A regular meeting of the Board of Aldermen was held Tuesday, February 22, 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; Deputy City Clerk Allison Waite recorded.
Prayer was offered by Deputy City Clerk Allison Waite; Alderman-at-Large Melbourne Moran, Jr. led in the Pledge to the
Flag.
Let’s start the meeting by taking a roll call attendance. If you are participating via Zoom, please state your presence, reason
for not attending the meeting in person, and whether there is anyone in the room with you during this meeting, which is
required under the Right-To-Know Law.
The roll call was taken with 14 members of the Board of Aldermen present: Alderman O’Brien,
Alderman Sullivan, Alderman Klee, Alderman Moran, Alderman Lopez, Alderman Jette, Alderman Clemons, Alderman
Comeau, Alderman Dowd, Alderman Gouveia, Alderman Cathey, Alderman Thibeault, Alderwoman Timmons, Alderman
Wilshire.
Alderwoman Kelly was recorded absent.
President Wilshire
Alderwoman Kelly is still out of town due to a death in the family. So we don’t have to do roll call votes tonight.
Mayor James W. Donchess, Corporation Counsel Steve Bolton, were also in attendance.
REMARKS BY THE MAYOR
Mayor Donchess
Yes, Madam President. First, | wanted to just give you my periodic update on COVID. In terms of the Nashua statistics,
the State has not updated things since Friday. So this was Friday. | expect the numbers are better now than they were
but they certainly have improved. The numbers for Nashua are 403 new cases per 100,000 over the last 14 days. That's
one of the metrics. The other is a 14% positivity rate. Most importantly maybe, the hospitals report a significant decline in
hospitalizations. As of today there were 12 people hospitalized for COVID between the two hospitals. That number
during the peak of a month or six weeks ago was in the 60s and even at 70. So now it's down to 12. So that's a
considerable improvement. It seems there's another variant but things seem to be getting better and we expect that they
will for the next several weeks.
Madam President, | wanted to mention and give my condolences to the family of Bill Marcoux who some of you I'm sure
knew. He passed away recently. His history in Nashua was very long and deep. He was a good friend of mine. He
retired and moved to Florida but he was on the Board of Aldermen Ward 6. Alderman Comeau he lived in your
neighborhood. He represented Ward 6 for quite a while. He was a County Commissioner. He was also an expert in
antiques and in glass particularly. Interestingly, he was recognized as a Fellow of the Corning Museum of Glass because
of his very extensive knowledge regarding Tiffany glass and other antique objects. His sister Nancy survives in here in
Nashua. She lives up on Chester Street and | just find his passing very, very sad.
| went Madam President to an opening of a Montessori School at St. Philip's Church - Upstone Montessori School, which
will be opening this coming fall It’s founded by a guy named Austin Matte and he gave me and others a tour and there
were a number of families that went there. So that will be another preschool option for kids. | think they take children
beginning at age three.
If anyone wishes to join me, there will be the raising of the Dominican flag at 10 a.m. on Saturday to celebrate Dominican
independence. A number of our citizens of Dominican origin will be there and this is something we've tried to do in the
past usually annually. It is always at least nice to see those people as they come back usually every year.
Finally, | wanted to mention the accomplishment of Aldermen O'Brien and our legislative delegation in the legislature. So
as you've heard many times, the State in law committed to paying 35% of city pension costs that went on for decades.
Then they changed the law and stop paying. That's how they got Nashua and all the other cities and towns into the
pension system. Now 35 percent is a lot of money. For us, it's like $10 million a year that the State was supposed to
provide us and is not. So Alderman O'Brien for a number of sessions now has been seeking to promote a Bill that it would
