Board of Aldermen 12-22-2020 Page 3
Alderman Harriott-Gathright
| am present, | am in the room at the hospital with my husband and | can hear everyone. And | am using
earphones, so no one can hear us.
President Wilshire
| am here, | am alone and | can hear everyone.
Susan Lovering, City Clerk
You have 15 in attendance.
President Wilshire
Thank you. Also in attendance this evening is Mayor Jim Donchess and Deputy Corporation Counsel Celia
Leonard. Mayor, do you wish to address the Board this evening?
REMARKS BY THE MAYOR
Mayor Donchess
Yes, Madam President. Well as you know, this is the last meeting of 2020. Certainly this has been unusual
year and a tough year. We have faced this pandemic, COVID-19 for the last 10 months or so. We have taken
extraordinary measures in doing so and, of course, many families have been impacted through people who
have become sick and even some of our neighbors and friends have passed away as a result of the pandemic.
Now it seems that we have some months to go, but we can see the light at the end of the tunnel sort of speak
because the vaccine has arrived in Nashua, at least the first shipments. Doses of the vaccine were received at
the hospitals and a couple hundred doses were administered to some of the front line health care workers at
both of the hospitals. We are being told by the State of New Hampshire that more vaccine will be coming soon;
of course the State is in charge of the order of priority and in terms of distributing the vaccine to various
communities. But maybe by, within a few months, end of March, maybe end of April, we will have enough
doses that many people can receive the vaccine to fight the virus. So | hope people will be careful over the
Holidays; make sure that you socially distance even with families and friends, you know, use your masks, use
your hand sanitizer, wash your hands, all of the cautions that we’ve been giving through all these months
because we want to keep everybody as safe as possible between now and when we expect that the vaccine
and widespread immunity will exist.
Now there a couple of things that | wanted to specifically mention, Madam President, in addition to, of course,
the COVID-19. City employees have been doing a great job throughout the pandemic and across City
Government. Our Public Health Department, our nurses, our first responders, people in City Hall who have
worked remotely and come up with many innovations to make sure we could continue to serve the people of
Nashua. But one bright spot that did happen is we got the lead grant that you see on the Agenda, $5.7 million
dollars. This is a competitive grant; we have gotten it several times before. But the reason we were awarded
$5.7 million, which is the largest that we’ve ever received, is that Carrie Schena and her team have done such a
great job with the previous lead grants we’ve gotten in terms of getting the money out, in terms of getting our
apartment units de-leaded. $5.7 million dollars will get us about — more than 200 apartment units de-leaded.
And Madam President, as you know, once an apartment is de-leaded the apartment is subject to an affordable
housing limitation for 5 years so it helps to provide affordable housing as well. So | wanted to thank Carrie and
everyone who has worked so hard on that program over the years.
Another thing that certainly is a bright spot is the Soup Kitchen and Shelter has raised the funds and has made
initial improvements to the building, the former St. Patrick’s School Building on Spring Street and has finished
sort of the basement level to the point where within a week or two, that will be usable for homeless individuals,
both men and women. We went on a tour of the existing Soup Kitchen Shelter on Ash Street today.
