Board of Aldermen 11-23-2021 Page 2
authorization previously passed by the Board of Aldermen. Some of the funds would be transferred from the Broad Street
Parkway unused money borrowed but unused and then finally there is some additional authorization.
But one thing happened last night, and Madam President | believe you were at the public hearing along with most of the
members of the Board, a member of the public came forward and said with great confidence and assurance the Mayor
said, the Mayor said on November 17*® - just a few days before, that the cost of this project would be said at the Finance
Committee that the cost of the project would be $12 million and why is it now 15? Came on again and said that a second
time - great assurance. This with ultimate conviction. Let's examine that. First of all, although the Finance Committee
was scheduled to meet that night, we didn't meet. So when you begin with at the Finance Committee meeting - totally
false. There was no meeting, excuse me, at all. And obviously since there was no meeting, | didn't say anything at the
non-meeting nor did | say that it would be $12 million. But this was asserted with great conviction.
So if you look back to what did occur, the meeting was cancelled because of conflicts of various members and there was
something on the agenda. A memo saying that the construction cost would be $12 million but that memo was not written
by me. | was not the author so even if someone was substituting “I said” rather than “I wrote’, | didn't write the memo.
And ultimately if you read the memo, it makes it very clear that the total cost is $15 million. The $12 million is the
construction costs, plus design, and other soft costs. So $12 million is the construction contract but the total cost might be
15.
Now, this is the kind of thing we've been seeing a lot recently here at the Board of Aldermen. People come on, they say
something like sounds plausible and true, but absolutely false which is exactly what happened last night. We've heard
this over and over again. Typically, we don't really call it out but this time it was so obvious. It just happened yesterday.
There wasn't even a meeting. | thought | would emphasize it and ask people to please, please try to stick to the facts.
Finally Madam President, | wanted to mention to you something that was unfortunate and happened in Concord in the last
week or two. There is something called “the energy efficiency resource standard’. That's a technical name for the State
program by which the utility, typically Eversource, but all of the utilities reimburse customers for a portion of the cost of
energy efficiency projects. Under the program that has been adopted in Concord over recent years, the budget for that
program has been increasing year by year. And it, of course, makes sense for everyone because oftentimes it is cheaper
for the utility to incentivize efficiency projects than it is to try to create additional capacity for energy creation. But
unfortunately and a surprise to everyone, the PUC issued new regulations which drastically cut the budget for that
program. Money comes from the utility and as | said, the money has been going up year by year and we, the city,
benefits from it. For example, we expected out at the police station with the HVAC project to get about a $75,000 rebate.
We're likely to get far less than that if this really is finalized. But they reduced the budget for this energy efficiency
program back to 2017 levels, which is less than, as | understand it, less than or about half of the amount for the current
fiscal year. Unfortunate, | will be writing a letter to the PUC and others about this and along with a lot of other people who
hope that this can be reversed and we can return on a path to encourage energy efficiency both here in Nashua and
across New Hampshire.
And Madam President, | just want to wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving in a couple of days. Good time to be with our
friends and family. Maybe stay close to home if you can because of this COVID outbreak, COVID spike but please just
enjoy your holiday and try to stay safe. Thank you, Madam President.
RESPONSE TO REMARKS OF THE MAYOR
Alderwoman Lu
Thank you. I'd like to respond to your recommendation of CFO Griffin for Treasurer. My concern is that we don't have a
Comptroller at this time so essentially by placing CFO Griffin in charge of Treasurer as Tax Collector, we're essentially
mixing those two positions that should be separated. So | won't be supporting this not because | don't think that CFO
Griffin is a very capable person but the proper procedure would have been or should be to find a replacement for one of
those two before taking Mr. Griffin and placing him in another position. Thank you.
Mayor Donchess
Well, of course, that assumes that we have no one on staff that we could designate as Comptroller.
Alderwoman Lu
I’m not assuming anything. I'm simply - if you have something to share, please share.
