A regular meeting of the Board of Aldermen was held Tuesday, August 9, 2016, at 7:30 p.m. in the
Aldermanic Chamber.
President Brian S. McCarthy presided; City Clerk Patricia D. Piecuch recorded.
Prayer was offered by City Clerk Patricia D. Piecuch; Alderman-at-Large David W. Deane led in the
Pledge to the Flag.
The roll call was taken with 15 members of the Board of Aldermen present.
Mayor James W. Donchess and Corporation Counsel Steven A. Bolton were also present.
REMARKS BY THE MAYOR
Mayor Donchess
First | wanted to mention the resolution which proposes the escrows. You can see the list of escrows
attached to the resolution. The main proposals that | have made is that we take surplus funds from this
past year, fiscal °16, which totals about 1% of the city budget and devote them primarily to three of our
reserve accounts. First of all we proposed that a significant amount of funds be transferred into the
Capital Equipment Reserve Fund and secondly we propose that $300,000 be transferred into the
building fund. This pays for improvements to City Hall and elsewhere. We need to replenish this fund in
part because the elevator out here that some of you take to come up to the second floor has been
breaking down very regularly and has trapped people recently and after 80 years of use, it needs to be
replaced at a cost of $190,000. The other transfer to a reserve fund that is proposed in the escrow
resolution is a transfer into the reserve fund for the purposes of a pension cost which you have on your
agenda tonight. | want to make sure that people understand that this is a different proposal than we
have considered in the past. The Board, over a couple of different terms, has considered whether to use
money that the city had saved in its undesignated reserve fund; to use $2 million that is saved there to
transfer into a reserve account to help us offset increased pension costs which we know are going to hit
us this coming year or in the current fiscal year. That failed because those were not appropriated funds,
although saved by the city they had not actually been appropriated through the budget and required a
spending cap override. What we are proposing here is to establish the reserve fund which the committee
has recommended but also, and hopefully you will pass that tonight, but the escrow proposal would fund
that reserve fund with surplus funds meaning funds that have been appropriated that were previously
appropriated by the Board through the budget process in the last fiscal year and therefore we can save
money in this fashion towards pension costs without any kind of spending cap override. Let me repeat,
because these funds have already been appropriated but unspent and the use of those funds does not
require a spending cap override because they have already been appropriated under the cap in the
previous fiscal year which ended on June 30, 2016. In making these proposals | was listening to many of
the members of the Board of Aldermen who, during the budget process, expressed the desire that we
make as great of an effort as possible to reserve funds, especially for capital equipment but also for the
pension obligation that we have coming and in light of those comments and many of the thoughts
expressed, again, the escrows propose that we use some of these funds that are unspent this year to
save for the future and help us with equipment and a very serious pension obligation.
| also wanted to mention a resolution that represents a significant step forward for us here in the
downtown and on the Nashua River and that is R-16-056 which would authorize a license agreement
with the owner of the Millyard Technology Building to establish what essentially would be a public boat
launch along the river; the rides which used to be given by Rocky LaPierre some years ago where he
launched those boat rides. The owner has kindly agreed to give the city an easement with a very minor
condition that people who are going to use this sign in and indicate who they are right there on the site.
He has also agreed to reserve some parking spaces for people who want to launch their boats and this
of course will be referred to committee where it will be explained in detail but | think this will enable us to
take another step to enhance use of the river and the riverfront; the beautiful asset of the Nashua River
that we have in our downtown.
