Special Bd. of Aldermen — 04/30/2019 Page 14
Coming from the Fire Department | know the benefit to have what is being presented to the Incident Commander
from the information in the Assessor's Office that could be relayed to the fire scene, it has the potential of saving
lives. And it can communicate to the fire fighters before even leaving the station have a fair idea that it will come
up in the MDT in the truck, the Motor Data Terminal, they'll have an idea what type of structure/fire they are
actually going to. So | see with your looking at that, that’s going to be huge. And so | think this is the beginning
sort to speak and | am willing to, let’s lay back and see how it goes. And again if you can come back with a little
report to tell us how it’s going, | think that’s what the tax payers see. | think they are going to recognize that we
saw an issue, we corrected it and we are working to get it better. So thank you.
Alderman Schmidt
Thank you so much for this. It’s clear now what needs to be done. | know that after the re-assessment | heard a
lot from constituents about what was wrong and it was pretty clear that something needed to be done. We've
heard it here from people who came up to ask for help. | think that’s exactly what you are offering. It is not the
assessors that are the problem; what the problem is that there was no organization, there was no process.
Everything was waiting for you | think and I’m so glad this is happening, thank you very much.
Alderman Clemons
| wanted to just emphasize one point in particular, a policy that | agree with. Ms. Kleiner you mentioned that you
put in place the written request form for whatever it may be and you will get back to the citizen in 5 business
days. And I’ve got to tell you, that follows the Right To Know Law. And there’s a reason that the Right To Know
Law was written the way it was. Because if you, Nashua is very lucky that we have a large staff, generally
speaking in various departments when you consider just different divisions. When you look at a small little town
though let’s say, | don’t pick one. They are not going to have an Assessing Department with 5 or 6 people
working in it. They are going to have maybe 1 person. So the Right To Know Law was written in a way that
allows the community to best tailor their ways that they can respond to individual’s requests and gives them a
right, gives them a time-frame to be able to do that. | think that utilizing that law to the degree that it gives you the
latitude to be able to answer everybody’s question in an appropriate manner and a way that is going to get the
information across to them so that they understand what is being presented to them | think is not only a good
practice, but it’s a best practice.
So that is a policy, as far | am concerned, that | will 100% support and might even be good to implement in other
departments where there may be you know where they might have that lack of being able to fulfill some of these
requests that come in. Because to me, in my profession, nothing is better than getting something in writing
because you can respond exactly to what the request is, everybody is on the same page, if you will. That to me
is a great what to move forward. So thank you for doing that and | think it acknowledges the balance between
the staff and what the demands there and the public and their right to know.
Alderman Klee
There was one item that | did forget to ask and it was kind of mentioned. You’ve done tremendous work in 14
and 38 days so thank you for that. And then coming and giving us this information and so on; can we expect,
you know I’m looking at your timeline here, maybe sometime in August? At that point you said you are during a
lull and you are going to be starting that new project. Can we get kind of an update as to how things went with
the billing and the abatements, is that too much to ask? And I’m sorry to put you on the hot seat right at the
moment, but | think the public would appreciate that.
