Board of Aldermen Page 28
June 14, 2016
Alderman Clemons
l’ll be brief; | know it’s getting late. When you’re renting to people who basically are the poorest people in
Nashua, maybe a step above being homeless, living in 23 Temple Street or the Country Barn Motel or
wherever else there’s issues like that, if you raise their rent by $15 or $20 a week, they can go
somewhere else. They can walk to the woods. There is no other place. All you are doing is taking
money out of their pocket. | guarantee you that the business moral of these places are slumlords. This
isn’t going to change that. This will not change that. All this is going to do is raise rents on the people
that can’t’ afford it the most. It’s going to do nothing. | agree, 99 percent, probably all of these people,
it's not going to affect them at all, one way or the other. At least not right now, but it could. But it’s that
potential where it could that | have a problem with. You shouldn’t’ pass legislation that could be
menacing in the future. I’m just going to leave it at that.
Alderman Dowd
| am going to disagree with the Alderman that just spoke on several points. One, they are not going to
raise their rents to pay fines because if they don’t’ correct the faults, the fines are going to increase to the
point where it’s going to hurt them. It has nothing to do with rents because those fines will far exceed
rents. I’ve talked to several of the department heads. For years, their hands have been tied trying to
enforce things. They’ve said if the landlords are known for taking care of these things on a timely basis
or tell them that it’s going to take me three weeks to get a contractor, they are not going to have an issue
with that. They are after the repeat offenders. The ones that time after time just ignore the code
enforcement. As far as the mandatory warnings, | equate that to having a police car at Exit 5 stopping
cars and saying if you don’t’ slow down, there’s a cruiser at Exit 6 and he is going to pull you over and
give you a ticket. You would have to be pretty stupid to go speeding by Exit 6 because you are going to
get a ticket. That’s what mandatory warnings are, the same thing. | trust that our employees, especially
working under the department heads and the mayor that we have, are not going to abuse this. Is this a
perfect ordinance? No. It’s very difficult to write perfect ordinances. We can address it over time and
see if there are tweaks that need to be made. But we need to do something now, not later. This has
been back and forth to committees on several occasions. It has had several screenings, several
opportunities. The legislation that is before us right now is what we have. Let’s give it a shot and make
sure that the intent of this ordinance is followed. The mayor and the department heads will do that. If we
get feedback from the landlords that it is being abused, we can change it right here again.
Alderman McGuinness
| think as most of you know, | won’t be supporting this legislation. But! did want to mention with respect
to the sponsors and the supporters of it, that their hearts are in the right place. They're sincere and
genuine in what they are trying to do to solve a problem. | don’t like this legislation. | think it is poorly
written and could be very harmful to the citizens that are property owners of Nashua. | do understand we
are trying to solve a problem here. The proponents of the legislation, your intentions are good, but | just
think it’s really a flawed bill. One thing | would like to say about intentions, we’ve heard a lot of
testimony from some of the department heads about how they are going to practice good will and
restraint and good intentions. I’d just like to remind everybody that this is legislation and we’re
legislators. | think good intentions are meaningless. The road to somewhere is filled with them. | think
that some of the testimony that was brought up, it’s black and white. We're making law here. We're not
talking about good intentions and friendly administrations and unfriendly administrations. | just wanted to
set that there. Thank you for listening; | will not be supporting this bill.
Alderman Wilshire
| think one of the things that really are important to me is people like NeighborWorks came out to speak
in favor of this legislation. They provide housing for low income individuals, and they are good at it. They
