Aldermen, Board of

A special meeting of the Board of Aldermen and members of the Nashua Delegation was held Monday, January 31, 2011 at 7:00 p.m. in the Aldermanic Chamber. President of the Board of Aldermen, Brian S. McCarthy presided; City Clerk Paul Bergeron recorded. Prayer was offered by City Clerk Paul Bergeron; Representative LeBrun led in the Pledge to the Flag. The roll call was taken with 14 members of the Board of Aldermen present; Alderman Chasse was not in attendance. The following members of the Nashua Delegation were also in attendance: Peter Silva, Don LeBrun, Kevin J. Brown, Randall Whitehead, Duane Erickson, Michael Balboni, Carl W. Seidel, Barry Palmer, Bill Ohm, Timothy Hogan, James D. Summers, Michael Buxton, Cindy Rosenwald, and Senator Gary E. Lambert. President McCarthy Welcome everybody. I think you know who I am; I am Brian McCarthy the President of the Board of Aldermen. We thought it might be a nice idea with the new term and the number of new legislators if we got together on at least a periodic basis and talk about some of the issues that affect Nashua, and how we feel about them with regard to the State. DISCUSSION President McCarthy What I would like to do is there are a couple of issues where the Board has actually voted to take a position, and I wanted to talk about a couple of those. When we are done with that I would like to have some sort of general discussion, if there are questions you guys have for us we have a Phil Donahue audience microphone to pass around, and a little discussion on how we would like to do this in the future; do we want to get together as a big group or smaller groups or whatever. I think our concern is there are issues that we are concerned about at the State level that we would like to be able to give you feedback on what we feel about those with regard to Nashua. We are not sure we understand what all of those are. There are, as you may have noticed, a tremendous number of bills that come before the Legislature in a year many of which have nothing to do with us, and we would rather not have to worry about those, but I think if we can find a way that things that can affect us get alerted to the Board to look at and we and the administration can discuss what those mean to us and take policy positions to feed back to the Delegation I think that is the way we would like to do that. I will take the really simple one on first, which is tolls. The Board did pass a resolution a couple of months back saying that we were not in favor of toll booths in Nashua. I don’t think there is probably much disagreement with that in the room so that one is probably easy to take on. The second one I think we would like to talk about is commuter rail, and I am going to ask Alderman Pressly who has been very active in rail to come up and talk about that. Alderman Pressly Hello. Welcome everybody. First I just want to say welcome and please have coffee and desert in the corner; you are welcome to get that now as we are chatting and if you want to sit along the benches that is fine too. I would like to tell you this is a first for the Board of Aldermen. If you have been in this space before it is filled with benches. We have decided this is just too nice an area not to use more often. We have moved all of the benches around, and this is the first reception that has ever taken place in this room. You are the first for that. Getting commuter rail and also the freight rail, passenger and freight, into Nashua has been critical and on the top of our list for a long time. It is also extremely important that it get all the way to our airport. What we have done to make it convenient for you, having served in both of the chambers I know how important it is that you Spec. Bd. of Aldermen – 01/31/11 Page 2 have to know how the City feels. We have passed very specific resolutions. I would like to have each one of you take them home with you so that you know that the City of Nashua that you represent has taken a very firm stand on passenger and freight rail. There is some federal money that has been funded for Nashua and we’re certainly hoping that the Legislature will accept it and let us take the next step. We think this is absolutely critical to the economic development. We have people coming into the City who would like to move here with the understanding that there will be rail service. Not only that, the environment is better off with this, the price of gas we are very fearful is going to go up, and we know it is really tough, you have difficult choices to make, but we certainly hope and please know when you leave here tonight you will have with you a resolution very specifically stating what the City’s position is on that. I also have some literature here for those of you who would like to look at it that shows the plan for all of New England. As you know many other states are very much ahead of us on the funding for rail. If we pass up this money at this time we are going to be even farther behind. You can see on the tracks, if New Hampshire does not become a player in the national rail plan we will have a big gap right in New Hampshire. It is also interesting in the New England funding mechanism you can’t even see where New Hampshire is. It is a little tiny yellow strip along the side there and all of the other states have gotten the money. We hope that all of you will be able to support this. If you have any questions please contact any of us that you would like to. Thank you. President McCarthy Are there any questions on the rail issue before we move on? Representative Seidel I