Human Affairs Committee

PUBLIC HEARING A public hearing was conducted by the Human Affairs Committee on Thursday, February 7, 2013, at 7:00 p.m. in the Aldermanic Chamber. Chairman Lori Wilshire presided. Chairman Wilshire Tonight I’d like to just take a brief moment to recognize a moment of silence for former Alderman Dick LaRose. Dick LaRose passed away last Friday and the funeral was today. It was a very moving and touching memorial service for Dick LaRose. He was a great member of this committee. His heart was really in it and he will truly be missed so if we could all just take a moment to recognize him. Members of the Committee present: Alderman Diane Sheehan, Vice Chair Alderman June M. Caron Alderman Mary Ann Melizzi-Golja Alderman Daniel T. Moriarty Also in Attendance: Director Kathy Hersh CONSOLIDATED PLAN/COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT BLOCK GRANT AND HOME PROGRAM COMMENTS ON PAST PERFORMANCE; IDENTIFYING NEEDS FOR FUTURE ACTIVITIES; AVAILABILITY OF CDBG APPLICATIONS TESTIMONY IN FAVOR David Violiotti, Nashua Children’s Home. I first want to say that Dick LaRose was a long time board member of Nashua Children’s Home as well. A very ardent supporter who joined our organization in the early 90’s and stayed with us for a number of years. As far as the CDBG, last year we did receive funding to replace portions of our roof and that project has been completed. This year we’re applying for about $49,000 worth of funding to replace all of the carpeting throughout our 125 Amherst Street facility. This is a facility that houses 34 young people, has offices, has common areas, has classrooms and I can tell you that some of the carpeting is the same carpeting that I first walked on when I came in the Nashua Children’s Home 27 years ago. So to say that some of it’s thread bare is absolutely the case so we’re are hoping to get a positive response from this committee to that application. I want to talk a bit about Nashua Children’s Home, about the value that we provide this city. We worked, we certainly prioritized in our admissions, Nashua youngsters and we have a saying in Nashua Children’s Home that geography is our enemy, meaning that it’s really harder for us to work effectively with young people and return them to their families and communities when they are from further away. So we do work with kids statewide. We do have kids from the upper valley, the seacoast, the north country. We see the difference though. We see the difference in getting those kids back successfully into the community. Not so with Nashua kids. With Nashua kids, we are able to keep them local. We’re able to keep them connected to their families, to their community activities, to their churches and enrolled in local schools and I want to talk about that for a minute. This is something you have heard from me before. Something you heard from me last year which is the economic value that we provide this city when we’re able to keep Nashua youth enrolled in Nashua schools. I’ll probably be back under Review and Comment and tell you the same thing then but right now we have 18 City of Nashua residents that live at Nashua Children’s Home. Of those 18 young Human Affairs Public Hrg 02/07/13 Page 2 people, 12 were identified with special education needs. Now if those 12 youngsters weren’t placed at Nashua Children’s Home, keep in mind, that the process of placing youth at Nashua Children’s Home requires the division for children from families to go to court and then the court orders the placement of where that young person will be and this is something that the Nashua School District really doesn’t have any input into. So if those 12 young people weren’t placed in Nashua Children’s Home and were place instead at the Spaulding Youth Center in Tilton or the Pine Haven Boy’s Center in Allenstown or at the Easter Seals Program in Manchester, the cost to the Nashua School District for every one of those students would exceed $44,000 per year. So just by the virtue of Nashua Children’s Home being in the position to accept those kids and to keep them closer to their families, even enrolled in the same educational program, not only provides benefits to those young people and their families, but also saves the taxpayers of this City an excess of a half million dollars a year and that’s something we do every year, we’ve been doing that for a long time now so that’s the savings that accrues in this city each and every year. One other service that we provide, that you should know about, is our Youth and Tenant Program whereby when the Nashua Police pick up a runaway, pick up a kid that really can’t stay for the evening and the Police are called and they take that youngster in, they can’t keep that young person in a cell so they can’t keep them in a secure setting, they place those kids with us on an overnight basis. It’s something we do free of charge, it’s something we’re glad to do because it’s a relationship that we have with the NPD, where we certainly call upon them when we have kids that run away, that type of thing, to help us out there but we’re able to give back to them by providing