Board of Aldermen 12-28-2021 Page 25
Secondly, the Planning Board and economic board pass this, you know, to us in a favorable position. Some of you
actually chaired other boards here, committees here, and you passed things to the full Board, you know, expecting that
you've done your due diligence, and your committees have done your due diligence, and you pass it off here for us to
make decisions. What I'm finding here today is that a committee did their job, and there's some questions about it, and
here we are now, and we have some of our colleagues that mostly the same ones that were against it in the beginning are
still against it. That's the essence of it.
Most importantly R-21-203 is just allowing the Mayor to negotiate and that's important. If it's any other property, the same
thing, someone's allowed to negotiate. It doesn't say we're going to pay for this, we're going to buy this, it doesn't say any
of those things at that point because no matter what, they have to come back to the Board at some point in time, and the
Board makes that decision in terms of how we're going to pay for it rather the neighbors are going to assist or raise
money. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen. So to shut it down without passing forward just doesn't seem
right to me.
Then | looked at the situation with St. Andrew's. The money is there and | have been dealing with them for a long time
now. The money is there and all he has to do what | was told was he needed to take the money from one pot and put it in
another pot because it's the last part to be done. | was told that it should be done by the springtime just update you with
that. But I'm not going to be here so | would like you to follow through to make sure we get you St Andrews because we
were the last on board to get the park redone.
So with that said, | hope that my colleagues will really consider allowing the Mayor to negotiate or to go forward with this
and at some point next year, I'm sure, he'll come back with what he's found in that area because Greeley Park was not
just a Ward 3, Ward 4 park. Greeley Park belongs to Nashua and the Nashua residents and my constituents were just as
concerned. So I'm just saying that | think that we should look at this as a Nashua not specifically for 3 and 4. Thank you
all Madam President.
Alderwoman Lu
Thank you. | just wanted to correct a couple of things. Every Ward has the same population. So Ward 4 and 3, they're
not more heavily populated than any other ward generally speaking. The point that | had tried to make is | put 3 and 4
together because they are on the map, the northeast quadrant, and that gave me 180 acres plus the Riverwalk
development that we just earmarked $21 million for.
Every park in Nashua is a city park, every park. People go to their favorite parks. They drive to them. So we all
understand that Greeley Park is for the whole city. But the Master Plan has identified that with a walkable city. You need
distributed green spaces. You need to give residents of neighborhoods somewhere to go where they don't have to jump
in the car to bring the kids to. So it's important that we embrace this idea that we have to start distributing in finding ways
to build green spaces where there aren't any.
Finally as far as funding goes, as far as the recommendations go, we're also taking into consideration something that
neither of those boards needed to which is the cost, the expense. That's our unique consideration and that's why it's very
easy to say it's easy when you don't think about the expense. Yes, let's add to Greeley Park. Sure. Let's make it even
bigger but we only have limited resources and we've identified in the Master Plan some really, really important human
centric needs. Open spaces is great for people. That's what we need but people also need affordable housing. People
also need neighborhoods with equitable green space.
So | also want you to keep in mind that | just don't think this is a need but the conservation fund does have $1.6 million in
it and maybe that's the funding - something that's sitting there. I'm not sure what it's being held for but we don't need to
further encumber the taxpayers.
And finally — | can only remember one thing at a time. I'm all set. Thank you very much.
Alderman Jette
Thank you, Madam President. | appreciate Alderwoman Gathright’s reminding us the committee's spend time looking at
issues, and making recommendations, and we ought to listen to them very carefully. | would like to point out, | did watch
the Planning Board meeting and they were very careful to point out. Number one, it wasn't unanimous and there was one
vote against it. They were very careful to point out that they were not evaluating the deal, so to speak, they were just
looking at it and the Chairman emphasize that they were just looking at, you know, if the city acquired this land would it be
consistent with the Master Plan?
