Board of Aldermen
February 23, 2016 Page 20
Alderman Siegel
To address Alderman Moriarty’s sense of economics and putting on my CEO hat, by extension one could draft
an army of poodles not subject to the minimum wage and put a poodle on every street corner because it would
be fairly cheap. There’s a reason that you balance the salaries that you pay people with the worth and the
quality of the expected work that you are going to get. Let’s be very careful when we look at the economics
behind hiring and how wages are defined. | have to deal with this every day and | bet my own money on those
decisions.
Alderman Caron
| would like to send condolences to the John Barry family. John was a member of the Parks & Recreation
Department as the operations manager for over ten years and he was a well-respected person.
Alderman Dowd
| would like to give my congratulations to Attorney Bennett for all of his service that he has provided to the city.
| wish you well in everything you do going forward.
The other thing is just a little explanation about the Amherst Street/Charron Avenue; the original estimate that
we had proposed, and I’m sure the Mayor would have addressed it had he been here, when we finally got the
bids last fall they came in significantly higher and we took some actions in the design to get the cost down but
it still came in above the projected amount and this is a project where it’s a public/private partnership and at the
time of the original bid half of the cost was being covered by the people that owned the businesses in the area
and that’s unheard of and they don’t have to do that. This work on Amherst Street and Charron Avenue we
could be doing totally on city dollars. We called the companies in and we already knew they were at the limit
and they agreed to give us an additional $62,000 towards the project and they are stretching their budgets
significantly because they would like to have it done. The additional bonding that is required is the additional
city portion of the funding to make this project fully funded so we can start it as soon as the weather improves.
Alderman Clemons
| would like to take this opportunity to wish Attorney Bennett all of the best. It was always a pleasure to work
with you and you have served the city very well and | thank you for all of your hard work and service. Too
often it goes unnoticed but it hasn’t gone unnoticed by anyone around here.
Alderman Lopez
On March 19" at 11:00 a.m. at Greeley Park there is a community organized walk for heroin awareness.
Anybody who knows someone who has overdosed or passed away or anyone that has been affected by it is
welcome. | was also asked by a constituent to invite the Board of Aldermen.
President McCarthy
| would also like to extend my thanks to Attorney Bennett for his service to the city. It’s been a great pleasure
working with you for more years than | care to remember.
| would also like to extend my condolences to the Barry family. John was good to work with as well and he did
a lot of work for the city.
| have been attending the New Hampshire Science Café for the last year or so which brings in panels on a
highly diverse set of topics. The one last week was on opioid addiction and | found it fascinating enough that |
am trying to arrange the same panel in to talk to the Board at a Human Affairs Committee meeting. The panel
we had last week consisted of a doctor, a first responder from AMR, a former pharmacist who now works for
