Board of Aldermen 08-10-2021 Page 22
So | do believe that by improperly counseling us at that time this got rushed through when a more accurate answer would
have allowed us to fully talk about it among ourselves and before we had claimed it was necessary and before we had
asked the public to come with the information that they then had and state their perspective. | think it was wrong to do it.
| feel that that rushed the process. Thank you.
Alderman Clemons
Thank you Madam President. | think back in Nashua’s history in the last 30 years of the referendums that we’ve had on
the ballot for various things whether it be to change the Charter or ask the public opinion. The most infamous of them all
was probably the spending cap. It had the largest ramifications but even that issue wasn’t rushed. That was issue was
discussed, it was vetted, and it was voted on by the people of Nashua. Think about the Broad Street Parkway. That
issue was discussed well. There was plenty of community meetings. Mayor Davidson at the time put that through with
the Board of Aldermen and that was a referendum that passed. Things changed. | was elected on the Board. | tried to
get another referendum on that but, again, it was a topic that had been discussed for years, and years, and years, and
years.
Moving forward, we had another Charter change to the spending cap. That was a citizen petition. That one was vetted
and discussed in the community as well. That went forward and actually | believe the Presidential ballot and that passed.
You know then more recently the performing arts center we put on the ballot. While that was a last minute decision to put
that on the ballot, the issue itself had been discussed in the community for almost a year or longer. Whenever we go to
put something on the ballot, it should be something that we’ve had a lot of communication on. That there’s been a lot of
discussion in the community. That there’s been ideas thrown out there for a different ways forward that are the best ways
forward. When you think about the performing arts center, we had studied that for | think over a year maybe two years
looking at different venues and things like that. Finally, the Board of Aldermen came to let’s do the Alec’s Shoe building
and finally that was put forward to the citizens to say is this something you want to do.
You know really this proposal here hasn't had the same kind of vetting. You don’t have the participation of the
community. You certainly didn’t have the aldermen being able to come up and listen to their constituents and propose
different amendments to maybe address some of the concerns that are coming forward. | wanted to get on the record
that | completely support your commission President Wilshire. | think it’s a great idea. | think it’s going to promote
transparency. | think it’s going to bring the parties together. | think it’s going to bring the police, it’s going to bring the
Aldermen, the concerns citizens, business owners to the table to discuss what the issues are and where we need to go
with this. So you know | won't be supporting moving this forward for those reasons because | think there’s more
community dialog to be had on this. | hope that the folks in the community will want to vet and get a better proposal. I’m
not saying that we’re not going to propose the change from having the Governor’s Council appoint this to some sort of
local control but what it is saying is we need to discuss what the best option is. In my view, we’re not putting forward the
best option to the community here because we haven’t engaged them to discuss that. For those reasons, | won't be
supporting this this evening. Thank you.
Alderman Tencza
Thank you Madam President. I’m sympathetic to the arguments on both sides of this issue. | come down very similarly to
Alderman Clemons in particular with current legislation as it’s written. | think there are changes and improvements to be
made to the Police Commission and | think it’s the intent of this legislation to include more diversity both in gender and in
race is | think a goal a lot of probably share on this Board. The language that’s included in this that says that the Police
Commission shall reflect the citizenship of the city could mean very different thing to very different people. Again, that
leaves it up to the Board President and the current Mayor whoever the Mayor is making those appointments to define
what that means. | think we could have a much broader community discussion about how we would like to see or what
types of people we would like to see on the Police Commission because the Police Commission does serve a very, very
important role in the direction of our Police Department. It would be great | think if there were more women on the Police
Commission there may be more officers. There may be more female officers who are in leadership positions at the
Nashua Police Department which would be fantastic for a city. Similarly, more people of color who are part of the
leadership team at the Nashua Police Department. That’s not saying anything about the current or previous
Commissioners but | think that’s just a reality. I’m hoping that this committee can strengthen and improve the proposal.
The other thing | worry about is that | do think this has started a conversation and we have a chance to make some
positive changes. However if this goes on the ballot, | do not believe that there is broad community support for this as it’s
written right now. I’d be concerned that if this proposal goes on the ballot and fails and that kind of kills momentum that
we've started here. | would thank Alderman Caron for her stewardship of this because | believe she did try to work and
work within the timelines because we know this is something that has probably be approved tonight in order to try to get
on the ballot. | believe that she did the best that she could. Our procedural vote to vote that it was necessary from the
