Board of Aldermen 12-11-2018 Page 30
So | look at this as this is private money, we do get these and | am no expert on it, | don’t know exactly
how it happens and so on. | Know we put in the bid, we put what our project is, we keep our fingers
crossed that we get it, | believe that he has said, Mr. Caronke | believe his name is, has said that we
are probably real prime for the picking simply because we have never asked for it before, we have
never been awarded one, obviously because we haven’t asked for it. And we have a perfect area, so |
see that we should go forward. | believe in my heart that we will go over the $4 million dollars. | don’t
think the New Market Tax Credits is going to take us all the way and | believe we need to stay with we
are going to earn the $4 million dollars before we go any further to put hammer to nail as | used before.
| can tell you as a, | have two hats, | am Alderman and! am a State Rep. From a State Rep
perspective, | look at it as we need to do everything we can to get new families and increase investment
into our state. As an Alderman | say into my City. This | believe is going to happen; | understand what
you are saying is if those words hadn't been there. | think ultimately many of us always felt that it was
there, just not said. | think we became more transparent and more honest when we put the words in
the resolution and | think that was the way to go with it. But! do respect and | understand your anxiety
of it. | don’t fault you for any decision you would make. Thank you.
Alderman Laws
I’ve got a lot of thoughts. My major concern right now is we are going to cut off our nose to spite our
face. | mean | can’t imagine we have a single constituent who is surprised that we had a little bit of
oversight on one of the first that the newly elected Board came in and voted on. What! would implore
them to think about is that how many Boards do you have that unanimously accept the fact that we
made a mistake, we are sorry, and we want to move on with it? In reality if we do anything right now to
stagnate this plan, we are going to screw it up. We are probably not going to get the Performing Arts
Center that we want, that we promised most of our constituents.
Alderman Jette, | completely respect your point, we have spoken about this privately, but | would also
implore you to think you are basing your decision off of a vote that your constituents made over a year
ago. | feel like the idea of this and the City of Nashua has grown exponentially in that last year and I’d
like to think that as that idea has evolved, so too have your constituents about whether or not they
should be supporting this measure. The e-mails, phone calls, conversations that | have, they are all
overwhelmingly in favor of this process.
Alderman Gidge
I’ve been up in Concord and the Commerce, which is banking, insurance and consumer affairs, | can
tell you this is not private money. This is coming from the Federal Government, there is three ways that
it comes and it is complex, but we end up with quite a bit. Everyone along the way makes something in
a sense, it is not private money. Money that comes in federally could be considered in a sense private,
but itis not. This is all Federal and | think this has been going on for 17 years and | cannot believe that
we have not taken advantage of this. So if anyone believes it is private, it’s not.
Alderman Lopez
| have to disagree a little bit because it is called a tax credit because private people have to pay the
money but | wanted to circle back to what Alderman Klee said earlier and point out that we have this
huge project which could benefit the City of Nashua and the reason we are eligible for it is because of
all the people who are working hard in the surrounding neighborhoods to make ends meet. So you are
welcome; the rest of the City can enjoy this project but let’s not forget why we are eligible for it. People
are working every day trying to make ends meet, trying to sustain their living, and maybe the City has
looked a little bit sideways at some of the people who are just trying to get by every day and didn’t really
know they had an audience.
Those are also the people that the tax credit is meant to focus on. It is supposed to stimulate that area
and help them and as much as | love the arts and the Performing Arts and | do play guitar, some people
