Finance Committee - 09/16/2020 Page 19
Mayor Donchess
Any other remarks by Aldermen? Alderwoman Klee.
Alderman Klee
Thank you, Mr. Mayor. | would like to kind of tag on to what Alderman O’Brien said. Tours - how about after
COVID is gone and done and then we can do some tours. But! want to thank Alderman Linda Harriott-
Gathright for joining us, the public had to listen to me try to fill in for her for a very short period of time. And
you’ve done them a good service by coming and they didn’t have to listen to me anymore. So thank you for
doing that. | also want to thank everybody for all the work that they’ve done on this design and so on. | want to
see our City Hall open but considering that we have just had a few employees that had tested positive,
including you Mr. Mayor, | think it’s important for us to move slowly and that we don’t put the public in harm’s
way. And so | appreciate us doing things as much as possible as we are. | also appreciate the fact that we
have been doing more and more things on-line to allow residents to have access to different types of
information. So thank you so much.
Alderwoman Lu
Thank you, | never thought I’d want to say this but | am going to echo Ms. Ortolano. Sometimes she can
express herself more clearly than | can but | think that when we, | think that when we are rehabbing City Hall,
we have to keep in mind that we are in the middle of a very uncertain financial situation and everyone that is
paying taxes in Nashua is very concerned about additions to our spending. There are a lot of people who are
not able to or willing to use the internet for conducting business with City Hall and | don’t understand why we
can’t continue to have parts of City Hall open while other parts are being rehabbed. | think Ms. Portolan’s
comments are felt by many people and you know we can — | think we have to take them into consideration.
That’s all, thank you.
Mayor Donchess
We do take them into consideration. The parts of City Hall are open, people are going in for automobile
registration and other issues. Other things are being done remotely. Yes, Nashua has been more cautious
than some other communities like Manchester. They opened their pools, we did not. Of course, there have
been outbreaks at pools, there was criticism around that and then there were outbreaks right around here and
they had to close the pools in other places.
In addition, we stopped running the Fixed Route Bus System for a time for quite a while; Manchester did not.
On the other hand, we have fewer cases than Manchester, a lot fewer than Manchester. Now maybe some of
that is due to the efforts we have taken. Now in terms of City Hall, two or three weeks ago we were being
asked, “Well why is City Hall not fully opened, there hasn’t been an outbreak in City Hall’. Well now there has
been. So we don’t know when exactly an outbreak is going to occur; that doesn’t mean that Manchester is
more open than we are that they will have an outbreak, but they could. | can testify to the fact that it can sneak
in, in unexpected ways that you don’t even think are possible.
So in trying to balance the needs of servicing the public with public safety, we are following the
recommendations of the Health Department, of the CDC, of medical experts, in terms of trying to make sure
that everyone including City Employees, but maybe most importantly or equally important, the public, that
everyone is safe. If you know someone whose family has been affected by this, not like me, mine wasn’t that
serious but in a serious way, like a fatality which some of us know. | can guarantee you that if you ask those
families, are we being too careful, | think the answer clearly is “no we are not”. So we are trying to reach an
appropriate balance and of course there’s going to be criticism but | think, in my opinion, the majority of citizens
believe that we are acting responsibly, that we are concerned about their welfare and that we should continue
to consider the science as we move forward. Anyone else?
