Board of Aldermen — 9/12/17 Page 16
“Dear Nashua Board of Aldermen. We believe that the majority of Nashuans support the initiative to bring a
modern performing arts center to downtown Nashua as proposed at the 201 Main Street location. At a recent
meeting of the Budget Review Committee, we shared results of our survey which indicated over 65 percent
support for the initiative. This survey, however, is just one data point. Over the past two weeks, Great
American Downtown has been working to garner signatures from community members to demonstrate the
depth of support of the proposed performing arts center and illustrate that level of support by Ward. These
additional data points further illustrate support for the performing arts center. You have received the document
which demonstrates signers from our on-line petition with their home addresses and their ward number. These
are signatures received through September 9" and you’ve also received a second set of signatures that were
brought in over the weekend.”
You'll have to excuse my informal attire tonight. | was hoping to go home and change but | was surprised to
find this afternoon that we had over 100 additional signers for the on-line petition. It took a good bit of time to
compile that data this afternoon. Our on-line petition reads, “We the undersigned petition the Nashua, New
Hampshire Board of Aldermen to unanimously vote yes on the passage of legislation relative to bonding the
proposed performing arts center at a meeting of the full Board of Aldermen at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday,
September 12". We believe the arts enliven, connect, and approve quality of life in our community. We
believe that a missing piece of the puzzle to success and vibrancy in downtown Nashua, New Hampshire lies
in having a modern performing arts facility. We are in support of efforts to make a well thought out vision for
modern performing center possible and want our local elected officials to support these efforts too. Over the
past several years the City of Nashua has been conducting exploratory and planning exercises to determine
the feasibility of and build a vision for a modern performing arts center.
Over the course of that time, the city Economic Development Department and consultants with expertise in
architecture, market analysis, performance venues, community outreach and other areas have been hard at
work. The City of Nashua has brought together community leaders, arts and performance organizations,
private performance oriented businesses, elected officials, and the broader community to the conversation.
After review of the regional market demand and several possible sites, the city and its consultants have
produced a report and plan that indicate that the 201 Main Street building would be the best site and that the
audience size of 500 to 700 is the right fit for the region. Since that time, the Board of Aldermen has
authorized a $3,600 amount of money to secure the building. We ask that you this evening support
unanimously the initiative to bond and build this facility.”
l’ll give you the breakdown of our on-line survey. We have received a total of 510 responses. In Ward 9, we
received a total of 47 signers. Ward 8, we received a total of 40 signers. Ward 7 we received a total of 40
signers. In Ward 6 we've received a total of 31 signers. In Ward 5 we've received a total of 50 signers. In
Ward 4 we received a total of 40 signers. In Ward 3 we’ve received a total of 100 signers. In Ward 2 we
received a total of 58 signers and in Ward 1 we've received a total of 60 signers. Our on-line petition used a
number of methods to ensure the validity of the information from signers including geographic IP restrictions,
duplicate e-mail address, and individual IP address restrictions, follow up questions designed to identify home
address, and ward of signers, and language geared to Nashuans specifically. However, we recognize that it is
important to take additional measures to confirm the identity and home address of signers if possible to
improve the validity of our efforts.
We've taken additional measures that allow us to demonstrate the level of support for many individuals in the
community using Notaries and Justice of the Peace to confirm the identify and address of individuals who have
taken the time to sign physical petitions. | have produced this evening for you an additional set of petitions
outlined by name, address, and ward with the data on the individual signers kind of organized by ward. These
physical petitions have been distributed to their relative ward aldermen at tonight’s meeting. Those are the
white copy officially notarized and | would ask that those be placed on file after you review them.
The way that it breaks down for a physical petitions, | was thinking that on a Thursday we might receive
somewhere between 40 and 60 signers for our petition. However over the course of the day from 7 a.m. to 7
p.m. at JaJaBelle’s last Thursday, we received a total of 198 physical signatures. Almost 200 people came out
that day to sign and met with about a dozen notaries who were on site throughout the day to verify their identify
