Special Board of Aldermen 03-14-2018 Page 12
that we are eating bits and pieces of plastic as we are consuming the fish. Birds are eating these
pieces of plastic, so this is an environmental disaster and probably the solution long-term is to
eliminate these things at the source rather than trying to deal with them as they evolve into and being
distributed in the different products that we use. But this is an adventure I’m going on with the school
children and you haven’t heard the last from me on this. I’ve talked to people who try to do this and
pass this type of ordinance in Portsmouth and they ran into a problem of, as you know, and maybe a
lot of other people out there don’t know, the City can’t do anything unless the State Legislature says it
can do it. One of the problems is whether or not the State Legislature would enable us to do anything
about this. Bills before the House and the Senate have failed in the past. So it might be another
battle that will be coming up and | might be asking the help of our State Legislators to help enable us
to have the choice whether or not to eliminate these things. But in the meantime, we can certainly
embark upon a Public Relations campaign to educate people about the problem that plastic bags in
particular and plastics in general present to the environment and present to the City. So you'll be
hearing more from me on this and thank you for indulging me tonight.
President McCarthy
| can tell you that the current opinion of the City Attorney is that we do have the right to pass that bill
because | inquired about it yesterday. | also had an e-mail exchange with one of the students that you
will be meeting with tomorrow who has at her disposal a lengthy treatise on why it’s so hard for
government to pass simple bills. | would point out that if we were to ban them, the irony is that we
have another ordinance that requires that every bit of trash that we send to the landfill be in a plastic
bag.
Alderwoman Melizzi-Goija
| just remembered | sent an e-mail to the new members of the Board but just as a reminder NRPC is
having their annual meeting on Thursday, March 29 and | know there is an RSVP. Our next meeting
will be a couple days before so | just wanted to remind you about that event. And as I’ve indicated to
the new members it’s a good opportunity to meet other people in the region as well as the new
executive director who is from Nashua.
Alderwoman Kelly
| just wanted to comment on the Teacher’s Contract, | know that in the last year | spoke to a lot of
teachers including Mr. Hoffman, | Know there was a lot of hard work put into this and | hope that itis a
step forward in stopping that out-migration of mid-tenure teachers because that is really important to
our City.
Alderman Tencza
A couple of weeks ago when my kids were running around the yard in their shorts in spring-like
weather it was February vacation and we had the chance to participate in some of the programming
down at the Public Library here in Nashua and | just wanted to comment on what an asset that is. I’m
always struck when we go down to the library, especially the Children’s Room, how much
programming they have going on, on an ongoing basis not just for kids but also programming that is
geared towards teens and adults. The meeting space that they have developed down in their
basement is just fantastic and | think much needed throughout the City here. So we did a great craft,
Ms., Cathy was great, they always enjoy her company when they go down to the children’s room, so |
hope that people will remember that it’s there and participate and utilize that great asset that the City
has.
