Board of Aldermen Page 18
December 13, 2016
bill that they wanted me to submit to name the painted turtle the official state reptile. | took them up on their
challenge and | submitted the bill today so it will go through the due process. Also, | wish everyone a Merry
Christmas, and a Happy, Safe and Prosperous New Year.
Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja
| would just like to join my fellow aldermen in wishing everyone a Merry Christmas. For those who celebrate
Hanukkah, Happy Hanukkah and best wishes for the New Year.
Alderman Schoneman
This past Sunday we had Santa in the Park. It was a very successful event. | want to thank the Parks and
Recreation Department for all the work they did helping to get the gazebo set up and the Friends of Greeley
Park, many of whom volunteered their time. A special thanks to Ed Lecius and Lynn Magee who agreed for
Santa and Mrs. Claus to make an appearance. Best wishes for a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to the
Board. | appreciate Mr. Teeboom's comments. | think as we move forward in the new year, we have to take a
look at some of the challenges that we’re looking at in education and try to find some solutions. While the
charter schools may not be appealing for a lot of reasons, often political reasons, | think to say there is no merit
there | think would be a mistake. | think we can look to their example, look at some of their activities and see
some benefits to the taxpayers. Thank you.
Alderman Siegel
Vis-a-vis Mr. Teeboom’s remark, | might point out that in fact the legislation was tabled. It was nto disposed.
We have not come to a final decision on what’s going to be done. A lot of the reason why it was tabled was
because the legislation was meant to attract charter schools or prevent them to leaving as a consequence of
financial hardship. There was no demonstration that either there was a charter school coming in that could
take advantage of it and would make a decision to locate in Nashua as a consequence to that or at least in the
immediate future that a charter school was in jeopardy of closing as a consequence of not adopting it so it was
tabled for the time being. We will revisit it. As to whether or not | was rambling or not, that’s a matter of
opinion. We tried to vet the legislation. There was a lot of discussion. There were members of the school
board and also the acting superintendent there. To a certain extent they were blindsided because they didn’t
expect that to come off the table so they weren’t really in a position to discuss it. It wasn’t blindsided in a
malicious sense, they just weren’t prepared to really have the level of discussion. Secondly, God bless
everybody and have a Happy Holiday.
Alderman Caron
Thank you, Alderman Lopez and Alderman Dowd, for coming to the First Annual Breakfast with Santa at the
Senior Center. Mayor Donchess, we were all excited to see you. Santa Claus had a good time condemning
City Treasurer, David Fredette’ s gingerbread house. The fire department decided to put a caution tape across
it. He did a terrible job, but he stepped up to the plate and really did a good job. The Nashua Senior Center
staff and the Board of Directors again would like to thank the Board for giving them the $25,000 to do
continued maintenance to the primary location for the senior center. As you know that building is a little over
ten years old. The money comes in very handy to do the things that they cannot do with the small budget they
have. We really appreciate it. If you have a chance, please come down. We have a new member of the Senior
Center, Alderman Dowd. He’s going to take advantage of the gym class. On that note, | would like to wish
everyone a Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
Alderman Dowd
The Charron Avenue/Amherst Street intersection is coming along, although nowhere near as far as we had
hoped. Through efforts of the city and the Mayor you can now take a left turn off of Charron Avenue onto
Amherst Street. It has improved the traffic flow somewhat. As soon as we get through the snow season, they
