Board of Alderman Meeting - May 14, 2019
NEW BUSINESS — ORDINANCES O-19-044
Endorser: Alderman-at-Large Brandon Michael Laws
Alderman Patricia Klee
Alderman June M. Caron
Alderwoman-at-Large Shoshanna Kelly
Alderman-at-Large David C. Tencza
Alderman Jan Schmidt
Alderman-at-Large Lori WilshireAMENDING
THE BOARD OF ALDERMEN COMPENSATION ORDINANCE
Given its first reading; assigned to the PERSONNEL/ADMINISTRATIVE AFFAIRS
COMMITTEE by President Wilshire
PERIOD FOR GENERAL PUBLIC COMMENT:
Paula Johnson, | still live in Nashua, exhausted from this whole thing. | don’t know how | ever
sat on this, maybe ‘cause | was younger. | would like to thank the Aldermen for that bill, the
smoking, | want to say it takes courage to vote what you feel is right, you beat a dead horse to
death, you know, it went round and round. And some of the Aldermen that | don’t agree with
many times, | want to say thank you, because yeah does it have to be at the State Level?
Board of Aldermen 05-14-2019 Page 40 Yeah | think it’s better at the State Level that they
address it so then it’s at throughout the State, not just one community, another community,
State Law supersedes City anyway. I’m here to talk about and | know it’s going for its first
reading, O-19-044. Let’s talk about that legislation and what has happened. | was the original
sponsor of that legislation, remember Alderman Wilshire, remember Attorney Bolton. No? Well
let me refresh your memory. The reason | did the compensation and what was the intent of this?
The intent didn’t have anything to do with pregnancy or adoption, it wasn’t the reason why. And
it had nothing to do with any of this. It had to do, we had an Alderman, if you remember correctly
that never came to Committee meetings. He would show up more times at the full Board
meeting and yet he was being paid to sit around the horseshoe for meetings and the full Board
meeting. That was the intent of this. Not the intent of somebody being pregnant or adoption.
And I’m a woman and | have the right to say that. And | have the right to say what the intention
was; because | was the original maker of it and there was no action. But over the years, it got
watered down a little bit. And the reason | made so clear and | sat down with Dori Clarke and we
really worked on this. So nobody would be left out but the question was, why should you be paid
for meetings that you did not attend? Simple as all that. You go to work, you get paid; you don't
go to work, you don’t get paid. There is no sick time really here because it’s not a job. That’s
why we never put in certain things because this is not a job this is an elected position. You go to
the polls, you have the voters vote for you; you get a stipend, it’s not a paycheck it is a stipend.
By rights it is not even supposed to have taxes taken out if you look at the US Code. This was
added in after. So this is why | wrote this piece of legislation. No action was taken because that
person, after it got written, decided to show up to the meetings again. So this isn’t a job and if
you can’t fulfill your duties because of maternity or adoption, there are other ways to be in touch
with the Board. You can Skype, you can FaceTime. There is a member of the Board of
Education that doesn’t come to any meetings anymore because he’s ill and he’s telephonically.
So you don’t have to have this in legislation that says because you are pregnant or you have an
adoption that you can’t come to meetings. You can call in at every meeting and you can still be
part of the meeting and be paid for your presence. So when we did this, it was based on the
