Board of Aldermen 12-22-2020 Page 24
| hope that they take it much more seriously, | believe they do, but right here in Nashua | can’t change
everything in the United States. And | can’t change everything in New Hampshire. But | am an Alderman
who was elected to make decisions for Nashua and | am choosing to listen to the recommendation of our
Board of Health, the recommendations of our Department of Public Health and the constituents who are
concerned about their specific vulnerability to death or dying. Thank you.
President Wilshire
Ok the motion before us for final passage ...
Unidentified Speaker interrupts with profanities
President Wilshire
Unnecessary, you will be removed from the meeting if you continue that. Motion is to recommend final
passage of Ordinance 20-044 by roll call. Further discussion on that motion? Alderman Dowd?
Alderman Dowd
Yes, | have the utmost respect for the Board of Health and we jumped on their recommendations when
they first came out. We shut down businesses and then we gave them, working with the Board of Health,
the guidelines to meet. These businesses went out and spent a lot of money to put a lot of these
safeguards in place. They have been following them religiously and to just put an on/off switch and just
shut them all down is not good for the entire City. | understand where they are coming from, but they have
done a great job at limiting the exposure to COVID-19. | won’t go into all the details but | think if we shut
these businesses down, people will go elsewhere and bring COVID-19 back here, because those other
cities haven't done as well as we have.
All of the businesses are willing to work with us if there’s an outbreak, they are willing to adjust like a
(inaudible) and change some of the requirements until they get to a point where it is safer. But until we
have data that says that there is an outbreak coming out of these establishments, to just shut every one of
them down is not fair, definitely not fair.
It affects the employees that work there, it affects the people that own those businesses and have put a lot
of money into it. And also they pay taxes and our tax revenue would go down including the employees and
two of these establishments raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for our charities who right now are
strapped trying to help people who have been affected by COVID-19 and won’t be able to do that work if
these establishments are shut down. So | am definitely against this curfew because | think it is too large a
move that is not required in that degree. We need to look at ensuring that people are compliant and | think
many of these businesses are, and even overly compliant. Because they understand that it is their business
that they are protecting. So they enforce the rules and if the rules have to be tweaked, then we can tweak
them. | cannot see just pulling the rug out from all of these businesses that have done so much to protect
the citizens of Nashua so far. It’s just not fair. Definitely not fair and it’s a hell of a thing to do just before
Christmas. Thank you.
President Wilshire
Anyone else? Alderman Jette?
Alderman Jette
Thank you Madam President. | have a couple of things. The first thing and | hope that you come back to
me after this thing. My first thing is a question to Attorney Leonard. Alderman Klee sent us all a copy of a
Supreme Court case that one of her constituents provided to her, it’s the (?spelling) v the City of
Manchester which talks about whether or not the City has the right to adopt Ordinances affecting
