Aldermen, Board of

The Organizational Meeting of the Board of Aldermen for 2016-2017 was held Sunday, January 10, 2016, following the termination of the Inauguration Exercises for the 108th City Government in the Nashua High School North Auditorium. City Clerk Patricia Piecuch called the Assembly to order. The roll call was taken with 15 members of the Board of Aldermen present. His Honor James W. Donchess and Corporation Counsel Stephen M. Bennett were also in attendance. City Clerk Patricia Piecuch entertained nominations for President of the Board of Aldermen for 2016-2017. ALDERMAN WILSHIRE NOMINATED ALDERMAN-AT-LARGE BRIAN S. MCCARTHY MOTION BY ALDERMAN SIEGEL TO CLOSE THE NOMINATIONS MOTION CARRIED VOTE ON ELECTION OF ALDERMAN-AT-LARGE BRIAN S. MCCARTHY TO THE PRESIDENCY OF THE BOARD OF ALDERMEN FOR 2016-2017 BY VOICE VOTE MOTION CARRIED City Clerk Piecuch declared Alderman-at-Large Brian S. McCarthy duly elected President of the Board of Aldermen for 2016-2017. Oath of Office administered by Corporation Counsel. City Clerk Piecuch stepped down and President McCarthy presided. President McCarthy called for nominations for Vice President of the Board of Aldermen for 2016-2017. ALDERMAN CLEMONS NOMINATED ALDERMAN-AT-LARGE LORI WILSHIRE FOR VICE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF ALDERMEN FOR 2016-2017 MOTION BY ALDERMAN SIEGEL TO CLOSE THE NOMINATIONS MOTION CARRIED VOTE ON ELECTION OF ALDERMAN-AT-LARGE LORI WILSHIRE TO THE VICE PRESIDENCY OF THE BOARD OF ALDERMEN FOR 2016-2017 BY VOICE VOTE MOTION CARRIED President McCarthy declared Alderman-at-Large Lori Wilshire duly elected Vice President of the Board of Aldermen for 2016-2017. Oath of Office administered by Corporation Counsel. 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 Lori Wilshire Seat #15 - Reserved for President Brian S. McCarthy Seating was drawn in the following manner: Seat # 2 Alderman Benjamin M. Clemons Seat # 3 Alderman-at-Large David W. Deane Board of Aldermen - Organizational Mtg. - 1/10/16 Page 2 Seat # 4 Alderman-at-Large Mark S. Cookson Seat # 5 Alderman Richard A. Dowd Seat # 6 Alderman June M. Caron Seat # 7 Alderman Ken Siegel Seat # 8 Alderman David Schoneman Seat # 9 Alderwoman Mary Ann Melizzi-Golja Seat # 10 Alderman Sean M. McGuiness Seat # 11 Alderman Don LeBrun Seat # 12 Alderman-at-Large Daniel T. Moriarty Seat # 13 Alderman-at-Large Michael B. Obrien, Sr. Seat # 14 Alderman Tom Lopez President McCarthy called for Nominations for three members of the Board of Health for 2016-2017 ALDERWOMAN MELIZZI-GOLJA NOMINATED DR. ANTHONY STORACE, DR. CHARLES T. CAPPETTA, AND DR. THOMAS ASTOLFI 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. CHARLES T. CAPPETTA, AND DR. THOMAS ASTOLFI AS MEMBERS OF THE BOARD OF HEALTH FOR THE ENSUING TWO YEARS BY VOICE VOTE MOTION CARRIED President McCarthy declared Drs. Storace, Cappetta and Astolfi 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 Alderman Deane, would you please come up to the podium? I want to thank you for your service as President of the Board of Aldermen in the past term. I know a lot about that position including how uncomfortable that stupid stool is and I want to thank you for putting up with it. I’ve known you for 25 years almost and I want to thank you for your commitment to the City of Nashua as it’s exemplary and I’d like to present to you on behalf of the Board of Aldermen with a token of ours. Board of Aldermen - Organizational Mtg. - 1/10/16 Page 3 Alderman Deane Thank you. President McCarthy In the time that I have been on the Board I’ve learned a lot about public speaking. When I was first on the Board I learned that you should always go to events prepared to speak whether you are on the agenda or not and that you should always open with a joke. Today I learned that you should bring two jokes in case the Master of Ceremonies takes your first one. That was my second one. I want to thank the Board for making me the President for the next two years. I think we are going to have an interesting time. The other thing I learned is to be brief and that was made easier to adhere to by the fact that Governor Hassan, Senator Ayotte and the Mayor have touched on virtually all of the things that I’ll speak about. Since we don’t have a Pats game and there is no informational press conference afterwards I’ll channel Coach Belichek and say that we’ve done some things really well but there are other things we could do better. In the past two years, as the Mayor mentioned, we’ve seen the acquisition of Pennichuck which was a great step forward for our city. We’ve seen the renovation of our downtown infrastructure which has helped us to build a thriving downtown and most recently the opening of the Broad Street Parkway which provides really phenomenal access to our downtown area and to our Millyard. What we need to do is to figure out how to develop those areas now that we have access. We need to work on the zoning in the downtown to promote housing and business. We need to work on economic development in both the Millyard and the Technology Park at Exit 1 to get good jobs here and to attract the people that we need to live in the downtown and in our suburban areas. We also need to face a host of other problems. We need to deal with our infrastructure issues; we need to prepare for commuter rail on the assumption that we are going to get it at some point. We need to look at our traffic in the downtown and I’m going to call on our various committees to look at those issues and to come up with solutions to them over the next couple of years. I think, most importantly, as has been mentioned earlier today, we need to deal with some of the problems that we get just by virtue of being a small city. The problems of mental illness, homelessness and substance abuse are problems that will plague us and my concern is I don’t have any idea how to solve them so I am going to call upon some of our members to work on those problems. I know that on our Human Affairs Committee we have substantial expertise in those areas including two new members who are very interested in solving those problems. I look forward to working on those and finding solutions that will help Nashua to move forward. I look forward to working with the Board and I look forward to working with the new administration. Thank you all very much. REMARKS BY THE MEMBERS OF THE BOARD OF ALDERMEN - None ADJOURNMENT ALDERMAN WILSHIRE MOVED FOR ADJOURNMENT OF THE ORGANIZATIONAL MEETING OF THE BOARD OF ALDERMEN OF JANUARY 10, 2016 MOTION CARRIED The meeting was declared adjourned by President McCarthy. Attest: Patricia Piecuch, City Clerk