Board of Aldermen 04-12-2022 Page 26
compromise. We really have listened to many of the businesses who had concerns and these amendments have
addressed as many as we really could. Is it perfect? No but I'm a recovering perfectionist so | think if you wait for perfect,
you're gonna get in the way of progress. So | think this is the right way forward for now and | really want to see us as a
city continue to look at how this becomes more of a permanent cultural shift for our downtown and what that looks like.
So | I'm looking forward to voting yes on this and | encourage the rest of the Aldermen to do so as well.
Alderman Gouveia
Thank you, Madam President. This was definitely a lot of spirited debate and discussion between both the Task Force
and members of the community. We came up with a plan and is it perfect, no. At the end of the day, | personally can't
support it still due to the fact that we're talking about $115,000 estimated that this will cost and we're not going to recover
a dime from it from any of the businesses that are going to be utilizing it. | can't get myself to say that's right. We had
compromised throughout the program and it was good to see that it could happen. We went through the procedure but at
the end of the day, | can't get myself to go to my Ward who most of them are honestly indifferent on the issue and tell
them that they're going to have to foot the bill on this as much as everybody else. | just can't find it inside me to vote yes
for it and I'm also a lot like Alderwoman Kelly. I'm downtown five days a week. | work for a downtown business. I’m
based right off of Main Street. It's tough now with parking and you put these barriers in, | don't know what it's going to be
like once the barriers go in. So we'll see. | think it will just be played for as we keep going through but as of right now, |
just can't support it at all.
Alderman Dowd
Yes through you to Alderman O’Brien - the king of the House up there. When restaurants and businesses downtown
make more money, they pay business profits tax is that correct?
Alderman O’Brien
That is correct.
Alderman Dowd
And part of the business profits tax comes back to the city. Is that correct?
Alderman O’Brien
That is correct.
Alderman Dowd
So they are paying. That's a misnomer that they're paying nothing. The city is getting money back for their expanded
business and that goes for regular stores as well as restaurants. So that is not true. They are paying.
Alderman Thibeault
Thank you, Madam President. | think we're at a point now we're trying to figure out where Nashua is going to go.
Someone had mentioned earlier, you know, evolving and changing as a city and I've heard people say that they like being
either the gate city or a quainter city. | think we honestly we’re right in the middle where are we going to go and evolve as
a city or are we gonna go backwards a little bit? Some of us who have been around here a long time know when Main
Street was not flourishing and that it took restaurants to bring it back. You know, and Michael Buckley of Michael
Timothy's has done a lot of helping get that back. Martha's who's been here way before my time, | believe, you know, |
love going down to Main Street. 30 years took my first drink at Martha's.
So it's definitely something that | want to see evolve, and grow, and change, and the only way to do that is to look forward.
You have to start somewhere and | think this is the start of seeing if something like this works and to see how we're going
to evolve it in the future with the Master Plan. Main Street, Rome wasn't built in a day and neither is going to be Nashua’s
Main Street. So | think we got to keep moving forward. Someone spoke about moral courage. | think on both sides you
could say that because | know on the other side, we're gonna get hit with e-mails, yelling at us for our vote whether we
sided or didn't side with it. So | don't blame anybody for voting on either side because they're going to get the same
pressure that I'm going to get from people out there too because not 100% of my constituents are for or against barriers,
right.
