Special Board of Aldermen 09-28-2020 Page 19
Chairman Dowd
Certainly.
Alderman Lopez
Mr. Chair can | raise a point of order here, please. We are well down a rabbit hole. This is a public
hearing. Can we let the public speak?
Chairman Dowd
Yeah, | think these questions probably ought to be better handled when we get to the Budget meeting
where we are actually talking about the legislation. Usually we just let the Aldermen ask questions to
clarify something the presenters said. We don’t want to get into too much of a debate or get into too much
detail. This is a public hearing and we are looking for public testimony. So I'd like to proceed with that, if
there are no objections.
Alderman Lopez
Thank you.
Chairman Dowd
So now again the public hearing is on R-20-071, Authoring the Mayor and the City Treasurer to issue
bonds not to exceed the amount of $8 million dollars for two construction projects consisting of a publicly
accessible ground level parking garage, $2,500,000.00 and additional funding for the proposed Performing
Arts Center, $5,500,000.00. | will now take testimony of favor and | ask you to try and limit your comments
to three minutes. If it gets over three minutes, when it gets to five minutes, | will definitely move on to
someone else because we have 52 people on tonight and we do have to get through two of these public
hearings.
So would any member of the public like to speak in favor of R-20-071?
TESTIMONY IN FAVOR
Brian Grip Yes, Mr. Chairman, can you hear me ok? My name is Brian Grip and | am resident with my wife
at Ledgewood Hills, (inaudible) We are constituents of Alderman Jette and neighbors and really pleased
and proud to be here to speak in favor of this project. VWe’ve been residents of Nashua for 4 years; we
actually moved here from Bow, New Hampshire where we lived for 25 years and raised our family. | will
tell you that | started my career here in downtown Nashua in 1982. It is really exciting and | will speak for
my wife, we really are very excited about what we see, the energy going into downtown Nashua right now.
| will tell you that | work for Bank of America and | was really pleased to have an opportunity to meet some
of you at a reception that | know the Chamber held to help our company which | am very proud of
announce that $250,000.00 grant to this project. And | will tell you the years that | worked for the company
here in New Hampshire that is one of the largest single commitments that the foundation has made here in
New Hampshire. So our roots for the company are here in Nashua. Many of you recall Indian Head Bank
and our roots date back in New Hampshire to Indian Head Bank. And we have three banking center
offices and employees here in Nashua. In fact, one of them is right in the downtown as | think many of you
know which is just right down the street from the future Performing Arts Center.
So we are really, really pleased to be part of this. We are proud of it. | also just want to give credit to the
Mayor for his leadership and Tim and frankly all the volunteers that are working on this. It has taken a lot
of vision. And also, just briefly just mention to all of you as you are working through these issues and
