Board of Aldermen 02-22-2022 Page 40
At the end of the day, this is not a battle to fight. Both the retail and the restaurant industries are necessary to Nashua’s
downtown. You need businesses operating until 5 pm. You need businesses operating after 5 pm. Either side being a
problem is a problem for both sides. So we need to figure out how to use our space. We need to figure out how to share
our space. We do have to take into account the safety considerations in the strategic planning that Fire and DPW are
gonna to require and that means we're going to have to have some open dialogue. There's going to have to be a lot of
work done on this. So I'm looking forward to that part of this. | am not encouraged by all of the, | guess, prebaked
opinions before people have really gotten to see what we can do, how we can change, what everybody side is. I'm seeing
words thrown around like “I'm feeling discriminated against’, or “I'm feeling that there's underhanded planning going on”,
and all of this stuff which is extremely premature. Everybody does have a voice. Everybody does have their
representatives. If your constituents call you and they have an opinion you don’t like, you do still have to talk to them, and
you just have to accept that.
So it's a challenge doing that but it's going to be important because this year is very important for our downtown
particularly because we don't have Great American Downtown running huge events as we always have. We don't have a
solid history of restaurants that have always been there and are doing the same thing. We have a lot of new restaurants
that don't necessarily know the lay of the land and we have a pretty vulnerable downtown. So | encourage everybody to
focus on the goal here and it's a shared goal. We want downtown to thrive. We don't want to just subscribe to our
opinions of what a thriving downtown looks like because when we focus only on our side versus the other persons, we're
only going to get half of the view.
With respect to what Alderman Jette said about masking, | want to encourage that as well. Masking is very important. As
a health care professional, | Know that. | was working in the ER for much of last year and the year before in the height of
the epidemic and was fine. | practiced the mitigation measures of practicing social distancing. | am anticipating going to
on a trip to Honduras this weekend and | say anticipating because if I'm COVID positive, I'm not going regardless of
whether that country tests or not, | can't expose a population that has limited health care. So that's a decision | have to
make. When I'm in country, there's no mandate making me wear a mask there but I'm gonna wear a mask any time I'm
indoors unless I'm literally stuffing a hamburger in my mouth, which actually came up over the weekend. If it's feasible to
protect people around me by keeping my distance or my facial covering intact, I'm going to do that. So | encourage
anybody who is willing to do it as a matter of conscience to do that. Regardless of the stigma or the finger pointing if you
believe it's the right thing to do, then do it on behalf of other people.
Finally with regard to the comments that were made two weeks prior, | don't recall Director Kleiner making accusations
about a member of the public. | believe she read a statement from a vendor who expressed concerns about that. | think
that was important information for us to know because as Aldermen if we try to contact that vendor ourselves, we need to
know why they're saying no and why they're suddenly circling the wagon and why they're asking us for identifying
information. There are some things that we need to know. Should it have been read in public? | don't think it was that
urgent. | think it should have been sent as a communication. The use of non-public session is a little bit debatable
because in my opinion, and I'm not a lawyer, but | feel like if we have a non-public session about a member of the public,
that member of the public may have a right to attend that. They may have a right to bring representation and that
becomes very complicated. So | would prefer that we handle situations like that with a little more deliberation and
foresight.
| would also encourage members of the public to remember that when they're talking about city staff members week, after
week, after week and they're criticizing their work, they're criticizing their effort, they're criticizing their performance, those
can be construed as personal attacks too and the staff don't like it. There is a long history over the past several years of
staff being identified, shamed, called out in public meetings, and | don't like it. | don't like the public comment can be used
to attack somebody who's just paid to work here and is trying to do what they can.
At times specific Aldermen have been called out, and identified, and described unflatteringly. | believe the Mayor was
perhaps referenced a couple of times as well. At least we can choose that. We're elected to fulfill that role and we know
we're going to get knocked around a little bit. So | recognize the sensitivity towards members of the public and the rights
that they have, | ask that the public recognize the rights to privacy that our employees have. | believe | just heard an
employee being chased out of this meeting who did not wish to speak to somebody and | really would appreciate it if
everybody could focus on what their roles are, and what their boundaries are, and try to restore that décor because we
don't want to be fighting over how the city is run. That turns it into a war zone. We want to be working collaboratively over
what possibilities and what opportunities our city can achieve. Thank you.
Alderman Moran
Thank you, Madam President. One - | want to continue to encourage people to voluntarily wear masks. | do think it's the
right thing to do. | think at this point, like | said earlier, you've been educated enough. It's your choice to do so now.
