Aldermen, Board of

The Organizational Meeting of the Board of Aldermen for 2012-2013 was held Sunday, January 8, 2012, following the termination of the Inauguration Exercises for the 106th City Government in the Nashua High School North Auditorium. City Clerk Paul R. Bergeron called the Assembly to order. The roll call was taken with 15 members of the Board of Aldermen present. Her Honor Donnalee Lozeau and Deputy Corporation Counsel Stephen M. Bennett were also in attendance. City Clerk Paul R. Bergeron entertained nominations for President of the Board of Aldermen for 2012-2013. ALDERMAN WILSHIRE NOMINATED ALDERMAN-AT-LARGE BRIAN S. MCCARTHY MOTION BY ALDERMAN DEANE THAT NOMINATIONS BE CLOSED MOTION CARRIED VOTE ON ELECTION OF ALDERMAN-AT-LARGE BRIAN S. MCCARTHY TO THE PRESIDENCY OF THE BOARD OF ALDERMEN FOR 2012-2013 BY VOICE VOTE MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY City Clerk Bergeron declared Alderman-at-Large Brian S. McCarthy President of the Board of Aldermen for 2012-2013. Oath of Office administered by Deputy Corporation Counsel. City Clerk Bergeron stepped down and President McCarthy presided. President McCarthy called for nominations for Vice President of the Board of Aldermen for 2012-2013. ALDERMAN CHASSE NOMINATED ALDERMAN-AT-LARGE LORI WILSHIRE FOR VICE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF ALDERMEN FOR 2012-2013 MOTION BY ALDERMAN DEANE THAT NOMINATIONS BE CLOSED MOTION CARRIED VOTE ON ELECTION OF ALDERMAN-AT-LARGE LORI WILSHIRE TO THE VICE PRESIDENCY OF THE BOARD OF ALDERMEN FOR 2012-2013 BY VOICE VOTE MOTION CARRIED President McCarthy declared Alderman-at-Large Lori Wilshire duly elected Vice President of the Board of Aldermen for 2012-2013. Oath of Office administered by City Clerk Bergeron President McCarthy called on the City Clerk to distribute the envelopes containing the numbers for the drawing of the seating in the Aldermanic Chamber. Seat #1 - Reserved for Vice President Wilshire Seat #15 - Reserved for President McCarthy Seating was drawn in the following manner: Seat # 2 Alderman Dowd Seat # 3 Alderman Melizzi-Golja Seat # 4 Alderman Chasse Seat # 5 Alderman Caron Seat # 6 Alderman Moriarty Organizational Mtg. - 1/8/12 Page 2 Seat # 7 Alderman Donchess Seat # 8 Alderman Tabacsko Seat # 9 Alderman Sheehan Seat # 10 Alderman Deane Seat # 11 Alderman Vitale Seat # 12 Alderman Craffey Seat # 13 Alderman Cookson Seat # 14 Alderman Pressly President McCarthy called for Nominations for three members of the Board of Health for 2012-2013 ALDERMAN WILSHIRE NOMINATED DR. ANTHONY STORACE, DR. PETER KLEMENTOWICZ AND DR. AJAY SHARMA AS MEMBERS OF THE BOARD OF HEALTH FOR THE ENSUING TWO YEARS Hearing no additional nominations, President McCarthy declared the nominations closed. VOTE ON ELECTION OF DR. ANTHONY STORACE, DR. PETER KLEMENTOWICZ AND DR. AJAY SHARMA AS MEMBERS OF THE BOARD OF HEALTH FOR THE ENSUING TWO YEARS BY VOICE VOTE MOTION CARRIED President McCarthy declared Drs. Storace, Klementowicz and Sharma duly elected as members of the Board of Health for the ensuing two years. President McCarthy presented his Committee Assignments to the members of the Board of Aldermen. ALDERMAN WILSHIRE MOVED THAT THE COMMITTEE ASSIGNMENTS BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF ALDERMEN BE ACCEPTED BY VOICE VOTE MOTION CARRIED REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF ALDERMEN President McCarthy I would like to make a couple of opening remarks to the Board. This is the third time I have had the privilege of standing here and first and foremost I want to thank my colleagues for electing me President for another term. In a couple of weeks, as the Mayor mentioned, we will become what I believe is the first municipality to own a private water company lock, stock, and barrel, well stock at least. It is almost ten years since Pennichuck announced that it was for sale, and I’m having a hard time believing that the finish line is that close in what seems like a glacial process to take this company into the City’s ownership. It is only through the long-term vision and diligence of the people who were involved that we were able to make this happen. I know I have been interested in this since the beginning as has Alderman Pressly and numerous other members of this board and past boards, and the two administrations that have taken place during that time. It is a monumental undertaking to have done and it is again only because we remained united through the time that