Special Board of Aldermen 03-23-2021 Page 21
Alderman Klee
Madam President, | think Chief Rhodes had a comment first, | saw his hand go up but then I’d like to ask a
question.
President Wilshire
Chief Rhodes?
Fire Chief Rhodes
Thank you, I'll be brief. So | have a saying that | like to use at work, and that saying is very simple, “We are
only as good and we can only provide the services for the people we have on duty”. Our City is not
conducive to having volunteers, it is not conducive to have people at home working remotely. Through this
entire pandemic, | am very proud of our organization because every single person came to work every day.
We did not have the ability to work remotely.
The City is just too big, it’s too busy and it’s continued to grow. So it’s a great question Alderman Lopez.
We are always looking at ways to leverage technology, but as far as providing a service to our citizens, if
you are not there and working, we cannot provide timely service to you.
President Wilshire
Alderman Klee?
Alderman Klee
Thank you Madam President. Actually mine is more of a comment than a question. Since I’ve lived in my
home here for the past 17/18 years, my neighborhood has changed and it has gone from being a very
elderly neighborhood to young neighborhood back to kind of getting a little older too. And one of the things
that | notice is when the lights go off in the middle of the night and we hear those alarms going off, the first
person on site is our Fire Department here, our Nashua Fire & Rescue, long before even the ambulance
gets there.
Our Fire & Rescue are in the door helping whoever that person is and then | see the ambulance pull up. So
kudos to our Fire & Rescue and | really appreciate that and | know that sometimes we look at those times
and say if we could just get there a minute sooner, | agree. If we could get there a minute sooner but we
are getting there even before the ambulances are getting there. So thank you very much for that.
President Wilshire
Thank you. | am going to look for a motion. First | want to thank you Mr. McCutcheon, Miss Harper, Fire
Commissioners, Fire Department, all of you for this good meeting, interesting, informative and we will see
what we can do in the future. Thank you all very much.
