Board of Aldermen 12-11-2018 Page 2
that Center. They have also suggested possibly reorienting the stage from the Main Street end to the
western end and opening the main entrance on Main Street, all these things can be considered as we go
forward. But these are very promising and exciting ideas that they have put forth regarding how the design
can be used just to make a striking statement in our downtown.
We are asking for two changes to the bond issue. Number 1: We have discovered that although we can
obtain $6 million of outside funds, that we need a designed project in order to do so. Our consultant for fund
raising, Betsy McNamara has said that in order to get sizeable contributions you need to have a design
project or at least have design underway. And also our New Market Tax Credit consultant, Neil Cannon,
says that in order to obtain the $4 million dollars which we think are available through the New Market Tax
Credit Program, that we need to have a design project underway and ultimately completed before we close
on any New Market Tax Credit funds. So that is a necessary amendment.
The second thing that we have suggested or which the amendment would do is provide us flexibility
regarding how the money that we bring in from the outside can be used. There is no suggestion that we no
longer need to raise at least $4 million dollars. As you can see, the $4 million dollars is still clearly stated
within the resolution. So we still need to bring in $4 million dollars of outside funds, this just gives us more
flexibility as to how to use those.
For example, we may wish to use some of these funds to reduce the cost of the project; pay for the
construction in part. So this would enable us to build a stronger project and provide a better product for the
tax payers and the citizens of Nashua.
Now some people have asked about New Market Tax Credit Funds. These are private funds, the New
Market Tax Credit program has been used successfully for public projects in Keene repeatedly and
Concord, in Manchester, in Portsmouth, and in fact Nashua is really the only significant community of those
larger cities that I've mentioned that has never used New Market Tax Credits. | just don’t agree with the
suggestion that somehow bringing in money in that fashion to help the tax payers of Nashua that that is not
a good thing. We, like other communities in this State, should pursue this and use this program that is
available to any distressed district which is what we downtown, in the Nation, to build a stronger downtown
like other communities in NH and throughout the country have done. We are late to the party, not early, so
keep that in mind please when you vote.
Now we have discussed the details of the New Market Tax Credit Program numerous times, we hired the
New Market Tax Credit consultant in May and that contract was approved and that came to the Board of
Aldermen. There have also been briefings in September on the 25", in October on the 29"", there was going
to be another personal presentation by Neil Cannon on November 8". Unfortunately as we all know Brian
passed away and therefore that was delayed but we have rescheduled that for December 20"".
In addition to that we had a Public Hearing on November 26", Niel Cannon wrote a memo explaining the
New Market Tax Credit Program back in September. Tim Cummings the Economic Development Director
has written another memo on the Tax Credit program. If you do a quick Google search you will find all kinds
of information, we have now e-mailed some of that to you, you barely scratch the surface of Google and you
will find a lot of information about New Market Tax Credit. So we have tried to make that all available and in
addition to all these public meetings, as | said, there have been 10 meetings of the Performing Arts Center
Steering Committee, all of which have been public. Members of the public have attended; so we really are
at the point where we need to release the potential that we have developed, enable the people who are
going to go out and get us private funds to do so.
The group of people who are going to be headed by Deborah Nevatne who is with the Enterprise Bank and
is going to raise money is meeting on Thursday and they are going to begin the campaign then. We really
need to submit the New Market Tax Credit Application; the delay caused by Brian’s passing the two or three
weeks there, we really need now to sort of get off the dime. So we need to approve this amendment tonight
in order to enable all of this to take place and for us to pursue this very significant project for the City. We
are on the verge of a major success. If we approve this amendment, we can begin on that journey
tomorrow.
