A special meeting of the Board of Aldermen was held Tuesday, February 19, 2019, at 6:30 p.m. in the
Aldermanic Chamber.
President Lori Wilshire presided; City Clerk Patricia D. Piecuch recorded.
Prayer was offered by City Clerk Patricia D. Piecuch; Alderwoman Mary Ann Melizzi-Golja led in the Pledge
to the Flag.
The roll call was taken with 12 members of the Board of Aldermen present; Aldermen Ken Gidge and Richard A.
Dowd were recorded absent; Alderman Tom Lopez arrived after roll call at 6:35.
Mayor James W. Donchess and Corporation Counsel Steven A. Bolton were also in attendance.
President Wilshire welcomes everyone and introduces the following individuals to offer remarks in
remembrance of Alderman-at-Large Brian S. McCarthy
President Wilshire
| have called the meeting tonight to honor a friend and a colleague, Brian S. McCarthy. | would just like to
say what a great audience we have here this evening, a lot of business people, a lot of former Aldermen
and colleagues, friends of Brian’s. Thank you. And most importantly, his wonderful family. Brian served
his community with dedication and passion, he loved Nashua. He did, he loved Nashua almost as much as
he loved his family. And we all knew that just knowing Brian, how he was, he handled himself, he was
confident, he was brilliant, | can’t say enough about Brian. But | am not going to do all the talking tonight
because | know there is a lot more to be said around the horseshoe and in the back of the room. Thank
you all so much for being here to honor Brian. | am going to ask the Mayor if he would like to say a few
words.
Mayor Donchess
Yes of course Madam President. Well | would certainly want to welcome everybody to City Hall tonight, all
friends and I’m sure close friends and supporters and fellow co-workers with Brian McCarthy. When | was
in City Government before, | left office before Brian was elected to the Board of Aldermen, so | didn’t know
him personally until | served for a little while on the Board of Aldermen and then for several years as Mayor.
I’m so glad that we have Brian’s family, Kim and Gloria and John here today, just to see again how much
he was valued here in the community.
| have to say that on a personal level, especially while | was Mayor, Brian and | would meet every Friday,
usually before, every two Fridays before an Aldermanic meeting. Of course | found working with him a
great pleasure; he always had very smart, constructive thoughts about what was going on in the City and a
lot of insight into many of the issues that we faced. | think | benefited from being able to talk with him in
those bi-weekly meetings about the issues that we were trying to address really together. He would often
sometimes refer to things that happened with the family at different times, of course, he always spoke of
you with great warmth and pride in his children, | can surely guarantee that.
We all know that Brian accomplished a great deal for the City and many people will speak to that. The two
things that really, the things that really struck me the most, although he was involved in many things were
first of all his dedication to education and to schools here in Nashua. And as we all know, he was
instrumental in making sure that the two high schools were completed, two schools of which the City is still
very proud. And his dedication to the downtown was really unparalleled. He was a supporter of the
Performing Arts Center, of everything that is going on downtown. The trolley we had and many, many
other things, his insights again regarding downtown. His knowledge regarding other downtowns and the
other communities he visited in applying those lessons to us in Nashua were always very, very enlightening
and always very interesting and again, just showed the deep insight that he had.
