Board of Aldermen 08-09-2022 Page 16
There's a misconception out there that we're not listening to our constituents or the people of Nashua. There’s 90,000
people, maybe 70,000 plus adults on Zoom. We may get five or six people commenting at a meeting if that. That doesn't
mean we're not listening to the people in the city. | listen to my constituents all the time. | get emails, | get phone calls, |
send a weekly newsletter out as well. Sometimes | reach out to them more than once if something big comes up. | tell
them how the meetings have gone like which way they went, what meetings are coming up, what things are important on
the docket that they should know about. It doesn't matter what party, if any, that they belong to. It doesn't matter if they
vote. If they send me an email and they want my information, | will give it to them every week.
Now do | respond to Mr. Gouthro’s email? Again to Alderman Klee’s point, we can't respond to every email. Maybe
Aldermen-at-Large can but | got a constituency that | have to respond to and they come first. It doesn't mean I'm not
thinking about the city. It doesn't mean | don't vote for the city | do but when I'm going through those emails, constituency
comes first. Three of the four Aldermen that responded were for Mr. Gouthro’s points. One of them send us a letter with
a paragraph there was exactly the paragraph that Mr. Gouthro wrote almost word for word. So obviously, they're going to
respond to him. | wasn't gonna go back and forth with him on this issue because what ends up happening anytime I'm
debating an issue friendly with someone, it shows up on Facebook and it gets twisted. So what's the point of doing that,
right? Come here and talk to us and we'll listen.
Before COVID, there was no Zoom issue. People came in. Alderman Klee said it and I'm repeating this one because I've
been to those meetings. Board of Education packs that room in when there's an issue that people care about. They do.
I've been there. It's been standing room only. So to say that nobody goes to those and Zoom would be better, | don't
think that's the case.
As far as whether or not we let the Aldermen use it or city officials, | can go either way on that. I'm here for every single
meeting that I'm supposed to be. | have not Zoomed into one that | wasn't supposed to be Zoomed in for. The ones |
Zoom in for are the committee meetings I'm not part of in case | want to say something but I'm listening because I'm trying
to still learn everything. One of the things that was said in one of those emails that we're taking away people's
constitutional right for free speech. That is absolutely not the case. They can come and speak. They can send an email.
They can send an email to me. They can send an email to all of us. That's free speech. Do we not have free speech
before COVID? I don’t know. | think it’s gone too far now.
The people that usually talk are the ones screaming at us. Some of the people on Zoom don't even put their names.
They put Mayor's a jerk. That's their name - Mayor's a jerk. | don't find that funny. | find that offensive to the city - not the
city but the people out there in the city, the constituents that actually do want to Zoom in and want to debate the issues
with us telling us how they really feel not to call somebody a “lord”. Some of you guys support these people calling “lord”
or we're saying something against the Mayor and that's just not appropriate. We're using the “c” word. It wasn't just using
it. It was basically calling Mayor Donchess and Attorney Bolton that word. You can play back the tape. | know
someone's probably gonna say that wasn't true. Play back the tape. It was there. So | find it hard for the people who
really want to participate in this government of the city that we were put and by the way, | get paid by Eversource. That's
my salary. | get a stipend from the city and it's very small. So before anybody says they pay my salary, that's a resource.
| got elected by the voters of my Ward to support them and that's what I'm doing. When we have people that just want to
play games, and fool around, and swear, and call people names, that's not appropriate. It’s not appropriate on Zoom. It’s
not appropriate in the chamber. If you want to state your issue of why we're doing something that either you like, or you
don't like, speak, send an email. | respond more to things that aren’t nasty. Okay. There's no reason for me to speak to
someone that's nasty because they're not going to speak nice back. They're just not. So just be nice. | try to be nice to
people. | don't know why they can't be nice back but | will listen to anybody that has an opposing view.
No one's looking | heard we're looking to take away debate. No, we're not. We're having a debate right now. Not all of us
are on the same side. You've heard someone one side, someone on the other, and some in the middle. That's debate.
But what we've heard out there, | think made some people change their minds a little bit or at least make them think about
it. It made me think about it more towards the way I'm thinking now, which is I'm going to vote to get rid of Zoom.
Alderwoman Timmons
Thank you, Madam President. | listened to everybody around the table but it's kind of personal with me. | listen to my
constituents as well and a lot of them do not come on Zoom. They're out there in the community beyond that. So | hear
what they have to say. They're not on Zoom but what they do say when they hear from other people is a lot of
misinformation and the misinformation actually come from people that make inaccurate comments on Zoom. The way
that they talk to the Mayor, they don't have respect for the Mayor. They don't have respect for us in general and not kind.
So I'm gonna support this because | think it's only the right thing to do. So that's my comment. | listened to everything
everyone else said in here and | agree with most of you but | do know that my constituents, the silent majority and there's
thousands of them. It's not five, thousands of them, that's why | keep getting elected. They do not like the tone these
