A regular meeting of the Board of Aldermen was held Tuesday, May 23, 2017, at 7:30 p.m. in the Aldermanic
Chamber.
President Brian S. McCarthy presided; Deputy City Clerk Judith Boileau recorded.
Prayer was offered by Deputy City Clerk Judith Boileau; Alderman Don LeBrun led in the Pledge to the Flag.
The roll call was taken with 15 members of the Board of Aldermen present.
Mayor James W. Donchess and Corporation Counsel Steven A. Bolton were also in attendance.
REMARKS BY THE MAYOR
Mayor Donchess
First | wanted to mention the fact that we have the parade coming up on Monday; 9:45 a.m. is when they have
asked us to gather for a 10:30 a.m. kickoff. As usual, it should be a very good event, and | hope as many of
the members of the Board of Alderman as possible can join me and the parade committee to honor the
veterans on Memorial Day.
Today we had the groundbreaking on the new David Deane skateboard park which was a great event. If you
go out there, you can see the scope and magnitude of this project. You can already begin to see the shape of
the skateboard park. It’s obviously going to be really fantastic. Alderman Deane tells me it will be the best
skateboard park in the New England, which having seen it | believe. It was fantastic to do the groundbreaking,
and | would encourage everybody to go out and check it out. | can’t wait for the opening which we anticipate
will be late August, early September.
Other things that have happened recently is the Habitat for Humanity officially opened their new home on
Chestnut Street at the former location of the Soup Kitchen. That’s a great project. They got a really good and
fast start on the project. That will provide a new home for two downtown tree streets Nashua families. They,
after doing other projects in the city, are again really coming through for our neighborhood and our community.
Another thing that happened is that Friday night the Front Door Agency, which provides medium to longer term
housing for single mothers who are in distress, had their 30 year anniversary. In addition to celebrating that,
and they have made incredible progress from their beginnings which were the Pastoral Care Center across the
street at the church, that started when | was Mayor before, Father Odie who has been the pastor of the church
for slightly over 30 years is retiring and the dinner was honoring his retirement. He has given everything he
possibly could to the Front Door Agency and has done a fantastic job with them over these 30 years. We will
miss Father Odie.
This afternoon there was a very nice event put on by Mr. Zinidis’ High School History class, 20" Century
History. They conducted a trolley tour around the city where we stopped and visited various historic locations
and five members of the class explained many things about Nashua’s history to everybody on the bus. There
were some school board members, the principal from the high school and citizens. | wanted to thank Mr.
Zinidis and his class for conducting that.
On tonight’s agenda there’s the Crown Street Parking and Ride. This is the follow up project to the acquisition
of the perspective rail station that we bought with federal funds several years ago. The establishment of a park
and ride at that site is being paid for not by city funds but by federal funds. It’s definitely something we should
go forward with. The contract is on the agenda. If we did not for whatever reason decide not to go forward
with it, we would need to pay back the $1.2 million of federal money we already used to acquire the project, so
| would strongly recommend you endorse the position of the committee and the board of public works to go
forward with that project.
Finally, Mr. President, a very sad item, a tragic item that you will see. We are being asked, and we are all
supporting the naming of the Little League Field at Memorial Park over by Ledge Street in the name of Kyle
