A regular meeting of the Board of Aldermen was held Tuesday, January 10, 2017, at 7:00 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 David Schoneman led in the Pledge to the Flag.
The roll call was taken with 14 members of the Board of Aldermen present; Alderman Tom Lopez was
recorded absent.
Alderwoman Mary Ann Melizzi-Golja arrived after the roll call at 7:32 p.m.
Mayor James W. Donchess and Corporation Counsel Steven A. Bolton were also in attendance.
REMARKS BY THE MAYOR
Mayor Donchess
The first item | wanted to address is the two documents that | left on your desks regarding the Safe Stations
Program. | wanted to provide you with an update on that. The first is the report done by AMR regarding the
status as of January 9" but it’s really the evening of the 8" because this was presented early on the 9". It
shows that as of the night of the 8"" 75 people had reported to the Safe Stations Program and in the interim two
days 5 more have come in. Through the end of 2016, 48 had reported so you can see that in the first ten days
or so of 2017, the numbers have really gone up, over 30 people have reported just so far in January. On one
day, | think it was January 2", 8 people reported to various fire stations. You can see from the numbers that
the ages vary very widely, there are more males than females. The vast majority of the people are from
Nashua but some are from elsewhere. Everybody involved is doing an extremely good job with this. The
firefighters have become very engaged in it and are really helping out. Assistant Chief Rhodes the other night
was describing what he called “compassion fatigue” and what he was describing was that the reaction of some
firefighters to the many months that they were and have been administering Narcan to people who are in an
OD status. This started in the spring of 2015, so it’s going on two years now. Assistant Chief Rhodes has
described for people showing up repeatedly at apartments/houses where there is someone who has died or
someone who is unconscious, sometimes they have to revive them and sometimes the person’s reaction to
being revived is not favorable and they can become hostile and he thought that some firefighters were
experiencing what he calls “compassion fatigue” but that this situation has been aided by the Safe Stations
Program because now people come to the fire stations, mostly to Amherst Street, East Hollis Street and to
some degree Lake Street. At least for the firefighters there and of course everybody in the department hears
about this, they encounter people who are involved with substance misuse as individuals and often they are
accompanied by family members or friends and they are really needing and seeking help. Mike O’Brien and |
went to visit Amherst Street a couple of weeks ago and the firefighters there are very happy to be involved in
the program and they feel that they are not just dealing with the OD situation with Narcan but are involved on
the other side. Harbor Homes has been extremely good. Our project has been modeled after Manchester but
| think in reality we have a better program because Harbor Homes is so effective in within a couple of days or
less finding the appropriate treatment course for an individual. The people who report do not have to wait at a
shelter for a week or two weeks, they might be there for a night or two but in fact, Harbor Homes is doing an
extremely good job in trying to develop the treatment plan for each of these individuals and as you can see
there have been routed to various places, some to intensive out-patient, some to in-patient, medical detox and
things like that. AMR was very instrumental in helping us decide exactly how to approach this and they keep
very accurate statistics. One interesting thing is that at least as of Monday, nobody who had reported to the
Safe Stations Program had actually OD’d. There was no person who reported to Safe Stations Program, later
OD’d and was saved by Narcan by the firefighters. You will see that there are some people; | think 10 who
have reported more than once or reported twice. Experts in the field say that is typical of a drug as powerful as
heroin. | went to Oakland, CA to visit my daughter and | went to get a haircut and the guy said that he used to
be heroin addict and he had taken two years to get clean. Now clean for ten years he owns his own small
business but he said his older brother is still addicted to heroin all of these years later. | wanted to show you
what Harbor Homes has prepared with respect to the budget or the cost of the program. Keep in mind that
