Board of Aldermen 04-09-2019 Page 32
Department of Public Works has told me that they cannot afford to clean up the roads, even on land owned
by the City. They say they can’t afford to clean that. So it’s up to us residents as volunteers to do it. The
Department will provide us with gloves and bags and we can just leave the bags of trash and they will come
and pick it up. So look forward to that and | encourage all the other Aldermen to do something similar in
their Wards so we can help keep the City neat and clean. Thank you.
Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja
Yes thank you, Alderman Jette’s talk about being out in the nicer weather than we were having this evening
reminded me that in the past week | have received 3 reports of bears. One was in our conservation area
and | just think you know the Southern part of New Hampshire, we have parks and we have conservation
area which adjoins conversation area in Massachusetts. So our bears have large roaming areas. There
was a bear over in the Maplewood/Cherrywood area who took down some suet feeders and bird feeders
which Fish & Game told us in the middle of March should be removed; so please remove those. And there
seems to be a bear going up and down the hill between Shakespeare and the Flatley Property and
Bicentennial School who has also removed a number of bird feeders. So | would just remind people, take
down your suet feeders, take down your bird feeders. The bears are waking up, they are hungry, keep
your garbage closed and once things are out there for them to eat, if you want to put your bird feeders back
up in June, go ahead and do it. But right now your bird feeders are a feeding station for bears. So just a
reminder to be careful especially if you are out and about walking at night with your dog or whatever.
Vice President O’Brien
Fair advice, given up on the finch, you want a bear, keep your bird feeder out.
Alderwoman Kelly
Almost from bears to chickens, the new Ordinance is in effect and | know people are starting to look into.
There is an evening of information for anyone who is looking to do backyard chickens tomorrow night at the
Library at 7:00 p.m. It should be in your mailbox. We encourage people who are interested in this to come
out and learn the safe way to do this and hopefully bring this to the community that way.
| just want to thank people for supporting both the amendment to get the Student Members on board at the
Energy & Environment Committee, we have a couple students in mind who have really gotten interested in
the Committee and really brought some great information to us. They are pretty passionate about what
they want to get done. So thank you for that.
The Conservation Land which will be sent was a legacy of Brian so | am excited to see that go through as
well. So Saturday, 10:00 a.m. City Steps is a park clean-up, myself and members of the Energy &
Environment Committee will be helping Great American Downtown get that kicked off. Last year we had
200 people go out so | am hoping for a few more. So come on out and help us, hopefully it will be a nice
day for it.
Alderman Lopez
So first | just want to get this out of the way. With regards to the smoking ordinance, | wasn’t aware that the
ordinance had been altered due to any legal issues with it; that is what | understood some public comment
to be saying that it had to be modified because of legal. | have had no information to that effect. And then
second, there is considerable public argument that this is an indictment of the ability of an 18, 19, or 20
year old to choose. So | just want to clarify as someone who has a Masters Level Clinician and does a lot
of work with people in addiction that when doctors are talking about brain development and maturity; they
are not passing a value judgement on it. | could not think of a better analogy during the meeting but
basically they are thinking maturity in terms of like cooking time. Like there is a certain point where your
brain is no longer still as malleable still much more prone to developing pathways. So that’s what they
mean by younger people are more susceptible to it. It’s not necessarily that your judgement is impaired at
