Board of Aldermen 04-13-2021 Page 3
President Wilshire
| am here, | am alone and | can hear everyone. Alderman Cleaver did let us know that he was unable to join us this
evening.
Susan Lovering, City Clerk
You have 14 in attendance.
President Wilshire
Thank you. Also in attendance is Mayor Donchess and Corporation Counsel Steve Bolton. Mayor, did you wish to
address the Board this evening?
REMARKS BY THE MAYOR
Yes, thank you Madam President. First | wanted to say how sorry | am about the passing, the death of one our
young students in an automobile accident recently. | know that his family is grieving, and of course, no one who has
not gone through that really can, I’m sure, imagine what it is like for a parent. But as a Mayor of the City and | know
all of the Board of Aldermen, | mean | extend the community’s deepest condolences. It is just a very, very tragic
loss when a young person like this passes away. So | am very sorry about that.
Another issue, Madam President, the COVID-19 situation remains similar to where it has been the last few weeks.
The number of cases is up from a month ago but now a few less cases than last week. Right now we have about
235 active cases; a week ago that was over 300. But we saw 198 new cases arise last week, that was up 10 from
the week before. The positivity rate in Nashua remains at 8.5% which is much higher than we’d like. So we still
need to be careful about the pandemic, it is still dangerous. | was just talking with someone tonight whose 20 some
year old son has gotten COVID and is really sick from it. So this idea that young people can’t contract a positive or
a serious case, a serious positive case of COVID-19 is not really true. Yes, many people do OK with the disease
but others do not. So this is still a dangerous situation and people should continue to exercise caution with the
mask, social distancing and all the cautionary measures.
| wanted to mention that City Hall you will get a report, | think Madam President, after | am through from Ms. Kleiner
and Ms. Deshaies regarding the improvements to the automobile registration area. Those are about complete. |
think you'll see a significant transformation making the area much more COVID pandemic resistant, resistant to the
next pandemic and also a real upgrade in terms of just the look of the whole place. We expect that the automobile
registration will be able to move downstairs from the third floor next Monday. We will continue to operate by
appointments, that seems to be going very well. But people will be going to the first floor to register their cars.
And, of course, City Clerk Sue Lovering and her staff will move up to the third floor and then the renovations of the
City Clerk’s area will begin. The renovations to the Assessing are about complete and those should be open soon
as well.
Madam President, | wanted to mention one of the issues on the Agenda tonight which is the Affordable Housing
Trust Fund, that is R-21-118. This is the creation of a Trust Fund to hold Affordable Housing Contributions. This is
just the beginning. We know that affordable housing is a serious, significant problem for us here in Nashua, a
vacancy rate of less than 1%. Of course houses have also gone up significantly in value. So we need to begin to
do everything we can and we will be proposing other steps as well but the initial contribution into this Trust Fund is
$30,000.00 which is the last 3 years of $10,000.00 a year contributions that we receive from Clock Tower as part of
the HUD HODAG Grant that was given to the City, earned by the City, won by the City back in the late 80’s when |
was Mayor before that established Clock Tower at that time. | am sure you all have indicated your support for that
and | Know you understand the seriousness of this issue but | wanted to mention it because | think it is an important
step forward.
