was clearly the most qualified. | subsequently talked with the Chair of the Planning
Board. He thought Matt was doing a great job, so based upon all that and my own experience with Matt, which has been
very favorable, | nominated him. He went before the Personnel Committee last night. | think he did a very good job and
he comes before you tonight with the unanimous recommendation of the Personnel Committee.
And finally, Madam President, you see on your agenda the contract for the award of the 2022 paving program. This will
continue with our paving plan of action and pave and crack-seal more streets. This comes to you because it is a contract
of more than a million dollars. It has been recommended by the Board of Public Works and also by the Finance
Committee. So | hope you will approve that contract. That is all | have for you this evening Madam President.
RESPONSE TO REMARKS OF THE MAYOR
Alderman Klee
| am very happy Mr. Mayor that you have put forward Mr. Sullivan to be Director. | worked with him for quite a while since
Sarah has left us and he has been invaluable. He knows about having to go and look things up and he’s just great. He
