Board of Aldermen 02-22-2022 Page 37
mask ordinance and hopefully at some point in the not too distant future, you won't have to wear a mask at City Hall. At
that point, | think the Board needs to consider us eliminating Zoom entirely unless an Alderman is ill or something and
can't attend. But as far as anybody else, they should be here in person.
The other thing is the there was questions about Zoom for the Board of Education. There is no capability at Nashua High
North for Zoom and it's about 30 plus $30,000 to put it in. | can tell you the Board of Ed. is not going to spend valuable
money out of their education budget to put that in. Especially where it's probably going to be going away soon. So it's not
because they're trying to avoid public input, it's because they don't have the capability and it's very costly.
Also last night, the television broadcast of the Board of Ed meeting was horrible. It got so bad | just recorded most of it
because every five seconds | was cutting out. That is not good. | don't Know what they need to fix it but somebody needs
to look into that and quickly probably. That’s all.
Alderman Comeau
Thank you, Madam President. | had a couple items but they’re real quick. | just wanted to give Alderman Thibeault some
more details. Anthony Fernandez did just finished first on Saturday in the district. He was one of six students from
Nashua South that placed. There was a first, a second, two thirds, and three fourths, including my son, and helped
Nashua South finish third in the entire tournament. So those six wrestlers are all moving on to meet champions this
coming Saturday. So congratulations, all them.
The two things I'd like to discuss - most of this has already been touched upon so I'll try not to repeat too much. The first
thing is the situation that happened two weeks ago with Ms. Ortolano. | agree that | don't think that that was the
appropriate way to handle that. RSA 91-A allows us to go into non- public for a number of reasons and one of them is
specifically, you know, matters that would adversely affect the reputation of a member of the public. So that's a situation
where | would hope in the future where we go into a non-public session.
Additionally, | think that the whole thing was premature. Somebody else mentioned that that wasn't information we
needed that night. That could have gone through the normal process without the suspension of rules to add it
immediately to the packet. It seems after the fact that it's pretty certain that somebody jumped the gun when you have the
Nashua Police basically saying that the things that were alleged by Direct Kleiner didn't actually happen and that the
gentleman from the company in question did say that Ms. Ortolano never identified yourself as a city employee. So it
seems like that was just one big misunderstanding that the entire thing could have been avoided and her reputation
probably could have been preserved a little bit. So | do agree that she's owed an apology not just from the Board but also
from Director Kleiner.
The second thing I'd like to discuss, which has also been mentioned, is the situation with the barriers and the Downtown
Improvement Committee. | have a number of constituents who have been in contact with me for the last several months
expressing their desire to be involved in the discussion in any committee that's been formed. We did talk in January after
the Committee of Infrastructure about forming a committee and we were told that a committee would be formed and we
would find out later the details about that. Since then, I've had people e-mailing me nonstop asking me when it's going to
be on an agenda, when will we be able to talk about it, and I've been telling them there's nothing coming up. There's
nothing on any agenda. Trust me I'm on the Infrastructure Committee. If we were talking about it, I'd know and now come
to find out that we've been talking about it all along. There was a Downtown Improvement Committee meeting in January.
There was a Downtown Improvement Committee meeting in February. There's no minutes available online. There was
no public notice that these meetings were taking place. We know as a body that there is an opposition voice. How loud
that voice is subject to debate. That could be 50%. It could be 10%. It could be 90% but we do know that there's not
100% support for the barriers.
So | really strongly feel that the process that was used was deceptive. It was used to keep people out of the meetings
that were going to be loud, dissension voices. People were intentionally not told when these meetings were going to take
place because their participation was not welcome. And then for Director Cummings to say that they waited for alternative
solutions and none were presented was not surprised that no one presented because no one was given an opportunity to
present anything. So | would hope going forward that we have a lot more transparency around an issue that is specifically
so divisive. We know there is opposition. We owe it to the public to hear all of their voices and give them the compromise
that was promised in December and that was promised again in January. There is no compromise if we only allow one
side to attend the meeting and we don't allow the other side to give their opinions. Thank you.
Alderman Clemons
Thank you, Madam President. So just to address the issue with that's been brought up about the Downtown
