Special Board of Aldermen 12-07-2021 Page 30
Tim Cummings, Economic Development Director
So the red highlighted shows what the current construction costs are that we modeled, what we've designed, what
we've gotten back. We won't know when we put it out to bid, which, you know, the construction manager will do
ideally sometime this spring. At any time between now and then, the numbers could increase. But we have
contingencies built into the project. So | don't believe it will. What it will do is we will, as we continue with design and
we get a better understanding of what the individualized project costs are, it will tell us what would be available that
we could then reallocate to maybe some of the other priorities that we're just not going to be able to get to. Because
to be able to make this budget work, we need to stay under $21 million just with the current estimates that we have.
And really, it's because we just wrapped up preliminary design. We know that we need to carry a good contingency
but we expect that contingency to go down once we get through final design.
Chairman Dowd
Any other questions? Seeing none, I'll open the public hearing on R-21-193 testimony in favor.
TESTIMONY IN FAVOR - None
TESTIMONY IN OPPOSITION
Dan Richardson
Thank you very much. Dan Richardson, 70 Berkeley Street, Nashua, New Hampshire. I’m generally disposed to not
believe that this is a very good approach. Apart from the artistic impressions that were revealed, giving maintenance
nightmare, the segmented green spaces at different elevation levels you're going to have a terrible time maintaining
this. | noticed several areas that were inaccessible for people who are non-ambulatory. Besides that, | understand
the present low bond rates would prompt one to want to borrow as much money as you can at the present time. |
understand that philosophy in one shot, but that's not actually what happens. We get the bonding authority and
money is borrowed in segments over time as it's needed. So that you have you don't have to have an excess amount
of taxes covering the debt service.
So the real problem | have with this is the usage of a TIF. TIF is fundamentally unfair to the rest of the community and |
got to tell you the reason why is because it's established in State law, State Statutes how this works. There's no means in
State Statutes of segregating inflation from the truth - increasing the valuation of the property. All things being equal if
there was no inflation, you will be able to find an increase in valuation ostensibly attributable to the increase in property
values in that district. However, there is no such provision of law and you have no means established to do that.
So that's a true problem. It causes an increase in valuation due to inflation which causes an increase in taxes from that
valuation increase. That was fundamentally captured views only in the TIF District. And that's unfair to the rest of the city.
It produces an excess amount of money for use only in that area and what ends up happening is when people see an
excess amount of money, they tend to increase the scope of a project beyond what it is ostensibly for. So | am against
use of a TIF District for financing this. | think what you ought to do is have general obligation bonds and just straight up,
borrow the money as you need for the project segments
Alderman O’Brien
30 seconds.
Dan Richardson
...for the particular annual budget. Thank you very much.
Chairman Dowd
Anyone else in opposition?
Laurie Ortolano
Laurie Ortolano, 41 Berkeley Street. Mr. Cummings started this presentation off by saying he's had numerous
presentations with the board and other committees. Can you tell me the last presentation you had with which board?
What board was that?
