Board of Aldermen — 9/12/17 Page 48
in the city. They are not getting enough rest so we needed to expand. | think that’s why we had a meeting
over at Charlotte Avenue recently about having the fields recover and getting some more rectangular fields.
But, be it in your wise decision this evening, we won’t have the opportunity to even consider that - the Eaton
Richmond Center, the gymnasium, the administration building, which could have been utilized by our school
administration. Again, not having a Burke Street property to move into, | was attempting to just see if there
was an opportunity somewhere else. The admin building looks like a phenomenal space for the central admin
office to take over, but again we won’t have the opportunity because a majority of you voted this evening not to
even have a public hearing. We can’t consider it now.
I’m deeply saddened that you would make that move. In the last 12 years, | have never seen any group be so
inconsiderate to a motion for a public hearing. You wanted the public to choose on the arts center, so let’s put
that on the ballot. Fine, let’s put it on the ballot. Nobody held that up, okay. But to have eight members of you
just say, you know what, we’re just not interested in any opportunity that it might afford the city | just don’t think
it was the best decision this evening. We always have to look at competing opportunities. My motion to
postpone it until after we had a feasibility study to look at, if the feasibility study comes back and says there is
zero opportunity for the city to utilize this space, then guess what? We don’t go forward with the resolution.
We don’t go forward with the bond. Then we have the opportunity to look at the performing arts center, and we
could have made a vote on the 24 of October. Who knows what that vote would have been. But |’m just
saying, | think that we could have done it smarter and wiser and a little bit more professional this evening than
what was done. Thank you.
Alderman Deane
| would like to thank the Mayor and Director Fauteux and the Street Department and all the public works
people for the skate park opening the other day. It was very nice. We had Public Works Day in front of
Stellos. It was really interesting. | think the North girls and Manchester Central girls were a playing field
hockey game at four o’clock. They were down there checking out all the arrangements that public works had
set up. | putted in the pothole putting area with the Mayor, and | beat him by two strokes. A terrible putter, if
you ever bring him golfing.
You know, this performing arts thing tonight and the comments that were made by former Ward 3 Aldermanic
candidate, | thought were kind of out of line. You know, that’s one thing I’m not going to miss about sitting in
here, at all. Not one bit. You give up your time, your family and everything else, he should have been thankful
that Alderman Clemons added the word “may,” | believe it was, and the thing passed and got put on the ballot.
Now he’s the director of the downtown group that we fund through our budget. He’s got the audacity to stand
up there and say that? Really? | find that unprofessional to say the least. We can agree to disagree. Believe
me, I’ve had my times in this Chamber of going bananas on things, but you know what? You end up coming
out of it. It’s going to be put on the ballot. Did | support that? No, | think we are elected to make those
decisions. The majority prevailed so it’s on the ballot. That’s fine, | don’t have a problem with that. But, we
can agree to disagree on things but | just thought that was out of line. | would hope that you get an apology. A
public apology, not an email. He should come back and publicly apologize for doing that. | had to publicly
apologize. Just man up and doit. It was interesting, and Ben saved the day for the arts people. People
should be happy. It’s not a dead issue, and it’s very convoluted. It’s really convoluted.
There’s a lot of pieces in this. I’m not happy about what happened with Burke Street. | know it was a lot of
money, but we’ve got a building over there that’s a big problem right now. It’s unoccupied, and it’s September.
That’s a problem. This Board is going to have to do something with it. Either do something with it or tear it
down, but you can’t just let it sit over there. The kids are having a field day over there no matter what we do.
That’s for another day, | guess. Anyways, Jim, thanks for everything. The proclamation was really nice. |
appreciate it. It was a very nice thing to do. | appreciate it very much. Thank you.