don’t know if there are any questions, but I talked to Barbara and we had a meeting with the Mayor last week. I am on Public Works, the Vice Chair, and the problem is money. The Legislature is not in the mood to fund any new programs. If the money comes in from the Federal Government that is something and if it is limited to Nashua as a trial that is something that I think has to show the worthiness before we would talk about going any further. The one in Plaistow is something that we are looking at because they have been able to do that without any state or federal money. With those caveats I think we could be supportive, but not this year. President McCarthy I think we understand that it is going to take time. It is a question of, we don’t think the need for rail stops at Nashua and we particularly think that service to the airport is important. Representative Hogan As far as being on the Transportation Committee, I know we just had this and I read the Bill and it says a lot of the funding for the buildings, structure, rail system, leasing property, all of that would come out of DOT’s budget, and right now DOT was basically telling us that their state troopers are the biggest shortfall so from my standpoint looking at it, it is almost do we want to cut back further on the state troopers that are already under- staffed and put in a rail system or try and maintain DOT at its current level, which is already under-funded. Like you said as timing we are trying to get back to square one. I don’t see spending this much money as feasible. That is my concern. Spec. Bd. of Aldermen – 01/31/11 Page 3 Representative Seidel If I may say one other thing, there is a bill in the Legislature right now to disband the Rail Transit Authority. I am not sure how that is going to come out, but the attitude was that they asked for too much and might as well kill it. President McCarthy I think we don’t agree with killing it. Slowing down is one thing, turning around and going backwards is another. Representative Seidel I’m just saying that is there right now so it is going to go through committee, I think it is going through your committee. Representative Hogan It is going through. It is HB 218. President McCarthy There is a hearing at 1:00 p.m. tomorrow on that bill. Alderman Pressly I don’t believe the Authority has cost the State a penny. I think it has all been volunteer work. Representative Hogan I’ve heard it is volunteer work at this point, but the way that the law is worded right now it says funding for the rail system, every part of the rail system comes from DOT. Unless I read that incorrectly, but that is one of the pieces of the law that was passed at the House in 2009 or 2007. Alderman Pressly They do the technical work. There is a difference of opinion as far as the cost to accept this federal money, and one of the opinions is that there is sufficient money, it would take a change in the law, but we could take the next step without any new expenditure of money so I hope those of you who are opposed will keep an open mind. It is something that was passed by our governing body unanimously so I hope you will keep an open mind. Representative Seidel David Campbell who apologizes he can’t be here tonight said that he was working with the Mayor to go through and see if we could do it somehow without any State money. Alderman Pressly Terrific. Spec. Bd. of Aldermen – 01/31/11 Page 4 Alderman Cookson I was going to suggest that if we have members of the audience speak that they speak with the microphone prior to their position. Otherwise it won’t be heard. Alderman Deane I have a couple of things, they don’t have to do with Barbara’s railroad, but I think this is a great idea. One of the issues I see is we have appropriated $15,000 to hire a lobbyist who works for the administration. The administration’s viewpoint on some of these bills might be contradictory from what ours is. I don’t know that for a fact, but there is always that possibility. When you are approached by the lobbyist that the City hires are you given an envelope and told how to vote on different bills, is that what happens? Representative Seidel No. Alderman Deane Okay. What I would like to do is my main concern is financial. That is where I stand on things. Representative Seidel That is most of the Legislature. Alderman Deane In my opinion it was kind of lacking a little bit, maybe in the past, but I don’t care about the speed limit on Lake Winnipesaukee or how many bear traps you can set in Contoocook. I’m looking at the pension reform. I saw a lot of bills that were in there for that. That needs to be addressed. But more importantly I think, from my point of view, and I don’t know where the rest of my colleagues stand, I think we should have someone or somebody or some group get together and look at some of these bills that have been put in that adversely affect this community. I think some of the seasoned legislator would probably know what is going to pass muster and what is just a shot into the dark and is probably never going to make it way out of any committee. When our budget time comes we are met with a lot of uncertainties and then we sit here and we look at different revenue projections and things like that, and in some cases we would use prior year figures while we are going through our operating budget, and it makes it really difficult for us in the long run when you are trying to set a tax rate, you are looking at anticipated revenues, there is still action that is going to be taken in Concord so this community isn’t quite sure what is going on, which