A regular meeting of the Board of Aldermen was held Tuesday, January 11, 2022, at 7:30 p.m. in the aldermanic chamber
and via Zoom teleconference which meeting link can be found on the agenda and on the City’s website calendar.
President Lori Wilshire presided; City Clerk Susan Lovering recorded.
Prayer was offered by City Clerk Susan Lovering; Alderwoman-at-Large Shoshanna Kelly led in the Pledge to the Flag.
Let’s start the meeting by taking a roll call attendance. If you are participating via Zoom, please state your presence, reason
for not attending the meeting in person, and whether there is anyone in the room with you during this meeting, which is
required under the Right-To-Know Law.
The roll call was taken with 11 members in attendance and 4 participating via Zoom of the Board of Aldermen present:
Alderman O’Brien, Alderman Sullivan (via Zoom), Alderman Klee, Alderman Moran, Alderman Lopez, Alderman Jette,
Alderman Clemons (via Zoom), Alderwoman Kelly, Alderman Comeau, Alderman Dowd (via Zoom), Alderman Gouveia,
Alderman Cathey (via Zoom), Alderman Thibeault, Alderwoman Timmons, Alderman Wilshire.
Mayor James W. Donchess and Corporation Counsel Steve Bolton were also in attendance.
President Wilshire
I'd like to have John Cathey sworn in. So John I’m going to turn it over to Attorney Bolton so you can be sworn in.
Oath of office was administered to Alderman John Cathey.
Congratulations Alderman Cathey.
REMARKS BY THE MAYOR
Mayor Donchess
Well first, again, | wanted to discuss the COVID-19 situation. As you probably have heard, the number of cases and the
overall transmission within the community is up considerably. The two measures we’ve been talking about over these last
two years principally in terms of gauging transmission are the positivity rate and the number of new cases per 100,000
people over the last 14 days. Positivity rate as of a day or so ago was 28.4 percent — nearly double what | reported to you
two weeks ago. The number of new cases for per 100,000 is over 1,800. That was 1,200 and something two weeks ago.
Of course during the summer months, that was way down like 70 — 50.
We have about 58 people in the hospital as of yesterday between the two hospitals. Hospitals are definitely stressed.
They called on the city to see if we could provide employees and help. We've worked with the Fire Department and the
Police Department to provide officers on detail if and when they’re necessary but the hospitals have gotten some good
news in the sense that there are National Guard at St. Joe’s. The National Guard is expected at Southern and FEMA is
going to be helping out as well. So they think that they’re in better shape than they thought when we talked last week and
therefore, they may or may not need fire and police officers who would be hired on a detailed basis. Same terms as
normal details.
Now the good news, if there is any, is that the hospitals were particularly concerned about the projections coming from the
University of Washington which has been pretty accurate and has been projections throughout the last two years. They
have projected that February is going to be a very difficult month. The next month or so here is going to be very difficult.
The peak may occur in the first couple of weeks in February but that same group in the University of Washington is
projecting a very steep decline come April and May in terms of specially the number of people who will be fatally struck
with the virus. We have suffered — Nashua tragically the loss of five more people over the last couple of weeks. So we
now have about 120 people who have passed away here in our community. | think we can at least take some hope in the
idea that we may see a steep decline in early spring.
Again, Public Health doing vaccinations that will soon be putting out home tests and, again, is very dedicated in doing a
great job.
On more mundane business, | wanted to mention that from time to time I'll be reporting to you regarding the status of Bills
in the legislature. These do affect us. We principally are watching — we're watching a lot of things but we principally
watch Bills where the State hits us with reduced revenue or increased expenses. Last year, the State increased the city’s
pension bill over and above an increase in wages by $4 million resulting in about a 2 percent tax increase just for that.
