Board of Aldermen — 3/22/16 Page 4
Mr. Jean Parent, 15 % Main Street
| am the president of JP Management, Inc. and | also own property in Nashua. | am totally against this bill for a
multitude of reasons, mainly because | believe it was underhanded and swept through under the carpet. None
of us knew what hit. | found out about it two hours prior to the meeting in the first week of March. | agree with
what the previous two speakers said. Not one of us was notified. This is an ordinance that affects us, why
were we not notified? There is already a due process now and | don’t have a problem with the code officials,
they are great. | don’t understand why we are going to have to put so much teeth now into it to give them more
power. Is this going to bite me in the back next year or the year after? We would like to have input. There’s a
time limit on this ordinance, ten days and | don’t agree that this is enough because some of these violations
can take longer than ten days. This bill seems ambiguous; it goes from verbal to citation to violation to fees
which can go up to $1,000 or more. It needs to be worded in a way that everyone can understand what you
are talking about. This bill gives too much power to them and too much power is not good. It’s great for the
people that don’t follow the code but most of us try to.
Mr. Don Thibault, 10 Caitlyn Circle
| think this should be either killed or re-written so that it’s fair.
Unidentified Speaker, P.O. Box 3854
We are here to ask the Board to table it and bring it back to committee so the landlords can have a say. Years
ago, like in 70’s or 80’s, the city used to withhold rent to bad landlords until the violations were taken care of
and they also did that with taxes. If you owed taxes and the city was providing welfare to a tenant they would
withhold the rent and | think that would be a better way to go after some of these out-of-town landlords. 99% of
us are not bad landlords but we also need to be heard when a bill comes through. We feel that we were blind-
sided. We are not against people having a good, clean home. Some of these landlords own two and three
family homes and they live in the building. All | am asking is that you please table it and bring it back to
committee so at least we can be heard. Maybe some tenants and landlords can get together so we can hear
both sides of the issues and maybe resolve. We used to have meetings with even the bad landlords and
explain to them that the landlords in Nashua are not going to put up with it and that their buildings need to be
as nice as ours. | don’t think fees will hurt them but | think if the city withholds the rent you will get their
attention.
MOTION BY ALDERMAN DEANE TO EXTEND PUBLIC COMMENT UNTIL EVERYONE HAS HAD A
CHANCE TO SPEAK
MOTION CARRIED
Mr. Daniel LaPointe, Tyngsborough, MA
| agree with everything everyone else has said. One thing I'll add is that a lot of things that would fail the code
is not broken by us; it’s broken by the tenants. Who will protect us? We receive the fines and we are
responsible for things they are constantly doing. It puts a strain on the landlord. We didn’t have a chance to
speak on our points and | think you should table it and have a meeting with the landlords.
Mr. Brad Whitney, 38 Fifield Street
| am in favor of what the other people have said so far. | read that the purpose of this change was so the city
could simplify the enforcement and save tax dollars and legal fees but when | look at it, it appears that the city
is solving that problem by transferring the city’s current responsibilities and current legal expenses onto the
landlord. I’ve been a landlord for 60 years and have never had any kind of a citation but we had a bad tenant
and the fire Marshall and the code enforcement people; the building was built in 1875 and they found loose
windows and weather stripping that had to be done. They found some trash in one of the hallways and
missing smoke detectors which the tenant did but we got blamed. The court officer said well | can call the
police and the police will come and arrest the tenant for removing the smoke detector. We get fines for the