in the end if we go to approve a budget and thing change after the fact then the shortfall falls onto the tax rate. My main concern, a lot of it is the revenue sharing that we used to have that we no longer have. My question is; is that going to change, is it going to stay the same? The rooms & meals tax went away. I think according to Mayor Lozeau we lost $6 million in revenue sharing from the State last year alone. That is $6 million we had to make up. Are the plans to keep that revenue the same, revenue sharing and not have the rooms & meals? Is that what is going to happen? Representative Seidel The problem is when you have…we look at things from a Nashua standpoint, living in Nashua obviously, but when you get up there it is a whole different ballgame, and we are representatives of the State, we represent our section, but it is the State. You know the whole story of the donor towns and receiving towns, obviously we Spec. Bd. of Aldermen – 01/31/11 Page 5 receive. If you are a donor town you are not that happy about that. There are things they are trying to take away, and of course we try to keep some of them, but I think the general theme that everyone is going to see is I don’t think anyone realizes the dire straights we are in for money in this state. Like the saying it doesn’t grow on trees, and it is coming out more and more. Every day you look at another program, where is it going to come from and that is what we keep seeing. President McCarthy called me to open up the dialogue, which I think is great and we do get little letters from the Mayor’s office, it doesn’t tell us how to vote, but it tells us what their position is. There is no problem with you doing the same thing. If you have a position as an Aldermanic group we would like to know it. President McCarthy I should have mentioned this at the beginning and I didn’t. The Mayor is not here obviously, but that is not by design. When I asked the Board to come I inadvertently didn’t ask her until later and she was actually tied up this evening dealing with the Board of Education on budget issues, which is why she is not here. I think in the future I am going to try to, where we can, get a cohesive position from the administration and the Board. I am sure we will have these kinds of meetings I would hope that she will join us in the future. Representative Seidel We’d like to work with you. I have one question though; is you not the Mayor’s Liaison keeping you informed of what bills might involve Nashua? President McCarthy It depends. There is a little struggle internally over what bills we think are policy position bills and which ones are not, and as I mentioned, out of the 1,100 bills that show up as LSRs at the beginning of the session, it is really tough for us to sort out what is the new poet laureate from what is a $20 million hit to Nashua in education funding. Representative Seidel It is very hard from just the title, I agree with you, but we’re trying to make the people from Nashua aware of some of those by posting on our website ones that might affect Nashua. President McCarthy And Alderman Clemons and I have been talking with the Mayor about how to keep the Board better informed on those, and she has, over the weekend, she for the members of the Board, she had sent me some information on a retirement system bill. We have not looked at that in any depth and will probably talk about that one at an upcoming session. I looked at it a little today, and it is a fairly complex bill so I think we probably want to sit and talk about that. Before we move on to the general discussion of funding and that, I wanted to cover the last issue that we had talked about, which is education. The Board last week basically voted to take the same policy position that I think you have heard from our Board of Education that we would not like to see any more cuts to the Education Adequacy Grant particularly, have been moved to do the targeted funding and ever time we have seen one of those in the past it has been disappointing to note that we weren’t on the target list. Ever change we have seen has resulted in a negative impact on funding here, which of course results in higher property taxes that were cuts to the educational system. We would like to see the Education Adequacy Grant stay the way it is. We in general oppose the Evergreen Clause and would like to see it returned to the way it has been for years and years. There is a two-fold issue; we see it as it is very difficult for us to negotiate a contract in bad times Spec. Bd. of Aldermen – 01/31/11 Page 6 when we don’t have any leverage, it also has the side effect that in good times, and I will give you an example. In the late 1980s after a decade of double digit inflation, we were way behind on our teacher salaries and we actually made a four year effort to fix that. It is impossible to do that if the largest contract raise you ever offer is the one you will have to give forever. At both ends of the spectrum I think the Evergreen Clause has hurt our ability to negotiate. Senator Lambert I just wanted to be heard on Evergreen because that is the first thing we did in the Senate, SB1. We voted to repeal it at the House. I think you folks are going to get to…there is a hearing this week, you are probably going to go to the floor on it very soon. I think you can count on that that is going to happen. That is a done deal. We got right on the money on that. That was our first bill and without help the cities and towns … Representative Seidel I’m pretty sure the Senate and House bills are going to merge. But let me say