Board of Aldermen 09-10-2019 Page 27
As part of the amendment there is an end-date in the amendment and | believe | put 90 days prior we will
give that report as to how it is going. There is specific, legal we already covered, so for the question
around what happens with revenue, | actually was really happy to hear that the Downtown Improvement
Committee is doing this parking study. Obviously when we started this process we didn’t know that, so |
think this can just be another piece of information as they are going through that process. | mean | think, if |
recall, the initiative to get that study was because we were originally were talking about let’s double the rent
rates in the garages and | believe at that meeting we said, “Can we get a study”. We want to know where
our parking garages are in terms of infrastructure needs and all of these things. So | think that their study
along with this will give us a really good idea of how to reallocate perhaps how we do parking and parking
fees in downtown.
The last thing | want to say and Alderman Laws beat me to it but | think when a group of passionate people
come to us as representatives and say, “This is the thing that we are interested in’, it is our job to listen and
weigh in and really act in accordance with how we feel and what we feel from our constituents. This time it
is the students, if the seniors come together and have this conversation, great. But this is absolutely our
job. So | commend the students for coming forward, it has been really great for them to be part of this
process and see it. | appreciate all of the really interesting discussion from the Board and | hope that we
put this through for them.
Alderman Klee
| just want to add to what Alderman Kelly had said. This does have a 60 day prior to expiration report by
the Youth Advisory Committee. They did not set what the criteria was or what they had to answer but they
did do the sunset of June 16", 2020 with a 60 days prior to expiration report by The Youth Advisory
Committee along with the Nashua Library and the Economic Development Committee will be made to the
Board of Aldermen to review the outcome of this pilot program and consider continuation. So in all fairness
| do want that to be made clear. Thank you.
Alderman Clemons
Thank you | just want to clarify something in case it wasn’t made clear. | do appreciate the fact that the
presentation was brought forward and | do appreciate the work that was done by the students and by the
folks who were involved. It’s just that | have a fundamental disagreement; | believe that what is right for
one should be right for all. And you know, basically to, other than for handicapped parking, really we
should be creating a level of playing field of fairness when it comes to the Library. And | believe that this is
only achieved through doing a comprehensive study of how to go about doing that. | don’t think that it is fair
to other folks that we single out one group of the population and decide that we are going to give away
parking to them but not to others. And | would feel the same way regardless of what group came before us
and presented whatever plan it was that left somebody else out. | would definitely vote “no” because |
happen to believe that we should be doing things as fairly and as equitably as we can. It’s what | was
elected to do and that is what | am going to uphold by voting “no:.
Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja
Yes thank you. When | was aware of this Ordinance in its original form | was not supporting it. Now that it
has the pilot portion in it with the report back to the Board of Aldermen, | am going to support this. | think
the information gained from this pilot can be rolled into the parking study. Although this says that there will
be a report back to us 60 days prior to the expiration, | think that as the parking study kicks in and moves
along, which | am sure is going to happen before June, we should be reaching out to the Library and
looking at what is happening there. | can’t believe that all of these passes will be used at one time and
certainly there are empty spots in that Library lot except as previous speakers have indicated; when there
are major events going on there. So | think we try it as a pilot, use the information going forward to look at
what it means for parking downtown and consider what the feedback is and move forward. So | will be
supporting it.
