Board of Aldermen Page 24
August 9, 2016
ON THE QUESTION
Alderman Deane
Mayor, do people want to put sheds up or something on this property?
Mayor Donchess
Yes. The original sale with covenants that we approved limited the shed to a very small size. They
would like to possibly do larger sheds so this is the proposed amendment.
Given its first reading; assigned to the COMMITTEE ON INFRASTRUCTURE by President McCarthy
NEW BUSINESS — ORDINANCES - None
PERIOD FOR GENERAL PUBLIC COMMENT
Mr. James Cutter, 86 Palm Street
Mr. Cutter read aloud a letter dated August 9, 2016, addressed to Alderman-at-Large Brian S. McCarthy,
Mayor Jim Donchess, Attorney Steve Bolton and Alderman Tom Lopez, Ward 4. The letter is attached to
these minutes.
Ms. Paula Johnson, 15 Westborn Drive
| want to thank Alderman LeBrun for this evening and | would like to thank Alderman Lopez for this evening
because he made a very good suggestion which | offered back at the Infrastructure Committee that they
should have a representative from the neighborhood. | would be more than happy to sit there because |
was there when Stellos was built and | was a Board of Aldermen member. Also, | am going to take a little
bit of offense here because during the meeting a friend of mine sent me an e-mail that goes back to
11/26/13, 12/10/13; skateboard comments from Deane and it says we have received from e-mails from
folks and petitions and other things that, we are going to have a public meeting at the Amherst Street
Elementary School. All of these folks that live within the area are going to be notified as such as we do
with zoning and planning. What would have been the big deal? We seem to (inaudible) these minutes.
There were no minutes and it’s not under the right-to-know law. | take offense basically being called not
honest. What’s the big deal of calling a meeting in that Ward and everybody to have come? The fact that
Mrs. Johnson knew more than anybody else. Oh that Mrs. Johnson, the early bird catches the worm and
consistency is persistent and you have to be persistent to get the information in this city. | called Director
Fauteux and | kept asking her questions and my Alderman. That’s the only reason why | found out about
everything. | never saw it in the papers or on-line. To say that Mrs. Johnson had every opportunity; |
couldn’t find any of this. If this has been in the works for a while, which obviously it was, it could have
been brought up, the Mayor could have told us about it at the Ward 5 meeting at the beginning of the year,
it could have been done. My Alderman at times didn’t know that much about it. Yes he was stepping in
and maybe the old Alderman didn’t tell him about it. The bottom line is people don’t trust government
anymore and | can’t understand why? What would have been the big deal? As has been done in the past,
and | hope now that it got pushed through tonight without anybody in the area being able to sit down and
see the charts and having an open discussion on this...and | hope the next stage is | will take my
grievance to the Board of Education and to the Planning Board. The fact of the matter is maybe now we
can sit down and invite everybody in the surrounding area of this facility. It’s not just about Nashua
skateboarders; it is surrounding towns; that’s what | heard tonight. It should be about Nashua. | don’t
care about Hudson, | don’t care about Litchfield; they don’t care about Nashua. Let those communities put
some money (inaudible) than Nashua at the time. | think we need to have an open discussion like it was
going be at the Amherst Street School when the skateboard park was supposed to go on Broad Street.
Open government, open policies and transparency. Then you don’t get into these problems with