that it doesn’t restrict some people from negotiating that it just doesn’t require it. President McCarthy Even those of us… Representative Seidel You have to have the people dealing with that to make sure they don’t … audio inaudible… President McCarthy We are pretty careful about that one when it comes to the table. Representative Silva As the Senator pointed out it easily passed the Senate and as Carl said it is probably going to pass the House pretty comfortably I would imagine. It is on all of our minds. As for bills affecting Nashua yes we obviously want your input, but at the same time our Nashua Delegation is watching the City’s back. We’re on top of issues that might affect Nashua, but the caution is as you know the thing that we have been doing for the last month is finding ways to cut expenditures, and what we are doing, we are doing it different than has been done in the past, Ways & Means are first trying to find out how much money we have rather than what we would like to have and then decide well how do we cut up this pie because if you don’t know how much is coming in the sky is the limit, yeah anything you want. I don’t want to be pessimistic, but there will be cuts and some of it is going to affect Nashua. I don’t know to what extent, but the Nashua Delegation is watching out for Nashua, but to the extent that we can. President McCarthy The other issues that we looked at with regard to education are the ones that I am sure you have heard of; the building aid, the catastrophic aid, and the state contribution to the retirement system are all issues for us because those drive costs up. Representative Seidel Does that catastrophic aid go directly to the Board of Education to disburse or how does it work? Spec. Bd. of Aldermen – 01/31/11 Page 7 President McCarthy It comes to the City to reimburse us for costs that are in the education budget. We reimburse the City fund, but we have spent more money on it than comes back in the grant. We are basically a year ahead on the expenditures is what it boils down to. We spend $4 million on catastrophic special education and then we get a grant of $1.5 million or $2 million for the next year, which offsets that. The mechanics of it is yes it pays directly for special education budget. Alderman Deane I am glad you explained that Mr. President because that was very well misrepresented a few years ago. It was very political. The money was funded; comes out of the City coffers and then reimbursed with the grant money. The money that we get all goes… Representative Seidel It is still a big question people ask of me so that is why I wanted to ask. Alderman Deane Well you just got your answer. That is where the money goes. Representative Seidel Now I understand. Alderman Deane People in Concord think we’re spending it on paving roadways and doing other things. That is not the truth. I know I think it was back in 2006 there was a small group of people that came to the hearing that misrepresented exactly what was being done with that money, which was absolutely inappropriate in my mind, but that is what happened and it is still lingering around a little bit, but no the money is spent in the area in which it is sent over for, it is just reimbursement. We kept trying to emphasize on that word reimbursement, but it didn’t take. Alderman Clemons Thank you. Thank you everybody for coming this evening. It is nice to meet all of you. I just want to make one general comment, and it is very brief, and I mentioned it the other night. In my view as a State Legislator or Senator from Nashua and representing Nashua, your most important thing in the State House to remember is Nashua and the constituents that you represent. Every vote that you make up there represents the City. When they are talking about cuts that are important to this City and important to keeping our property taxes low just keep that in mind when you are voting. That is the only thing I ask. Thank you. President McCarthy Is there anything else from the Delegation? Alderman Pressly I would just like to say that we would like to do this more often and we would like to get to know you better and have a comfortable way to interact with you and exchange ideas. Is this a comfortable forum for you to meet here? Spec. Bd. of Aldermen – 01/31/11 Page 8 Representative Seidel Fine. Alderman Pressly Does this work out? President McCarthy I think we wanted to have a little discussion of do we want to try to do this with inviting the whole delegation every time. We would love to have you if you guys all want to come. I think I had some discussion with Representative Silva about perhaps having some smaller interactions at some point. Either way works for us. I think what we are going to try to do as a board is take some of the big issues and craft a policy position in the form of a resolution so that it is clear… Alderman Pressly We just don’t know how busy you are, and we would like to fit in with your schedule. Representative Seidel If I may, maybe you have a working group once in a while if you have a particular issue so that we get the people that are on that committee that is hearing that or the Finance Committee or the Ways & Means Committee. We have representatives on most of the committees. We were very fortunate with the distribution this year of people from Nashua on the different committees, and we could have a working session. I also happen to be fortunate enough to be Chair of the Executive Committee for the County so if you have anything for the county we have 4 representatives on the Executive Committee from