A regular meeting of the Board of Aldermen was held Tuesday, September 26, 2017, at 7:30 p.m. in the
Aldermanic Chamber.
President Brian S. McCarthy presided; City Clerk Patricia Piecuch recorded.
Prayer was offered by City Clerk Patricia Piecuch; Alderman Daniel T. Moriarty led in the Pledge to the Flag.
The roll call was taken with 15 members of the Board of Aldermen present; Alderman Cookson arrived after roll
call at 7:36 p.m.
Mayor Jim Donchess and Corporation Counsel Steven A. Bolton were also in attendance.
REMARKS BY THE MAYOR
Mayor Donchess
The paving plan has gotten underway, and we are going to be doing during calendar year 2017, 13 miles of
streets between paving, micro-surfacing and sealing. This is probably double of what we’ve done in previous
years and we are just beginning to embark on the paving plan of action that we adopted earlier in the year or
late last year. As you recall we devoted $37.5 million to this plan over five years. | think this year we have
made significant progress. As we go into the future, we will be able to do even more than this year.
One thing on the agenda that | wanted to mention is the proposal that we enter into a Memorandum of
Understanding with the Boston Surface Railroad Corporation. This is a private company, the principal of which
is gentleman by the name of Vincent Bono. They are proposing that we work together to develop a plan to
establish privately funded profit-making commuter rail service beginning in Bedford near the Manchester
Airport, stopping in Nashua, and going to Lowell. The way this would be accomplished is if there’s municipal
involvement, in other words the City of Nashua, and Woonsocket has also been involved in another possible
leg, they can qualify to compete for a loan from the Federal Railway Administration. They need to borrow quite
a bit of money, but it would be a relatively low interest loan to make all the capital improvements required. If
they can get those funds and raise some private money, they then would have the funds to make the track
improvements, to buy the equipment, and to begin rail service going down in the morning and coming back at
night. It would be several trains to begin and then would expand if ridership and demand required it.
As far as the City of Nashua goes, we do not need to invest any money in the track improvements. There is no
ongoing subsidy required of the City. We do have our park-and-ride or rail location. If we adopt that as the
stop in Nashua, we would either need to decide whether we want to do just a platform or a station, but that
would be up to us. So there’s really minimal cost and a lot to be gained by the plan. | assume this will be
referred to a committee. Mr. Bono can come to the committee meeting to discuss the details and answer any
questions that anyone might have, and | assume there will be some. Again, | think getting Nashua people off
the road, getting them an alternative, other than the stop and go, grinding commute, like Ben makes every day
down to Cambridge, very rough. This would be a great benefit Nashua people.
On the agenda also, Mr. President, is the resolution that will basically establish the tax rate, will assign surplus
to reducing the tax rate as we always do. Mr. Griffin, the CFO, projects that we can reach a 2.9 percent
increase. Of course we have discussed the pension increase, the $2 million increase in our pension bill that
was imposed by the State of New Hampshire in this fiscal year. Without that $2 million increase the tax rate
would certainly be less and the increase in the tax rate would be more in the vicinity of 1.7 as opposed to 2.9.
That was, of course, recommended by the Budget Committee.
Also on our agenda is a nice thing the Mayor’s Volunteer Committee is doing. They are making their annual
award of the Gate City Light Award. This is going to go to PAL, the Police Athletic League, as the outstanding
volunteers of the year in our community. | think the award is well considered and certainly PAL is well-
deserving. They have a major impact on a number of kids in the tree streets and elsewhere and do a fantastic
job for the city, so | think the choice is a very good one.
