Board of Aldermen Page 18
May 10, 2016
Alderman Dowd
I’m not sure it can because we have limited days to do the budget hearings and we have some other business
including a public hearing that we just scheduled for that date. It would be very difficult to reschedule that.
President McCarthy
We'll have our assistant look at that.
Alderman O’Brien
|, too, would like to thank Alderman Caron and the great work she has done. | had a lot of fun at the Fire &
Fusion. It was very good. The throwing in with the cooking with the hot sauce made it very interesting. |
would also like to say that | have that for 2:30 p.m. for the planetarium rededication at Nashua High School
South. I’m looking forward to it.
Alderman Lopez
| would like to apologize to Alderman Caron for not attending Fire & Fusion, but | did attend the baked potatoes
festival. | appreciate the neighbors who came in to talk about the impact of something in their community. |
think that kind of unity and investment speaks very highly of their community. | also wanted to thank Dr.
Cynthia Whittaker and Alex Hamel for speaking at our Human Affairs Committee yesterday. | think they
offered valuable insight and experience. Both women are very, very, very experienced in treating and working
with substance abuse, opioid addiction. As my brother said, facts tell but stories sell. Both of these presenters
were a wealth of personal experience. They really focused on the known experiences, approaches, strategies
and resources available in the recovery community. | also wanted to remind the Board of Aldermen that this
Sunday is the Gate City Marathon. It’s just like a parade, but way longer.
Alderman Caron
| do want to thank everyone who showed up because it was a great success. This is their fourth year. | think
they hit goal of what they were looking to make. They are looking for bigger and better next year.
Unfortunately the Alpine Grove is the only venue in the area that can accommodate 300 people plus 8 chefs
and cooking. Alderman O’Brien, | will have your membership forms next meeting.
President McCarthy
The planetarium rededication is in fact at 2:30 p.m. on the 25". It’s actually really interesting. We're not
actually paying to upgrade the planetarium. The upgrades are being done as part of a partnership with a
company down on Lake Street called Sky Scan which, if you never knew it was there, is a company that makes
planetarium equipment for places all over the world. They have a 27-foot dome in that little building behind the
mill on Lake Street. We had gone and looked at it when we outfitted the original planetarium. They had a
really neat system that uses coordinated video projectors to project on the dome. At the time that system was
way too expensive for us to afford. Technology being what it is, that’s come down in price and they're actually
giving us that in return for us helping them out with curriculum development which will also result in us getting
the materials to use in the planetarium, not just for space science education but they are doing a lot of
materials on other education. Biology and chemistry, for example, that they can use the space on the ceiling to
show things that are difficult to project in the flat. | think it’s a really interesting opportunity for us. It helps us
with our goals towards science education. | also wanted to thank all of the members of the board and of the
delegation that showed up last week for the meeting with the state delegation. | thought that was very
productive. | thank Alderman LeBrun and Alderman O’Brien twice because they sat on both sides of the table.
It started out a little slow but got off to a fairly good momentum in the middle. | think we’ll probably try to do
that again when we see what the agenda looks like for next year.
