Board of Aldermen 12-11-2018 Page 42
Tim O’Neil assisted with the Nashua Community Television, Dave Pease was the main video
production, Jeff Poehnert from Nashua Community Television and Paul Shea helped with photograph,
Scott Silva who is the main video production, Sean from Nashua Emergency Vehicle helped us with the
vidoes, Chris Stawacz helped us with the AMR photos, Dan Young was the studio director, Harlan
Smith was one of the videographers, Dick Gagnon from Access Nashua was very supportive and in
addition | would like to personally thank all of those that we interviewed: Yusuf Abudi, Judy Carlson,
Tim Cummings, Tracy Hall, Kathy Hersch, Diana Hill, Justin Kates, Sarah Marchant, Brian McCarthy,
Gail Moriarty, Paul Shea, Fred Teeboom, Marc Thayer, Jack Tulley, Manny Ramirez Cecelia Ulibarri,
John Wiedman, the Deputy Michael Carrignan, Chief Brian Rnodes, Bobbie Bagley, and Dr. Jahmall
Mosley.
We have been sending this out and | don’t know how many of you have seen it yet but | ask you to take
the time to really celebrate Nashua and be proud of this wonderful City that Nashua is. And also the
importance of the gratitude for learning and hearing about from each of the people that were
interviewed, what they believed people would want to know about Nashua and what was important to
tell everyone about. Justin Cates said a very important thing to me, he said Yvonne, when you created
this, | did produce and direct it, he said you gave us a time in a moment that captured this City a history
of Nashua and took from its leader’s information that they believed held true. We will use this as a time
that we will go back to in the future to show where we came, where we go and how we got there.
| would hope that the video like all the others that were interviewed, they placed it on their web sites
and | would hope that the City of Nashua would place it on theirs because it should be. It should be
there for anybody who wishes to live here, work here, bring a business here to visit here to just be part
of here to see what a wonderful City it is. | would like to thank each of you for all the work that you do to
support the Nashua Community and to help it to grow and thrive. | also would like thank Community
Television for all they do to help inform our population about everything that is happening. | wish you all
good health and happiness, great Holiday Season and a wonderful New Year. Thank you.
Michael Ortolano Hi | am Michael Ortolano of 41 Berkeley Street and | am attending this meeting to
provide some additional perspective on a comment that the Mayor made at the conclusion of the Board
of Alderman meeting on November 27'". Specifically it was the second time that | am aware of where
the Mayor had specifically mentioned that the Ortolana’s tax bill will be going down 20%. The
implication being in my opinion that we really don’t have anything to be complaining about.
Since the Mayor kind of opened up that book and started the story | want to tell the rest of it to make
sure everybody on the Board kind of understands the situation that we are dealing with. In 2014 Laurie
and | bought the home at 41 Berkley and within 1 month the Nashua Assessor’s Office increased our
assessment by a little over 50% that was without even visiting our home.
| grew up in Nashua, | am a graduate of Nashua High School, | maintain Nashua as my home of record
throughout college and while | served on active duty in the Navy for 5 years. So this was a sort of a
homecoming and | have to say it was a most disappointing homecoming. Anyway the sheer size of that
tax bill together with the availability of all data that has been public as a result of the 5 year reappraisal
cycle has inspired a lot of interest on the part of myself and Laurie my wife in understanding how the
property tax in Nashua is managed.
As of 2017 to put in numerical perspective our property at 41 Berkeley Street, we paid just over
$18,000.00 in property tax. That is a pretty strong number for a 100 year old home on a third of an
acre. So ona dollar per square foot basis, it equates to about $208 per square foot. To further put that
in perspective | thought it would be helpful that there a lot of differences in the City. The Mayors home
which is just a few blocks away from ours had a property tax bill of about $7,400.00 and on a per
square foot basis was about $118 per square foot. In my opinion it takes some brass for the Mayor to