Nashua. Alderman Pressly You are a busy man. Representative Seidel I am. President McCarthy We generally just ask the County to keep the cost of the county tax down. Representative Seidel Actually that is what we are driving to do. President McCarthy And to look at it from a historical perspective, we would really love to see Manchester pay as much of a share of it as we have over the past. Alderman Deane You had mentioned the bills that were policy, and I guess there are bills that are not. Spec. Bd. of Aldermen – 01/31/11 Page 9 President McCarthy I think, and this is just me, that there are bills that come in that impact the way we do things, but not the policy behind it. One that are about process that impact how our employees work day to day I think it is appropriate to have them come in front of us. Not that it is not appropriate by the Board of Aldermen, I don’t think it is necessarily essential that the Board look at reporting requirements or whatever when those types of bills come in. Alderman Deane As a matter of transparency it would be really nice if we got to see what was going on from the administration’s perspective on what isn’t really policy related bills that are being dealt with. I think that would be… President McCarthy That is what Alderman Clemons and I will be talking to the Mayor about. We got our first update, which I will forward on to the Board. The four bills that they are looking at at the moment, there are two that deal with tolls, which we have already talked about, there is the retirement system, and what was the fourth one? The retirement system one is Senator Bradley’s bill and I thought it would be good if we had a session like the one we had the other night to discuss that bill, and I will send the text out so that we can look at what we think of it. It makes a number of changes to the retirement system that address some of the things we talked about like changing the pension calculation from 3 years to 5, eliminating some classes of pay from the calculation and that sort of thing, but it is complex so I thought we would want to talk about that. The last one was the elimination of the Rail Transit Authority, which we talked about as well. I think the ones that the administration is currently looking at are the same ones that we know about and are concerned with at the moment. Alderman Deane Where do we go from here? Alderman Pressly Coffee. Alderman Deane This is all well and good, but if there is no follow through it is a waste of time. Alderman Pressly Well we are talking about that David. We’re talking about… Alderman Deane Well I just want…Alderman Pressly I think this is a great idea, I just don’t all of sudden want 6 months to lapse and nothing has happened or we haven’t figured out what we are going to do. … audio inaudible – several individuals speaking simultaneously… Spec. Bd. of Aldermen – 01/31/11 Page 10 President McCarthy I don’t think that is going to happen. Here is what I want to see happen from here; as I mentioned the other night we will have another meeting to look at things we think we want to get on the agenda. I would ask Representative Silva and Senator Lambert to get us; if there are bills that they know about that we should be talking about let me know what those are. The suggestion that we understand who is on what committees I think is a great idea, and once we see a bill we are interested in I will work with the Delegation to find out who we ought to be talking to because I think that solves the problem of trying to get 45 people here on a weeknight. We can cut that down to people who have a direct interest in the bill, and we will try to start having more regular discussions with the Board on some of those. I will schedule the first meeting for us to talk about our agenda. I can do that before the next Board meeting if that is what you want to do. Alderman Deane In the meantime, are we going to get… President McCarthy Yes, I’m going to… Alderman Deane …bills… President McCarthy The stuff that comes from the Mayor’s office I will forward on to the Board and when we get input from the Delegation that says here is one you are interested in, we will send that out as well. Alderman Deane Then we will meet as a Committee of the Whole or whatever … President McCarthy Yes. Alderman Deane Thank you. Representative Rosenwald Mr. President would it be appropriate to mention another bill? President McCarthy Absolutely. Spec. Bd. of Aldermen – 01/31/11 Page 11 Representative Rosenwald House Bill 263, which has a public hearing Thursday morning at 11:30 a.m. would change the lifetime limit on Medicaid participation through the TANF Program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, from the current 60 months over a lifetime to 24 months over a lifetime. Right now the average time spent on this program is 18.5 months, but about 20% of the population spends more than 24 months. As you know, RSA 165 says that the final safety net is the cities and towns. I would suggest that enacting a bill like that could have a detrimental affect on property taxes in the cities particularly here. I just wanted to put it on your radar screen. Thank you. President McCarthy Is there anything else for discussion this evening? I want to thank you all for coming. I think this ends the formal portion. I am asked to encourage the consumption of the refreshments so that Alderman Pressly won’t have to take them home. Thank you all very much. ADJOURNMENT MOTION BY ALDERMAN CLEMONS TO ADJOURN MOTION CARRIED The meeting was declared adjourned at 7:45 p.m. Attest: Paul R. Bergeron, City Clerk