A special meeting of the Board of Aldermen was held Wednesday, September 14, 2016, at 6:45 p.m. in the
Aldermanic Chamber.
Vice President Lori Wilshire presided; City Clerk Patricia D. Piecuch recorded.
Prayer was offered by City Clerk Patricia D. Piecuch; Alderman Sean M. McGuinness led in the Pledge to the
Flag.
The roll call was taken with 13 members of the Board of Aldermen present; Alderman Brian S. McCarthy,
Alderman Daniel T. Moriarty were recorded absent. Alderman Clemons arrived after roll call at 6:50p.m.
Mayor James W. Donchess and Corporation Counsel Steven A. Bolton were also in attendance.
COMMUNICATIONS
MOTION BY ALDERMAN COOKSON THAT ALL COMMUNICATIONS BE READ BY TITLE ONLY
MOTION CARRIED
From: Brian S. McCarthy, President, Board of Aldermen
Re: Special Board of Aldermen Meeting
MOTION BY ALDERMAN COOKSON TO ACCEPT AND PLACE ON FILE
MOTION CARRIED
MOTION BY ALDERMAN COOKSON THAT THE RULES BE SO FAR SUSPENDED AS TO ALLOW FOR
THE INTRODUCTION OF A COMMUNICATION RECEIVED AFTER THE AGENDA WAS PREPARED
MOTION CARRIED
From: Mayor Jim Donchess
Re: Daniel Webster College
MOTION BY ALDERMAN COOKSON TO ACCEPT AND PLACE ON FILE
MOTION CARRIED
DANIEL WEBSTER COLLEGE PRESENTATION
Paul LeBlanc, President of Southern New Hampshire University
Mr. LeBlanc
l’ll give you a brief background of the events of the last five days. As you know, Daniel Webster was facing
some financial difficulties related to its parent ITT which is a very large for profit chain of about 43,000
students. Daniel Webster is a wholly owned for profit subsidiary of ITT but it’s on a federal |.D. number for the
purposes of receiving and processing title 4 funds; federal aid to students. There was some hope that they
would be able to draw down student aid for the fall and that would give them enough revenue to have some
breathing space to find a solution as ITT was going into a death spiral. It became clear to people in the U.S.
Department of Education that if ITT declared bankruptcy that those dollars were not flown to Daniel Webster
but they would flow to ITT in Indiana and then theoretically back to the campus. Their fear is that those dollars
would make it to Indiana and never come back to the campus. They halted the ability of a Daniel Webster to
pull down dollars last Thursday. That’s effectively cutting off oxygen to the organization. Friday morning we
had a reach from ITT and also the Department of Education asking if we were willing to take on the teach out
and the appeal for working with us was our proximity and also our willingness to take all of the programs, all of
the students and all of the employees. There are other schools that are in conversations with Daniel Webster
but they wanted pieces and that was going to be too chaotic for everybody. We agreed to take over the teach
out and thus began a furious series of meetings through the weekend, conference calls, calls with the