that service and what that does is it enables them to keep the officers on the street. If we weren’t doing that, they would need to assign an officer to stay in an interview room all night long with that youth, until the next day when they go to court. So that’s something else we do too. Again, the proposal is for about $50,000 in funding to replace the carpeting throughout the facility; I think the most compelling part of our presentation that was evaluated that we provided to the city. Thank you. Alderman Moriarty I don’t know enough about the process to understand the details of why it would cost the city money if the kids were put somewhere. David Violiotti Sure, absolutely. The way the education laws work is that if youngsters that have special education needs are placed in another district or in another residential facility that has an on-ground school, the sending district, in this case, the Nashua district, is responsible for the payment of the special education costs up to a figure that’s 3 ½ times state average tuition and that figure this year is about $44,000. State average tuition I think is about $12,000 or $13,000 something in that order. If a kid was placed say, at Spaulding Youth Center, that $44,000 wouldn’t cover the whole cost. That’s the portion that Nashua would be responsible for, then the State Department of Education would pick up the remainder of that cost. Now if that youngster is not identified with special education needs there is no formula for reimbursement or reciprocity there. That youngster then would attend school in the school district without any cost reimbursement. But the fact is that most kids that come into the Child Protective or Juvenile Justice System are identified with special education needs. So that’s where it comes from. Pamela Auer, Bridges Thanks so much for allowing me to speak to you. We are very grateful, last year we were able to get funds from the CDBG for new doors for our building on 33 East Pearl. As most of you know, it’s a very old building and we are very, very grateful for the help that we have received. This year, we are Human Affairs Public Hrg 02/07/13 Page 3 in need of some structural and construction things at our shelter. Our shelter has provided approximately 4,000 bed nights over the last year to women and children. Our shelter is always full. It’s in a confidential, safe location in the Nashua area and the children cannot go outside because we were not able to raise the money to put up a fence and we need a privacy fence, a fence that’s tall enough that if an abuser did find the location, that they weren’t able to easily get to the children and grab them. Basically we have gotten some quotes and the median quote that we received for that was about $8,700 for the fence. The other things that are needed in the shelter right now are gutters and again the median quote is about $1,200 for gutters for the shelter. The other thing we have at the shelter, not only do we have rooms for women and children, we also have a transitional housing apartment so we have a kitchen in that location in the building and we have a main kitchen. We have not been able to get a new stove or do some upgrades that both of the kitchens really need and as you can imagine, there are several mothers trying to prepare meals and pack lunches for their children and both of the kitchens really need some upgrades and we do need a new stove in one of the kitchens. So that is approximately $5,000 and then $1,200 for the stove, like a medium range stove. The last thing on our request this year, we’ve been really working hard to get funding for an energy upgrade for our main offices which are 33 East Pearl Street. Our building actually has holes in the foundation and it’s basically our heating and air conditioning, we’re losing a lot going out of the building. We’ve worked with the State to try to get things assessed. They introduced us to Building Energy Technologies, which is a company that comes and pretty much gives a report and says what you need to correct the situation. I did include that with the proposal for your review and that is about $9,600. So those 4 things total just about $26,000 and we’re hoping that this Committee will help us with these issues. I’ll just say a couple things about Bridges. I’ve been there going on 8 years. Last year alone, we’ve helped just under 3,000 new clients, that means new contacts, people that we had never seen before and I know as someone who has been in the Nashua area for almost 30 years, that I’m shocked that in my own city that there is so much domestic and sexual violence going on, but I’m also very grateful that there is a place for these people to go. Our shelter is always full, we never turn anybody away and through the (inaudible) Grants, we are able to put someone in a hotel if we know that that woman and child is in eminent danger. If it’s a long term situation, we send that family to another shelter either in the state or sometimes we send them out of state if we have to, for their protection. We are in the schools. Last year we basically went out into the schools in the