Board of Aldermen — 9/12/17 Page 29
Alderman O’Brien
Number one, | would like to thank Paul Shea. | know you did a lot of work with the petitions. | would like to
thank everybody who signed it. | would like to thank everybody that is here. This is way America works.
You’ve done a good job. | have listened to you. | am going to vote for this project. | feel very comfortable
voting for it, and I’ll tell you why. This is not something new that we’re doing. The Nashua Airport is municipal
property. We run that fine. | seem to remember putting some funding to do some pavings on the taxiway.
Also, isn’t the Nashua Senior Center somewhat run, and is there not both entities where we model the arts
center and structure in running it pretty similar to the structures of those entities? The other thing | would like
to say is this is the perfect storm. | don’t know when this opportunity is going to come around again. Court
Street, we have to make a decision on that. We will make a decision on that. But when it comes down to the
new building, this is going to be something. If that Alec Shoe Store was available when we purchased Court
Street, we probably wouldn't be into this type of situation. This is the perfect place.
Being a former firefighter, regarding that was brought up by one of that people that spoke, | don’t think the city
is going to build something that is not going to meet the fire codes. I’m sure everything will be taken into
account there. The other thing is | heard a lot of numbers, but don’t we pay CFO Griffin and Dave Fredette to
run the numbers for us? If they come in and in good faith tell us what the numbers are, those are the numbers
we should believe. If they make a mistake, maybe we should deal with that, but basically | support the people
who work for the City of Nashua who run the numbers for us. If they are telling us this is it, | believe them.
Finally, Jessica said: culture, vibrancy and life. And that’s just by itself enough to vote for it. That's a better
saying than the three Wiseman, Moe, Larry and Curly, for duty and humanity. Culture, vibrancy and life are
key. That’s what | signed on to be an alderman, not to watch this city get stagnant and die and weather on the
barn. To be a place where people want a desire to move to and go forward. You’ve got my vote. | am voting
for the arts center.
Alderman Caron
This has been a very difficult decision for me because | have looked at this over and over again. | talked to
people for this project and against this project. My concern is as Alderman Schoneman said, the $4 million,
how fast will we get it? Listening to the people who have spoken and a lot of them are longtime residents of
this city, business owners, | think they will move forward and get that going. As | said in committee, the City of
Nashua lost several times to be number one in having something in their town because we would not step up
to the plate. People in this circle would not step up to the plate to put that little bit of money in, and we lost out.
At this point in time, if we don’t do it now we will never do it. My vote will be a yes this time.
Alderman Dowd
| have always been a supporter of the arts. I’ve lived in the City of Nashua my entire life, which is quite a few
years. I’ve been involved with things at Court Street and Elm Street. This is not either one of those. This is an
arts center where we can have multiple types of different events on a continuing basis. It will bring people
downtown. It will allow our youth and our people in Nashua to enjoy the arts. The gesture that Manchester is
coming down to put artifacts in there will be just another thing to enjoy, which we won't get if we don’t take
action. I’ve been involved in hundreds of different things over the years serving on different boards: the board
of education, the board of aldermen. | have never had this much public input as | have had on this particular
project. It was all in favor. Even the people who had minor concerns were still in favor of it and are still in favor
of it downtown. We heard from all of our businesses in the downtown. They want this project. Quite frankly, |
think we would be turning our back on all the businesses if we don’t’ support this. | for one, would not go on
the record as being against them. | support as many of the businesses downtown as | can. The big box stores
close at ten o’clock. People look for some place to go and enjoy themselves. They want to go downtown. If
they go downtown to the arts center, they are going to go to the stores, they are going to go to the restaurants.
That economic money will come back to this city. |, for one, really don’t care whether the arts center makes a
profit. It’s an opportunity to attract people to the downtown. | think we would be very remiss if we don’t support
this. | am fully behind supporting this resolution.
