Board of Aldermen Page 28
September 27, 2016
with all pure and good intent and | welcome the commentary, | think it’s great that people are excited
about this stuff and want to make Nashua a better place but we can do that without associating with this
organization. There’s no value and that was even pointed out in committee, which, by the way, | didn’t
attend that meeting but | watched it. That’s my problem, the information contained in their fact filings and
the information contained on their website, as stated by them, not me. Draw your own conclusions.
Alderman Lopez
The information that is presented on their 990 is that there isn’t information so | don’t see any cause for
inferring any undue or inappropriate behavior because there is no evidence that this actually happened
and | think an advocacy toolkit or a how to communicate to the public is something you probably would
expect in a welcoming organization, an organization designed to empower people who may not actually
be that great at communicating, may have English as a second language; to me it sounds like a road
map for how to communicate with people to people who aren’t professional politicians or possessing of
advanced education degrees and just want to make a difference in their community and want to be
inclusive and want to say what they know is right as articulately as possible. | don’t hear any of what was
described as Orwellian. | think it could be summarized as just saying you may be in the situation where
you are walking into a group of people who believe something differently and you need to listen to them,
such as our audience here, and when you are trying to make your comments back, if you are trying to
push a point home then you need to start by understanding what their point is first. That’s basic
communication, not Orwellian.
Alderman O’Brien
| truly would just like to say that | am glad we are having this discussion, | have total respect for people
who are against it and people who are for it. I’m looking at the list that was put out by the Welcoming
America Initiative and you have to put some weight to look at other communities around America that
have really backed this. I’m sure it was vetted by their City Councils or Aldermen or Selectmen. Some
of these communities are no slouches; Akron, OH; New York City; Washington, D.C.; Columbus, OH;
and Boston, MA; and Battle Creek, MI. They all vetted this and voted for it. Somebody has to prove a
little bit more to me to change my vote. | don’t think these cities have been hog washed , | think they
have looked at this and vetted it and made the appropriate choice.
Alderman Cookson
| certainly would have hoped that other communities would have vetted a similar piece of legislation but
that doesn’t negate our responsibility to vet this piece of legislation. When we look at the City of
Manchester, did anybody look at the City of Manchester? | did. September 21, 2015; Committee on
Administration and Information Systems, there was a meeting that happened at 4:30 p.m. Chairman
Craig called the meeting...1 mean I’m not going to read all of this to you but what | wanted to point out is
that Alderman Long stated that there was an initiative and Mayor Lozeau in Nashua had signed a
recognition of Welcoming Week. That was somewhere prior to September 21, 2015. Alderman Ludwig
said so basically this is a good faith effort on behalf of the city. Alderman Long’s response, yes, there
are 32 cities in the country right now that have proclaimed themselves as a Welcoming Community.
Nashua is the only other city in New Hampshire to have done that. Weren’t we supposed to be looking
at this piece of legislation saying that Manchester and Concord were reasons why we should do it?
There is a proclamation and not a resolution. | had a legislative search done and there is nothing that
the city has done prior to September 21, 2015, legislatively to recognize us as a Welcoming City or
Welcoming Week or whatever the case may be. It may have been a Mayor’s proclamation but it was not
a piece of legislation that we, as a Board of Aldermen, took up. The City of Manchester vetting it
appropriately said hey, Nashua did it, here’s Mayor Lozeau, here’s the proclamation and | can read it to
you. No, we do our own vetting.
Alderman Clemons
| can’t speak for her obviously but | can imagine why Mayor Lozeau did this by proclamation.