community, rotaries, professional groups and we’ve talked about ways to manage domestic and sexual violence in our community. There are about 6,000 people that we presented to. We always say our mission is to try to put ourselves out of business. Unfortunately, it’s not happening yet but that’s our hope and our dream. Thank you so much for considering our request and if anyone has any questions. Mary Jordan, Adult Learning Center We are an agency that been in existence since 1972. We serve about 3,000 people a year. Immigrants, you need to learn to speak English. Right now, we have 52 different countries represented. So that tells you probably same in the schools. These are the parents who are going to school. We also had GED preparation for people who haven’t finished high school, an alternative high school for at risk teenagers, a nationally accredited child care center and then, before and after school programs in 21 area schools. So we’ve been around a long time and so has our retaining wall which you’ve been listening to me for a long time on that one. The building was built in 1924 and my guess is that the retaining wall is that old and it’s on the south side of the building which is between our parking lot and the Rotary Park with the Labyrinth right next door. So we know that the parking lot is sinking and we’ve had an engineering study done on it a couple of years ago which showed that Human Affairs Public Hrg 02/07/13 Page 4 it’s bowing out into Rotary Park so we’re very nervous about it. Last year this committee granted us $75,000 in CDBG money toward repairing the wall, or actually, replacing the wall but that was after $6,800 of it was spent on a complete engineering study for the wall. The project went out to bid and there were 3 bids received. The lowest one was for $110,000 from Ideal Maintenance and I think that’s a company that’s done a lot of work for the city. The New Hampshire Historic Commission also weighed in on it and would like us to have an archeologist there when the wall is taken down and also they recommended a compaction study which when both of those were estimated would add about $10,000 to the project. So the entire thing looks like it’s going to cost $126,800 which leaves a shortfall of $51,800 and so what I would really like to propose is sort of a cost sharing of the rest of it, the $51,800. So I am requesting $34,300 from CDBG funds and then the Adult Learning Center will put in $17,500 from our own operating funds. Those numbers also really don’t contain a contingency so if there are contingency costs then we would expect to absorb that. For the winter, the city has been absolutely wonderful, the engineer came out, made recommendations that we keep the snow off it, which tomorrow is going to be huge. We have to blow it over the wall and down below but at least it’s propping up the wall so far on that side and in the spring, we’re going to have to probably keep cars off that side. I think if we do those two things, it will be okay, I assume, if the project doesn’t get done until probably next July or August. If we could use two years of CDBG funds in order to do that. The bidder (inaudible) maintenance did say that he would hold the cost, the estimate, through next summer. We’d be happy to cost share this final piece of it with city and we are very grateful to CDBG money for being granted to us in the first place. Are there any questions? Alderman Caron Mary, one of the questions of things that happened last year was to keep some of the cars from parking on that far side. Are you doing that? Mary Jordan, Adult Learning Center We haven’t done it yet. I’ll tell you, one of our staff goes out every week and looks at it just to make sure nothing really terrible is happening but they did say that once the ground froze, that that’s a good thing because at least that stabilizes it and we’re putting all the snow from the parking lot on that wall side of it, just to sort of prop it up. It’s in the spring when the thaw comes that it will get kind of dangerous and we’ll have to keep cars off it. Alderman Caron It’s been there a long time. Mary Jordan, Adult Learning Center It’s been there a very long time, I know. I just keep my fingers crossed. Alderman Sheehan For the archeological oversight, are they asking for the side that is raised or are they asking for the side where it’s a city park? Mary Jordan, Adult Learning Center Where it’s the city park, is my understanding. Human Affairs Public Hrg 02/07/13 Page 5 Alderman Sheehan Okay. So that’s not your property? Mary Jordan, Adult Learning Center Not really. I think, from what I understand, I think it’s state property on that side. It’s actually owned by the state. And that’s a recommendation. I don’t know that it’s binding. From what I understand, Kathy could probably answer this question too, I think there was an archeology study done on that Rotary land that was on the property where the labyrinth was created. Kathy Hersh, Community Development Director Mary Jordan did a great job explaining that it is state property and there was archeology work done on that sight when we were planning to build Rotary