it took to do it that we were able to achieve that. We are sitting in another of those achievements; I started working on high school projects probably lose to 15 years ago and we finished these about 10 years after that, and it was only through the fact that we had a huge amount of dedication to getting those projects done including some of the people who are here now and former Aldermen Cote and Nickerson whom I see in the audience, who served on the high school committee, former Alderman Bolton, the vision to modernize our educational facilities and to build these two state-of-the- art high schools took a long time and a lot of diligence to create. Organizational Mtg. - 1/8/12 Page 3 It is up to us to provide that vision, to provide that diligence, and to provide those projects that make Nashua great in the long-term. When we began the last term we started with the collection of input from the citizens on what things they would like to see us address in the form of the Vision 2020 exercises. We were I want to say I was presently surprised, but I wasn’t really surprised at all to find that a lot of the things that came out in those sessions were the things we already were working on, because I have always believed that we do have a fairly good look at what the community wants and that we have been working on those items. We will continue to work on those. I’m working at the moment with the administration to give us updates on some of the things we had asked for, many of which do not require much in the way of further policy action by the Board of Aldermen, but there are things we need to be looking at. We need to be looking at what is going to happen 5 to 10 years from now with our jobs base, with our industrial development, how do we balance taxes, etc. That requires a unity of purpose similar to the one we need for the other large projects that I mentioned. One of the things that I got for Christmas this year was the first of what will ultimately be 12 volumes of Walt Kelly’s Pogo comic strip and in the introduction of the first volume is Pogo’s most famous quote an adoption of Commodore Perry’s statement, which Pogo read as: “We have met the enemy and he is us.” We need to always avoid that. We need to make sure that we know who the enemy is and that it is not us, that we are united against the enemy. The enemy at this point is a global economy that requires grave diligence for us to be able to succeed in. What I want to ask is I want to ask this board to come in with opinions, I want you to come in with suggestions, I want to have sessions where we can talk about what are the long-term things we need to be doing, and we’ve started doing some of that, we need to continue. The one thing I would ask is that we all understand the concept of unity of purpose and that we are ever diligent to obey it. When we do things in the board we pride ourselves on the transparency we have created; we televise the meetings, we put everything up on the website, we make it absolutely possible for people on the outside to see into the operations of city government. I’m not convinced that we always see out as well as we might. The questions we need to ask ourselves when we do things are; does the thing I’m doing benefit life on the streets in Nashua or life in the seats in the Aldermanic Chamber, is what I’m doing the thing that is right for Nashua and benefits Nashua or does it benefit me, is what I’m doing something that will make Nashua a place where our children, our grandchildren want to continue to live because it is the best place to live in America or not, and is it something that will cause us to be able to survive in the world economy of 2022. If we do that there is nothing but greatness in front of us. I would simply ask us to remain diligent in doing that. There is no harm in having disagreements; there is harm in being disagreeable. We need a variety of opinions, we need the breadth of experience that the 15 members of the board and the Mayor bring when we have policy discussions, but we always need to be respectful of each other and to conduct the business of the city first and foremost, and I would ask that you join me in doing that. Thank you. REMARKS BY THE MEMBERS OF THE BOARD OF ALDERMEN – None ADJOURNMENT ALDERMAN CRAFFEY MOVED FOR ADJOURNMENT OF THE ORGANIZATIONAL MEETING OF THE BOARD OF ALDERMEN OF JANUARY 8, 2012 MOTION CARRIED The meeting was declared adjourned by President McCarthy. Attest: Paul R. Bergeron, City Clerk