Board of Aldermen 12-23-2019 Page 14
So | think this has been planned out from a financial perspective, it's been planned out from a strategy
perspective as far as what the student population is going to be. Quite frankly that spot has been called for
a school for a very long time, since that development was created back in 1999.
With all of that said, | think this is the right move for Nashua and | am happy to support it for all of those
reasons.
Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja
| would agree with Alderman Clemons and from 2004 when Alderman Clemons’ father and | were on the
School Board together, we were discussing Elm Street and portables and space that was not conducive to
the type of educational programming our students needed. So | think this is the time and we need to do it
across all of the middle schools so that everyone has an environment that supports the learning. If
members of the public have gone back and looked at all of the presentations around this project, there is
certainly a lot about the structure and the land. But underlying everything that is being addressed here, is
what is the educational opportunity to be like and kids aren’t sitting in desks anymore. We are looking at
opportunities for students to work in groups and interact in different ways than probably the ways we were
all encouraged to interact in middle school.
So it is great and | am sure Alderman Clemons’ father is thrilled to know that we are getting rid of portables
and we are upgrading structures for teachers and students, Thank you.
Alderman Jette
So | was on the Joint Special School Building Committee and we heard and the presentation that was
made by the architects and the construction manager was available to all of you and the public as well.
They made a compelling argument, well | think everybody acknowledged that Elm Street needed help and
has been pointed out, Pennichuck has those portables that are not appropriate. So there’s no question that
we have to do something. They looked at the cost of renovating Elm Street and determined that it would
cost more to do that. After we were done we would still have a school that was originally built in the ‘30’s
and we wouldn’t have any playing fields and it just would not be an ideal situation.
We can build a new school up to the standards of today with playing fields and so that all 3 schools will be
somewhat equitable for less money than it would cost to try to renovate Elm Street. | am in favor of this.
But | think that the people who spoke asked some legitimate questions about the cost and how it was going
to affect them. Alderman Clemons explained very well that the Committee asked Treasurer Fredette to
answer those questions. He did come up with an analysis that Alderman Clemons has explained. The
question he did not answer was how will this affect someone who owns a $300,000.00 house that was a
question that came up several times. | was out of town, so | couldn’t get back to Treasurer Fredette to ask
him. So | did my own calculation, this may be completely wrong, but | think it’s fairly accurate.
Given the cost that Treasurer Fredette told us it would cost us each year for this bond, if you divide that by
the valuation of all the property in town, | calculated that for a $300,000.00 house, depending on as
Treasurer Fredette explained, it depends on the interest rate. His analysis that was included in the
Resolution that we received started out at an interest rate of 3.5% but the last time we issued a bond it was
at 2.2% | believe. The financial people that | Know say that the rates for municipal bonds are at historic
lows. Nashua’s bonds are extremely attractive; so the chances are when these bonds are sold they are
probably going to be a lot less than 3.5, probably going to be closer to the 2.2 But if it is anything under 3%
my calculation says that if you own a $300,000.00 house, your share of this each year is going to be less
than $200.00.
That, as Alderman Clemons explained, because of the way we manage our bonds, it’s really not going to
cause an increase in the tax rate, but to be fair, if we paid off the current high school bonds and we didn’t
borrow this additional money, the tax burden would go down. So it is not going to go up, but assuming we
didn’t bond something else, like the Public Works Garage, so the chance of that happening are pretty slim.
