Board of Aldermen 02-08-2022 Page 11
Donna Graham, Legislative Affairs Manager
Time.
Laurie Ortolano
Please start thinking about that.
Matthew Gouthro
Matthew Gouthro, 104 Fawn Lawn. Thank you Madam President, Mayor and Aldermen. While we can all agree that our
Public Works Department does a great job supporting our city, this Friday’s past storm demonstrated some
inconsistencies where we need to do better. On Friday, February 1*', we experienced the storm in which we can only
describe as a wintery mix that cancelled school and many other happenings in our city. My concern in which | brought to
the attention of my Alderman that day and now to you today that it seems ridiculous that we can’t have our Public Works
vehicles in our neighborhood to plow our neighbors. In my neighborhood particularly, | didn’t see a Public Works vehicle
until after 4 p.m. that afternoon.
Now | understand there’s a need to clear the main arteries, we here in Nashua pay an extraordinary amount of property
taxes not to have our local neighborhood streets cleared and to be essentially shut into our homes. I’ve reached out to
the Director of Public Works. | still haven’t heard back from her. This seems to be a problem where whenever some of us
in the community reach out to the Director of Public Works it seems as if she’s not very responsive to us — the
stakeholders and taxpayers in our community. | would hope that you would reach out to her on our behalf to see what we
can do so that we can avoid this from happening again. Thank you.
REMARKS BY THE MEMBERS OF THE BOARD OF ALDERMEN
Alderman Thibeault
I’ve got a few remarks so please bear with me. | like to use my remarks to note on positive things like | did a couple of
weeks ago with the basketball player from South. Today that’s not going to be the case. I’m going to talk about a few
things real quick. Mask Mandates. So I’m sure we've all been getting tons of e-mails on mask mandates. People were
trying to want me to think about it differently and maybe overturn this mask mandate which there’s no real way to do that
in this meeting today. It wasn’t on the agenda. I’ve been asked to do motions. I’m not going to do that. | don’t think
that’s the right way to try to get that put through. People are saying that — the people who want masks are doing it for
political theater and from my angle it’s not. | believe in masks. Whether it’s right or wrong, that’s what | believe. | believe
in trying to save people from getting sick and people from dying. With that being said, no one is telling me to do that or
say that. With that being said, going around the city — | went to three stores today. No one had masks in the stores, not
even the people running the stores. Two out of the three didn’t even have a sign. That’s been going on for a while now.
People are telling people not to wear masks. So if we have an ordinance that’s unenforceable, I’m not sure it’s right to
keep it going but I’m not going to try to put that on the agenda tonight.
Number two. | wanted to mention in schools currently when there’s a sporting event, there is a limit to how many people
can watch the sporting event — basketball, wrestling, or whatever it may be. | sent an e-mail two weeks ago to our AD
asking her to look into that and maybe to repeal that. It’s not coming from us. Unfortunately she told the coach and she
never went back to me that it was the city that was causing that. Ifthe city was causing that then when you go to the Rec.
games, there would be a limit. There was more people at the Rec. games — the Biddy, the Jr. Biddy, the Bantam, than
can go to at the high school games. | look at a senior — and just so you know, | don't have a kid involved in any of this
stuff so it’s not based on any of my children — but a kid that’s a senior in his last basketball game might want to invite more
than a few people but you can go see the Jr. Biddy kid and have 50 people there if you want. So | really think and | hope
she’s listening. Repeal that. It’s not coming from the city. | think it’s disingenuous to say that it’s coming from us instead
of taking ownership that she made that rule. | hope she’s hearing this.
Next, so today | saw on Facebook and I’m not going to put the person’s name out there. They were telling parents to tell
their kids when they go to school to defy the mask mandate. This person has a following so people might listen. This
person does not have any kids in our public schools. They go to private so | don’t see the reason to cause this kind of
insurrection in our school systems. It’s wrong. It’s putting kids in the middle of something that’s not theirs to be in the
middle. It’s putting teachers in a bad spot. It’s dangerous. Again, we put orders in. We put ordinances in. We put
resolution in and whatever. People aren’t following them, that’s a problem. To tell kids to do that is just wrong. Whether
you believe in the masks or not, it’s wrong.
