A regular meeting of the Board of Aldermen was held Wednesday, September 12, 2018, at 7:30 p.m. in
the Aldermanic Chamber.
President Brian S. McCarthy presided; City Clerk Patricia D. Piecuch recorded.
Prayer was offered by City Clerk Patricia D. Piecuch; Alderman Gidge led in the Pledge to the Flag.
The roll call was taken with 13 members of the Board of Aldermen present; Alderman Wilshire and
Alderman Jette were recorded absent. Alderman Schmidt and Alderman Klee arrived after roll call at 8:18
p.m. and 8:20 p.m., respectively.
Mayor James W. Donchess and Corporation Counsel Steven A. Bolton were also in attendance.
President McCarthy
Alderman Wilshire is unable to join us this evening, Alderman Klee and Schmidt are at a meeting of the
County Delegation and hope to be here shortly.
REMARKS BY THE MAYOR
First yesterday we held the State Primary and here in Nashua | want to say that our City Clerk Patricia
Piecuch and her staff performed admirably as usual. We had a lot of people vote, especially on the
Democratic side, more than were expected and we also had a group of newer or new moderators and clerks
at the various wards, so the ward workers are not quite as experienced as they could be, they are gaining
that experience quickly now. But City Clerk Piecuch and her staff did a great job of running a very smooth
election. | know they were here very late last night and very early in the morning. So | wanted to thank her
and commend her on another great job in making sure that the elections here in Nashua run smoothly.
Second Mr. President | wanted to mention that we have the escrows on the budget to be voted on. |
appeared and talked in some depth with the Budget Committee about these at the last meeting of the
Budget Committee, but | wanted to mention a couple basic of things about them especially for Aldermen
who have not been here through this before. What we are doing is we are reallocating money that had been
previously appropriated for various purposes but which was not spent during the course of the fiscal year.
This is money that, again, had previously been appropriated, when the cap was in effect this was already
cap qualified money because it was already appropriated under a cap. | will remind the Board, which I’m
sure you know, that this year we passed the budget which was up only 1.6% nearly a million dollars below
what the cap maximum would have been had the cap still been affected and one of the lower budgets we
have seen in quite some time.
The principal, the vast majority of the proposed escrows will go into various reserve accounts, the Capital
Equipment Reserve Fund which is future expenditure on equipment that the City will ultimately need as well
as a building reserve accounts, risk reserve accounts, other ways to save money for the future. So the
money that is being directed into these reserve accounts is really being devoted to the tax payers in the
sense that saving a dollar now means that we won't have to spend a dollar later, or appropriate a dollar
later. And | think it is a conservative way to go, it is following the procedure that the City has adopted and
implemented for a number of years. So | hope that the Board will follow the recommendation of the Budget
Committee and recommend the escrows, | think there is one amendment but pass the recommendation of
the Budget Committee.
Next Mr. Chair, we have tomorrow the Mohawk Tannery meeting with the neighborhood over by the tannery,
the Little Florida and the other streets around the tannery and anyone else from the public or the Board of
Aldermen, hopefully some Aldermen will, | Know you will, but you are obviously invited and encouraged to
attend. That will be at the Amherst Street School at 7:00 and at that time the purpose is to meet with
neighbors to get their input as to how we should proceed with respect to the recommendation or the
proposal of the EPA regarding the capping or clean-up of the old tannery site.
