Board of Aldermen 12-11-2018 Page 9
Sheetal Kelkar Good evening, my name is Sheetal Kelkar, 2 Forsythia Drive, Nashua. I’ve been a
resident of Nashua for the last 14 years and | have seen, well in the US 16 years, in Nashua 14 years
and I’ve seen it grow, I’ve seen the City advance, get better in terms of infrastructure, in terms of
diversity, and there is so much that Nashua offers and | really enjoy living here. | am in favor of Center
for Performing Arts, because | think in the priority list, we always put Arts at the bottom, it is almost
optional. But | feel that Arts, | even have a profession in Arts, I’m an actress, I’m a former pageant
winner and I’m an actress now although | was trained in Human Resources. That is my educational
qualification, so | understand these monetary things and tax related things. But | am a supporter of the
Arts and | highly recommend, and | would urge you all to vote for the Center tonight because | think that
in times that we see so much depression going around, and so much drug addiction problem. Arts
heal, arts just heal the soul.
Ben Clemmons Thank you. Ben Clemmons, 188 Ash Street, Nashua. | am coming before to speak in
favor of the amendment for the Performing Arts Center. | don’t think that there is a person in this room
that has never hatched a plan that had to change it or haven’t had to change it. That is where you are
all at right now. You can move forward with the best intentions sometimes but on occasion you have to
relook at things and say maybe we didn’t do this exactly the way we should have. | think that is where
the City is at right now, realizing that there has to be some investment up front in order to get big
investors to come on board for this project. It might have not been something that we had thought of
previously or when we put this to the ballot, but | think it is important that we recognize that plans
change sometimes or things come up that are unforeseen and we've gotten this far into the project to
abandon it | think would be to go against the wishes of the voters who voted and took their time to vote
yes on that ballot question. So | would encourage all of you to support these changes.
Mike Watt Michael Watt, 5 Briar Cliff Drive, Nashua, New Hampshire. Does anyone know where |
could find a good Christmas Carol around here? | guess |’d have to go to the Palace. For the most
part, | think the City does a pretty good job, we’ve got really nice parks, we got really nice roads, we
even built another high school, our policing of the streets, the fires are all out, they do a good job
educating our kids. | don’t see why this won’t be a success, | really don’t. My grandfather always said,
it takes money to make money and sometimes you have to show a little faith. In this case we are
talking about putting money up front so they know that they can invest in us. Having a municipality do
it, gives it a little bit more faith in my opinion, so they know that they are going to be there tomorrow.
| just think about generations in the past, when we look around, think about if they didn’t put that library
in there, they didn’t build that school, didn’t decide to put this building here. If they decided to do
something else, do a different project, how different our City would be. Who would be here, who
wouldn’t be here. We were talking about kids, people wanting their kids to grow up here and what kind
of investment you would have in your community. We need to invest in our community and | think that
is what the voters said when they voted for this. They took a leap of faith, they looked at the price tag
and said you know what, look at what we have done every, what day was the Holiday Stroll, but you
see how many people come here, how many people come from different communities? We bring
people together. There are what, 20,000 or 30,000 people that showed up last time? 45? That’s a lot
of people. | think about what is going to happen on those nights when we have a show. | talk about
having an actual show and people coming out and walking on Main Street. | think about the businesses
that benefit that night. I've seen what happens when we have even the flea markets and all the
different activities on Sunday and all the businesses that do well. | would like to see businesses open
on Sundays again for the most part. | see some of them, but I’d like to see all of them.
But at the end of the day | know | have to be brief, but | think you guys do a pretty good job and we
need to invest and do this. We are already here, you guys looked at it for over a year at this point, you
guys have looked at all the different options, the voters have said yes, let’s do it guys. Thank you.
