Board of Aldermen 01-25-2022 Page 23
As far as the Facebook comments that | made earlier, | was trying to do some due diligence in reaching out to the public.
I’ve listened to many meetings going back months regarding a lot of topics. It seems like there’s always been mention of
sentiment on Facebook one group or the other, polls, public opinion surveys. | would find it interesting if this was the topic
that we were supposed to discount the opinion of people on social media where we give weight to that voice on other
topics.
Like | said earlier, I'm not going to rehash everything that | said because we'll all be here til midnight. We shouldn't be
debating the science whether masks work, whether they don’t. That’s really outside of our purview. The only thing that |
keep coming back to is whether we should be mandating them. You can believe that masks work. You can want to wear
a mask. You can want everyone else to wear a mask and still be against a mandate. That’s more or less where | fall.
Like | said, my daughter is in the healthcare field. We wear them when we have to and then we don’t wear them when
you don't have to. It should be everyone’s individual choice to do that on their own without being told that they’ve had that
voice taken away from them. Thank you.
Alderwoman Timmons
Yes thank you President Wilshire. Is it possible to move the question because it’s just going around and around.
MOTION BY ALDERMAN TIMMONS TO MOVE THE QUESTION
MOTION CARRIED
MOTION BY ALDERMAN O’BRIEN FOR FINAL PASSAGE OF 0O-22-003, BY ROLL CALL
A viva voce roll call was taken, which resulted as follows:
Yea: Alderman O’Brien, Alderman Klee, Alderman Moran, Alderman Lopez,
Alderman Jette, Alderwoman Kelly, Alderman Dowd,
Alderman Thibeault, Alderwoman Timmons, Alderman Wilshire 10
Nay: Alderman Sullivan, Alderman Clemons, Alderman Comeau,
Alderman Gouveia, Alderman Cathey 5
MOTION CARRIED
Ordinance O-22-003 declared duly adopted.
PERIOD FOR GENERAL PUBLIC COMMENT
Laurie Ortolano
Laurie Ortolano, 41 Berkeley Street. Just a couple things. Thank you for your thoughtful discussion tonight on the mask
mandate. | certainly was a proponent of lifting it and it doesn’t really bother me because | know that our surrounding
communities are available to go to to do your business. | choose to do that and then | don’t have to use the mask. | have
been a mask wearer very avidly and a big supporter of it but | changed my views about six weeks ago and | don’t use it
anymore because | did research on my own. | really feel that it’s not the right thing. | appreciate the thoughtful discussion.
| would like to address Alderman Moran. When you talk about the responsibilities we carry because of our hospitals, | think
it's unfair to put that on Nashua people. These hospitals are supported by all these other communities. It’s a regional
hospital. I’m not responsible for what goes on in the hospital and | can’t do anything about it. We as citizens don’t get any
data on the hospitals. Nothing comes to us with any consistency at all. Apparently it goes to the city but they don’t put it out
to us. All these surrounding towns don’t have ordinances and they put their people there. So | don’t understand why I’m
responsible for the Nashua hospitals or | have to feel badly because I’m not doing enough. When you leave restaurants,
bars, casinos, and clubs open, and those were where contract tracing showed when we did that that there was an issue.
Then what’s the point? | don't think kids doing sports doing sports should be in masks at all. | think it’s more harmful to their
health.
This is a business owner — Buckley. We have SURF and MPs on the top — mask required. Three miles away, we got the
two other restaurants in Hollis and in Merrimack. Come in without out. Is that a business owner that doesn’t care and isn’t
responsible to his duties to protect everyone in the hospitals? Should this business owner be doing business here to do
that? That’s what you put the business owners in. Now there’s a few stores I’ve gone in to Nashua, and | do mean very few,
and they actually let me not wear a mask. | went into a pet store and | literally was putting my mask on and the ladies said
