from the metro Manchester/Nashua region. Yet when we come up and bring things such as commuter rail, they
don't give us the time of day. Yet the good people of someplace like Bartlett or some other places where they
live, they rely on us for their education. Every lottery ticket that gets sold in the city of Nashua, and how many
lottery tickets do you think get sold, how many Keno will be played in the future in the city that will go back to
some other city and town? | would like to encourage the delegation to bond together, talk to our friends from
other parts. | know Alderman McCarthy and | have good communication with people that we sit in the House
and sit on the Aldermanic board. We worked with the Safe Station initiatives. But talk to your peers up there and
try to sow the Nashua idea, which is very important. Try to get them to realize that they don’t just roll their eyes
and say, “Oh, there’s Nashua again,” that Nashua has particular needs. We're the ones with workforce housing. |
don’t see workforce housing in some other parts of the state, yet it’s here. | see we are very fortunate to have two
veterans’ homes for people who have some difficulties. | don’t see them in other communities within a 20-mile
radius
So Nashua has broad shoulders and we have done well to be part of the state. And | think that if we band
together and talk to our friends up there and try to get the initiative to come back and try to help us out,
particularly when it’s going to affect our taxpayers, such as that Fast Track which didn’t need to be done so
acutely. But the $2 million annually is a big chunk to our taxpayers right here in the city.
President McCarthy
| think it’s important to note the $2 million is the uplift in this year alone. If you look at the scope of the problem,
we believe our actual steady state contribution to the pension system to keep it running is $8 million a year. The
check we're writing this year is for $23 million. There’s an additional $15 million in the get-well costs for the
pension plan, and that uplift of $15 million has come over the last six or seven years and has been a tremendous
burden in a capped budget to be able to do anything else that the city needs.
Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja
Just to Alderman O’Brien’s comment about working together with your fellow representatives, if you look at
what’s happening in southern New Hampshire, we are starting to come together more and more as a larger
regional group. You look at our bus system and what we’re doing with Milford, and interest in working outside of
the city limits. Not only are we generating the additional dollars from Nashua, because of what’s happening in
this region, we’re generating even more dollars. And it’s important to work with people within the region — from
Milford, from Hollis, from Brookline, from Hudson, from Litchfield — and say, “Look, we as a region are starting to
share some benefits and some concerns, and we need to band together to make sure those dollars are flowing
here.” | have people in Hudson say to me all the time, “/Vhat’s going to happen when that development goes in
on Bridge Street?” And I’m like, “Well, there’s a plan for a rotary.” So it’s really important that we start looking
outside of the city of Nashua and start thinking more regionally, because we are working more regionally and
things are happening across our region. | think that’s another piece that we need to look at as we look at what
dollars are being generated, not only in Nashua but in southern New Hampshire; just within our region that’s
covered by the Regional Planning Commission. What’s being generated here and how much of it is coming
back, to address keeping our economic engine going?
President McCarthy
When you look at Nashua at the anchor for the region, there are a lot of services that are provided by Nashua.
We're the major source of social services and of safety nets, etc. Unfortunately, the costs of that are borne
solely by the Nashua taxpayers, even though we’re providing a regional service. At some point, there has to be
some way to deal with that. In fact, revenue from the state would normally be the way that would be handled.
Alderman-Elect Jette
On a slightly different tact, but kind of along the same lines, what is the feeling among the delegation about this
bill that is coming up about the scholarship program, where people can apply to this nonprofit scholarship
program and get money? That scholarship program can take money from the city, that the State provides to the
city to educate students, and give it to a private individual to homeschool their child or send their child to a
private school. Where does that stand? How is that going to affect us, we taxpayers in Nashua?
