Board of Aldermen — 02/13/18 Page 7
we are in the process, the whole country is trying to comply with guidelines set out by this E911 commission or
committee in order to make it better, easier for our emergency people to locate properties in the case of an
emergency. Part of their guidelines says that buildings should have whole numbers, not numbers with letters
and not numbers with fractions but whole numbers. We did that back when this subdivision was first approved.
We assigned this property that is now a vacant lot, we assigned it the number 27. Mrs. Allard’s property was
assigned the number 29. A mistake was made and her predecessor and title started using the wrong number.
We have a chance now to remedy, correct this mistake, put it back the way it was supposed to be and comply
with the E911 guidelines.
The whole country is trying to become E911 compliant. Several locations in New Hampshire have already
become so, we have not yet. It’s a job that we are going to be tackling in the next few years. It’s going to be a
difficult job because Nashua is an old city. Nashua, for a number of years, landlords or property owners
assigned address numbers to their properties on their own. For example, | was born here in Nashua at 7 %
Harvard Street. It was a duplex building. The owner of the building had number 7, and we had the apartment
next door. We were 7 %. |’m sure you can think of other properties. | have a client who has a multi-family
property and they have a combination of fractions and letters and stuff. | had the sheriff try to serve a tenant,
and the sheriff had trouble finding the right door because of all these difficulties. The E911 system is trying to
remedy that confusion. Somewhere in the next few years, Nashua is going to be taking these multi-unit
buildings with letters and fractions and assigning numbers to them. For example, a building that is 25, 25A,
25B, 25C would be changed, | think, to something like 25, Apartment 1, Apartment 2, Apartment 3, or
Apartment A, B, C, something along those lines.
So on this property, | have spoken to some of the members of the addressing committee including the fire
marshal, Adam Pouliot. He feels very strongly that we should not assign this 25A. He points out the problems
of emergency personnel trying to locate a building. For example, if somebody has a heart attack and calls on
the phone and says: “Il am having a heart attack, come to 25A New Searles Road”, the emergency people go
out there. They find building 25. Okay, where’s 25A? Is it behind 25? Is it a side entrance to 25? Oh, it’s not
this building at all. It’s the building next door. That’s 25A. Or, they get called to 29 New Searles Road. They
find 25. Okay, so 29 must be two doors down or 27 should be the building next to 25. No, it’s not the building
next to 25. That’s 25A. 27 is the next building down. We've got an opportunity here, | think, to remedy a
problem and avoid confounding a problem, making the situation worse and in a few years, as much
inconvenience as Mrs. Allard feels she might be put through if we reassign her address, somebody is going to
buy her building eventually. The building is going to be built at 25A, somebody is going to occupy that. You’ve
got two more families that are going to have to deal with this reassignment.
So having said all of that, | should have at the Infrastructure Committee meeting moved to table it to get this
information, but I’m brand new. | wasn’t quick enough to think about this. | think that | would like to move that
this be re-referred to the committee so we can hear from the fire marshal and we can hear from Sara Marchant
as to why they feel so strongly about why we shouldn’t do what this amendment will do.
MOTION BY ALDERMAN JETTE TO RE-REFER TO THE COMMITTEE ON INFRASTRUCTURE
ON THE QUESTION
Alderman O’Brien
This request came out upon a cusp. There’s a couple of issues that Alderman Jette didn’t give you 100
percent information on. This came in as a cusp upon the election. My good friend and colleague, Alderman
Siegel, who was the Ward 9 alderman at that time was not able to attend completely to his duties. Being the
Alderman-at-Large and a member of Ward 9, | got pretty involved in it and then in the interim, | became
Chairman of the Infrastructure Committee.
In speaking to the motion, the past history was we already heard from the fire marshal. We received a letter
expressing his point of view. When you weigh the balance, you weigh the balance on matters of law. What
was before us in the Infrastructure Committee was three matters. One is the state RSA. The second is the city
NRO. The third thing is a guide. Only two of them are law. If not, you can ask corporate counsel for a ruling
