Board of Aldermen 12-22-2020 Page 30
They make sure that the people are wearing a mask when they are up and around. They don’t let people
dance in the middle of the bar. So you know, that’s the kind of thing that we need to start enforcing. And |
support that 100% but to my colleague’s point 9:30 is just an arbitrary time. Because if | go into a place
and | eat, | am going to eat the same way | eat at 5:00, 6:00, 7:00, 8:00, 11:00 it doesn’t matter. So you
know, | would support doing more measures to really enforce what we have in place but | can’t support this.
| am going to stand with the hardworking people who have reached out to me, over 200 of them. | am going
to support them until our Federal Government decides that it is going to support them and | don’t see that
happening any time soon. So from now on, as always, | am going to stand with the people. Thank you.
President Wilshire
Thank you. Is there any Alderman who hasn’t spoken yet, I'll get back to you. Alderman Klee?
Alderman Klee
Thank you, Madam President. | am going to shut my video off because | think | am having some bandwidth
issues. | want to make a couple of statements and | feel guilty that | am kind of repeating some of the
things that others have already said. But one of the things that | wanted to make a point was is that | think
for everyone of us this is an extraordinarily hard decision. We've had hard decisions before but this is
taking what our extraordinarily wonderful Public Health people both the Board of Health and the Public
Health Department. We are going kind of — if we don’t vote with them we are voting against them. | have a
hard time just saying | am voting against our Public Health. So it is an extraordinarily hard decision but |
look at it as the City doesn’t have a big bubble around it and we don’t have a way of keeping all of our
people in. And I’ve said this before and | am going to say it again, if someone leaves Nashua and they go
and they drink in another City; Hudson, Merrimack, wherever and | believe that most of them will when they
want to go out. We can’t control that narrative, we can’t control their action, we can’t control the amount of
mask wearing and so on.
| think here in Nashua, | think we do a really good job. | would like to see it a little bit stronger and to
comments that Alderman Clemons has made, | do have Legislation in the works hopefully that will do
exactly what you had said and | am just hoping that we can define what those from very minor to $25.00 up
to exactly what he said, perhaps revoking some days/weeks licenses and go after those. | have a hard time
sacrificing the whole for a few. And | do believe it is a few. And sadly | don’t believe it’s just our
restaurants, but that is where the biggest spread is going to be because they are going to have their masks
off for a longer period of time. But! do see it in stores and | mentioned it yesterday so | won't go into it. But
| don’t want to say the “who” but | can say that it was someone in law enforcement who shared a story
about being in a restaurant and getting back up and going to walk to the bathroom and forgot to put the
mask on and was told, “excuse me, you need to put your mask on” which was funny to some respect but |
think it was a good thing, it was a reminder, we all make mistakes. We all get up that one time and so on.
So when we put through Ordinances and say a $25.00 fine or something, we have to be cognizant it and
our Nashua PD would have discretion, they would know when someone just made a little bit of a mistake or
something versus someone who says, “I’m not putting it on’. Someone who stands in front of a cash
register and berates a young cashier and says, “I’m not doing that too bad”. Those are the people that we
want to go after, those are the people that we need to be speaking to and addressing. I’ve been working
with the United Way now since, almost since this pandemic has happened. I’ve worked with handing out
masks, I’ve worked with handing out food. And what | see is that the lines are getting longer and the need
is getting stronger. | can’t do something to somebody and make what they are now calling hunger lines. |
can’t make those hunger lines longer. And | have had people who apologize to me because they need
food. That truly breaks my heart. | can’t add to it, | can’t add to that single parent who is in line because
they don’t have enough food to feed their children and so on. The United Way, Front Door Agency, all of
these people have just stepped up. They have been incredible.
