Board of Aldermen 10-13-2020 Page 29
And in addition to that, we have a developer that is going to fill a need in the City that the Mayor spoke
about earlier which is a need for smaller unit apartments, studios and one bedrooms. | have to say that |
agree 100% with everything that Alderman Lopez had brought up previously. | couldn’t have said it better
myself, to be honest. And you know, it’s one of those things where | wasn’t elected to simply be an echo
chamber. | was elected to make decisions that are going to be for the benefit of this City, not only in the
moment but for years down the road. The decisions that we make today have impacts that will last through
this City for generations to come. And there are many examples of that and | am proud of some of the
accomplishments that I’ve had. And | hope that | can add this one as a feather in my cap as well.
And again, none of these things have happened without compromise. Look at the Broad Street Parkway.
It was supposed to be a four lane parkway that was going to be designed or going to be built with no
taxpayer money. Well that didn’t happen but we still got it done. It’s a beautiful road and it serves our City
well. We weren’t supposed to buy the Pennichuck either. We were going to take it over by eminent
domain. But we bought it and it is run as a private company. That wasn’t originally the plan. Nothing-
Nothing that comes before this Board is usually the way that it originally came in, especially with big
projects like this. It’s just the reality of life. And we should accept that and we should understand that
compromise is not a dirty word.
| can understand the need or the want for wanting the project to have affordable housing component, not
liking the fact that we are raising it, maybe it’s ugly to some people. I’m going to lay it on the line for your
folks, this is it; if you want the Performing Arts Center to happen, then you should vote “yes” on this,
because otherwise it’s not going to happen. | can tell you that right now. This is our chance, this is our
chance. So my recommendation would be that we move forward with this and we understand and we
recognize that it is a compromise that is not perfect, that has a lot of moving parts. However, it is the best
option that we have to get to our end goal, which is to have a Performing Arts Center in this City. So | would
strongly, strongly encourage my colleagues, if you want to see a Performing Arts Center in Nashua, | would
strongly encourage you to vote “yes” tonight on this because | don’t foresee us having the opportunity to do
it for much longer. Thank you.
President Wilshire
Thank you. Alderman Schmidt?
Alderman Schmidt
Thank you, Madam President. I'd like to echo two things that Alderman Clemons just said. He said that
this is about the future and all things go through an evolution. That’s how Cities run. We don’t make a
decision and make it happen immediately; things have to be talked over, discussed, planned and changed
when necessary. And this was certainly something that needed to be evolving. Before | was elected,
Alderman McCarthy started talking about having a Performing Arts Center in the City. And this was so
exciting, so exciting that | took some time to study what was going on in Concord and in Portsmouth with
their arts and performance programs that they had. It was stunning the amount of people that were coming
in, the business that was hitting downtown, keeping it a healthier and more vibrant area. And this is what |
knew we needed downtown because sometimes you go down and it’s dead. So | firmly support the
Performing Arts Center because of what | studied, because of so many people in Ward 1 that | talked to
that said they wanted it, just under 50% of the people in Ward 1 voted for this. | had one criteria that we
had to come up with the $4 million dollars, it’s there, we’ve got it. I’m so pleased.
The other part of this is the building that’s going to be new housing downtown. We need this, it’s perfect for
that area but | wouldn’t vote for it until we had something to do with more parking in the area, because we
know that that was a real need down there. We couldn't just go ahead and build more housing without
having prepared something for the future. So that evolved as well and so a garage underneath is perfect.
Aligning these two together in one bill is absolutely, it’s the smartest thing to do. | am supporting this 100%.
| hope everybody will join me in this. | think it’s good for the City’s future. Thank you.
