Board of Aldermen Page 7
March 8, 2016
President McCarthy
| don’t recall that.
President Deane
It is my understanding that it takes ten votes to suspend, does it not?
President McCarthy
No, we have an ordinance that says that however we cannot by ordinance defeat the rules of the majority,
the will of the majority of the Board as set forth in the Charter. If you like | will ask the City Attorney to
comment on that.
Alderman Deane
That’s quite alright.
Alderman Moriarty
| would like clarification on that. | may be wrong but! am led to believe that if you have a super majority to
make that ordinance then it would take a super majority to undo that ordinance and override it.
President McCarthy
Only where the Charter requires a super majority is a super majority required.
Alderman Moriarty
What is R-16-007?
President McCarthy
Relative to the acceptance and appropriation of $40,000 from the State of New Hampshire Department of
Health and Human Services into Public Health and Community Services Grant Activity FY 2016 and FY
2017: Climate and Health Acceptance Plan (CHAP)
Alderman Siegel
So here we are again with the exact same legislation, nothing has changed and now it’s being
reconsidered and the reason why it’s being reconsidered is well, | guess the Board didn’t do their
homework. When | was objecting to this the reason it wasn’t tabled is because | knew exactly what | was
voting against, | made the case against this. Last evening, during Bobbi Bagley’s confirmation hearing |
asked Ms. Bagley what her top three priorities were for the Department of Health and not one of them
came close to being in the universe of this grant. | also asked if somehow she felt we had all of the
resources that we needed to accomplish what the health department needs to accomplish and remember
that we have an opioid crisis here and | obviously think that’s a high priority and there are grants that are
being considered for a first reading tonight which clearly fall into the purview of the Board of Health. This is
speculative and it’s not the highest priority. | made that argument before so even the sponsor of the
legislation didn’t know what they were sponsoring; the Alderman that was the liaison to the Board of Health
couldn’t provide any light in addition to what was there. Again, | read the legislation, | knew what this was
and | will insist that nothing has changed, if anything a clarification that we received, if you want to call it
that, makes it even more clear to me that this is not a priority for this Board. The argument was made that