Common, in fact it was two years worth of archeology work so we have quite a significant amount of study on this already. I’m not sure about exactly whether the Division of Historical Resources or the State Historic Preservation Office, SHIPO, is what they are called. I’m assuming that they’re the ones that weighed in. Did they give you a letter or adverse affects or did they just recommend… Mary Jordan, Adult Learning Center I think it’s just a recommendation. Nothing came to me. It went through Robert Rice. So he didn’t indicate that he had a letter from them. Alderman Sheehan If I could ask a question to Director Hersh. Is it typical for the state to put this on an abutter when they are doing work and is it binding? To do this work the New Hampshire Historic Commission wants an archeologist to be on sight and I’m not sure if they’re also asking for the compaction testing which to me does seem to make sense but if we’ve done archeological work there before is it binding and it’s an abutter and it’s not their property so I’m curious. Kathy Hersh, Community Development Director Sure, here’s the way it works. If you use federal money for a project, then it kicks in federal regulations and you then need to go through what’s called Section 106 Review and part of that review is the historic review of the sight. So with Rotary Common, there was federal money in that as well and so what we had to do is submit a request for project review to the state historic office and then they review what you planned to do all the work you plan to do and then they determine whether or not it has an impact on historic resources. Then you get a letter that basically says whether or not there’s no impacts or there’s adverse impacts, it’s called an adverse affects letter. If there is a determination that there’s adverse affects then they you end up with a mitigation agreement with the state historic preservation office and that mitigation agreement spells out what you need to do. So with Rotary Common, what happened was the state owned the property, the state still owns the property. The state had bought the property for mitigation for the FE Everett Turnpike. When the FE Everett Turnpike was built, starting in the early 1990’s, they had 48 acres of land that they needed to buy or protect to compensate for the wetlands that they had filled for the FE Everett Turnpike and as they went through in the early 90’s to secure all of those properties, they lost, they weren’t able to secure a property and so they came back and they started looking at other properties and ultimately the city really encouraged them, they weren’t happy about it, but they encouraged them to buy Rotary Common, because that was a sight that was really important from the standpoint of its location and Human Affairs Public Hrg 02/07/13 Page 6 things like that. They would have much preferred a sight out in the southwest quadrant that wasn’t, you know, created a few more wetlands and then they’d be done but that’s not what we wanted. So we then had an agreement with the state department of transportation, that’s who ended up owning the property and they paid for certain things and we paid for certain things and so they paid for all of the archeological, they paid for all of the engineering work that had to be done to look at the structures because there are structures on that sight. So they paid for all of those things and then SHIPO, the historical preservation office, came back and said you know, they wanted the state to do more investigation and so they came out and literally dug on that sight and you know, spent over $150,000 on historic investigation of that sight and it took 2 years before they finally finished that and then we were finally able to build on that sight. So when it comes down to the wall, I’m sorry to go on and on, but it’s kind of an interesting story. When it comes to the wall, that’s part of the sight and they had part of their determination was that any future work on this sight may require oversight by some sort of an archeological somebody. So they honestly have the right to make that provision. Now I’m not sure, because I didn’t talk to Bob Rice about it, whether or not it’s an absolute or if it’s just an advisement because I don’t know that there’s a mitigation agreement on this at all. Alderman Sheehan It was within the last ten years so it just seems to be a redundant cost if we’ve looked at it fairly extensively rather recently. Kathy Hersh, Community Development Director They didn’t look at the….when they replaced the wall, if we replace the wall, if that ends up to be what we end up doing, then when they pull that wall out then part of that wall is on the Rotary Common sight and part of that wall is on the Adult Learning Center sight and so they did not look like behind the wall as part of the Rotary Common. Alderman Sheehan One last question, did they find anything for $150,000? Kathy Hersh, Community Development Director No, not really. Not of substance. Alderman Sheehan Right, ouch. That’s all. The public hearing was declared closed at 7:25 p.m. Alderman Mary Ann Melizzi-Golja Committee Clerk