A regular meeting of the Board of Aldermen was held Tuesday, January 8, 2019, at 7:30 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; Alderman Ernest A. Jette led in the Pledge to the
Flag.
The roll call was taken with 13 members of the Board of Aldermen present; Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja was
recorded absent.
Mayor James W. Donchess and Corporation Counsel Steven A. Bolton were also in attendance.
President Wilshire
Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja did let me know that she was unable to join us this evening.
REMARKS BY THE MAYOR
Mayor Donchess
First | wanted to address something on the Agenda which is the report from the Rail Committee that Tim
Cummings, the Economic Development Director has forwarded to you, and which | understand will be
referred to one of the committees. For those of you who were not here when the committee was formed,
and | think there are a number of you, we formed the committee through Legislative action when the
possibility of working with the Boston Surface Rail Corporation originally arose. The idea was to appoint
people knowledgeable and interested in the task of bringing rail service to Nashua to help advise the Board
of Aldermen and the City as to how to proceed.
Of course, | am preaching to the choir; | know here when | say that a rail would bring great benefits to the
State of New Hampshire in its entirety as well as to the City of Nashua, as well as to the neighborhood that
would host the rail station and of course all the commuters who drive from Nashua into Boston or
Massachusetts.
The Rail Committee was given actually a limited term but they have continued to work as issues have come
up and | think that definitely has been a good thing. They have kept up-to-date regarding rail issues; they
include a number of recommendations in their report. They are basically suggesting, and you will hear this
directly when they report in more detail: they are basically suggesting that we as a City continue to pursue
two parallel tracks. Number one, our work with the Legislature in the effort to get the last planning stages for
the capital quarter project funded with the $4 million dollars of Federal money, not one State dollar involved
that would be required to complete that last planning phase, while at the same time acknowledging that over
time there has been quite a bit of opposition to rail in Concord and many legislators over time have not been
supportive. So, at the same pursuing the joint approach with Boston Surface Rail to work with them to
determine if they could bring a private service to the City; the Committee is recommending that we pursue
these two tracks and you will hear more about that when they report.
We do have a very active Committee, technically its life has run out but | don’t think we should let that
interfere with their work. We could re-authorize the Committee to give them an indefinite life, if we want to
make this formal is something that we could do. If we do do that, | think we should expand the membership
by a couple of members. In appointing the initial people on the Committee we included two people who
were in the Legislature and very active and interested in the rail issue; those being Bette Lasky who was
then District 13 Senator as well as Carl Seidel who was then a Ward 1 Representative. Neither serve in the
Legislature at this time but both are interested and involved and in the Committee and are knowledgeable
on the rail issue. If we expand the membership it would be my intention or suggestion that we appoint two
additional members who are in the Legislature because of course that feedback from the Legislature is very
important and we could find maybe 2 or 3 other people from the Legislature who are involved in the
appropriate committees and could help provide a perspective as to what is going on in Concord.
