Board of Aldermen 05-14-2019 Page 43
Alderman Caron
Yes thank. First I’d like to address Alderman Lopez’s concern about the letters that came through. |
did speak to our legislator manager and what we had were letters, not e-mails and she did say she
would put them in as part of the record and the minutes. As far as e-mails that go out to the Full
Board, | don’t have control over that; but there some letters that came in at that last minute that were
left on the desk. So she is doing that for you.
The other thing is | want to thank everyone who was able to attend Fire & Fusion a couple weeks ago
to benefit the Nashua Senior Center. It was very successful: they made a little bit more money than
last year. We are already getting requests to hold tables for next year’s Viva Las Vegas. So plan
ahead. Thank you.
Alderwoman Kelly
| want to address a few comments and things that have come up over the course of our very long
meeting and I’ll try to keep it brief. When we were talking about Kim my comment, | definitely want to
talk about her being very competent and collaborative; | think that was covered by a lot of people. But
| feel like reducing her role to a note-taker is pretty demeaning and downright incorrect. And perhaps
Mr. Teeboom would feel different if she was aman. | want to address Mr. O’Connor’s comments; I’ve
raised my own concern about eliminating the Chief Assessor both publicly and to the Mayor and Kim
directly. | feel confidently that they will look at that and | plan to advocate for keeping the position open,
that time would be at the Budget Meeting and making sure that we have that space for that. So |
definitely see that is something we need to continue to look at in terms of technical experience. | want
to address the tirade that happened with Ms. Johnson but I’m not really sure where to start so | am just
going to leave that alone for now.
Alderman Jette
| too join in Alderman Lopez’s request that all communications sent to the Board, whether it is in writing
or a physical document or an e-mail | think should be part of the record. Today, people send e-mails
instead of letters so | don’t know how ...
President Wilshire
We are working on it Alderman Jette.
Alderman Jette
That’s good to know. As far as the comments made by Mr. O’Connor directed to me, you know if |
said anything to offend, if he felt that | offended anybody that certainly wasn’t my intention. | ama
Veteran. And when you say | should say | should speak to those people? | have spoken to those
people. | know a lot of Veterans who are suffering from the effects of smoking who contracted that
addiction in the service; I’m one of them. | was introduced to tobacco by free cigarettes put in my meal
kits and that’s how | got introduced to smoking and that’s how | picked up what | thought was a bad
habit at the time. But it turns out it was an addiction and | smoked for a long time. And as a result of
that smoking for a long time, | contracted cancer and | am survivor of cancer. And you know my efforts
in trying to eliminate or prevent people from becoming addicted to tobacco here were with the best of
motives.
| was just trying to help people avoid that addiction and | certainly, you know, I’ve had conversations
with the Veterans that | identified and that you spoke about. So | wasn’t, it was not my intention to be
callous towards them or to be demeaning of them. | do think that if you think saying that they are
victims, if my calling them victims or describing them in a manner that made you think | was calling
them victims, if you think that’s wrong, | respectfully disagree. | think people who have become
