Board of Aldermen 06-08-2021 Page 22
They called for a roll call to bully certain individuals into voting the way they wanted to. And this is proof positive
when the Speaker created the tie and it went down, the next vote that went on went to do exactly what they said,
because they were determined that they were going to win. And for those people who do not think this was for
Nashua, read the Bill, notice who it points out by stating “all up beyond this date”. That was Nashua and only
Nashua.
They put in a paragraph about super majority and for complete transparency, this is my Committee that heard
this. Municipal County Government heard this particular vote. It was very specific. If you listen to the audio, you
hear Nashua, Nashua, Nashua. At one point someone finally does turn around and say, well, you know, others
were at risk. Others were not at risk because if you go in and you look at it they are absolutely not at risk because
they do not have the same issues. What this did was, this said to Nashua you will put in a spending cap you will
not have an override. Because we don’t have an override, we have two excludable items. This means that if the
City were to get a grant that would bring us over the spending cap we could not take that grant. This would not
hurt the taxpayers but we could not spend that money. That’s what this does. This is basically saying to
Nashua, we don’t care if you are going to raise the taxes, you can’t spend that money. It’s a three year running
average. So for those people who say this was to affect other — Franklin, etc. etc. — no it’s not. It was significantly
put towards Nashua. And anybody who doesn’t believe it read it. Read it. Listen to the speaking point that were
made. | along with | am sure my other 26 other Reps were quite alarmed by this. | have never seen one
community targeted and my Committee over and over and over again said the State was not meant to fix what
the citizens felt was wrong with the City. It should not have been fixed in Concord, it should have been fixed her
in Nashua. There are ways of fixing. So | am sorry for going on so long, but | did decide | needed to clarify that.
Thank you.
Alderman Dowd
Just two quick things. One | would like to request if we can get the people that are responsible for the pension
fund in the State down here to talk to us. It is my understanding that they earned less on the pension fund this
year that you can earn in a savings account; that’s ridiculous. And the way that they are running it is not
conducive to any city or town in NH. And it’s not just cities, it is also towns. So I’d like to have them down here
and answer some questions. The other thing is | do want to express my condolences on the loss of former
Mayor Don Davidson. | Knew Don for a number of years, we didn’t always agree, but we agreed to disagree. He
was a pilot with Eastern Airlines, he owned a fixed base operator establishment at the Nashua Airport when | was
Chairman of Airport Authority. He was an Aldermen, President of the Board of Aldermen, a Mayor and also on
the Fire Commission. So like | said, we didn’t always agree on things but | am sorry to hear of his passing.
Alderman Caron
Yes thank you. | too would like to extend my condolences to the Davidson’s family and the loss of Don. Mayor
Davidson, | worked with him, he could be contentious at times, but he is the one that brought in the Nashua Pride
to Holman Stadium which started that ballpark to come alive again after so much time with nothing going on
there. So he as we were talking the other day, Commissioner Tolner and | when there was this big controversy
about taking the recreation basketball program within the City, this room was filled to capacity with parents,
children and everyone coming out. And Mayor Davidson realized that this wasn’t the way to go and kind of
backed off and | have to say | was very proud that he realized that a mistake was made and rectified it. So | think
that tells you what kind of a person he is and as Alderman Dowd says, you don’t always have to agree but
sometimes you can make the corrections that you need to and compromise. So | always chuckle about that one,
hopefully we never have to see that again. Thank you.
Alderman Harriott-Gathright
It has been a while since | put my hand up but | just want to say ditto to Alderman O’Brien but even more so to
Alderman Klee because that’s exactly what | wanted to say that we did not have a tie we actually would have
stopped that Bill had it not been for our Speaker. And that’s important because typically that doesn’t happen. |
don’t think in my 3 terms I’ve ever see that happen what he did, because that was a downright out partisan type
of situation. It was non-partisan but he made it partisan. So that’s all | need to say. Thank you.
