Personnel/Administrative Affairs Committee

PERSONNEL/ADMINISTRATIVE AFFAIRS COMMITTEE JULY 16, 2014 A meeting of the Personnel/Administrative Affairs Committee was held on Tuesday, July 16, 2014, at 6:30 p.m. in the Aldermanic Chamber. Chairman Paul M. Chasse, Jr. presided. Members of the Committee present: Alderman June M. Caron Alderman Ken Siegel Members not in Attendance: Alderman Sean McGuinness Alderman Michael Soucy Also in Attendance: Mayor Donnalee Lozeau Alderman David Schoneman Alderman-at-Large Diane Sheehan (Arrived after roll call) Alderman-at-Large Jim Donchess (Arrived after roll call) PUBLIC COMMENT Ms. Jessica Holland, 4 Westminster Drive I would like to express my support for the aldermanic representative for the liaison to the airport. I was born in Nashua and have been a lifelong resident. I have a long history with the airport. I did my first flight there, other than a commercial flying endeavor and it was through the Young Eagles Program which the airport hosts every year to encourage children to have a chance to fly and get interested in aviation. I did that, I went to Daniel Webster College and attended that school for two degrees; aeronautical engineering and aviation flight operations. I did all of my flying at the Nashua Airport. I did my first solo there, I got my first private pilot’s license there, and all the way through my flight instructor rating. I still fly there today. I am currently a hangar tenant. I am a part-time flight instructor and that is all around my full-time job which is a flight test director and aeronautical engineer at M.I.T. What I would really like to say is that the aldermanic representative and the liaison to the airport are really important because the airport is of great benefit to the community. It has a large impact both financial as well for enrichment for the community. It also encourages tourism. I travel all around the country, I have many friends in aviation and non-aviation and many people have come to the airport. It’s a great benefit for our state and for our city. I feel that the benefit could be even much greater with more oversight from a municipal level and having more people involved in ensuring that the airport continues to prosper will be beneficially not only to the airport community but to everybody else that is in the greater Nashua area; not just Nashua. Many people from around the northern Massachusetts area as well as other parts of the state come to Nashua to do aviation business and other related business. I think it’s a pretty critical piece of infrastructure and a social piece for our community and I feel like the fact that we could get representation at this higher level would be very beneficial to all of us. I am saying this as a resident of Nashua, a proud resident New Hampshire and also a member of the airport community. INTERVIEWS Planning Board Kristen N. Fitzpatrick, Alternate (New Appointment) Term to Expire: March 31, 2017 Mayor Lozeau Thank you Mr. Chairman. I am always honored to come to the committee and introduce members of our community that are willing to serve as volunteers on our boards and committees. As this committee knows better than most, finding people that are willing and able to make the time commitment to the boards such as Personnel – 07/16/14 Page 2 Planning Board or the Zoning Board is always a challenge. We have been very fortunate having full compliments on those boards for a while but we always have this little fine balance on how quickly we may not have full seats. This is an opportunity tonight to introduce you to Kristen Fitzpatrick who is my nominee to be an alternate member of the Planning Board. Kristen came to me very enthusiastically willing to find some role in the community to serve in. The Planning Board was something that was on the top of her list of things she was interested in. She has been to meetings; she has met with legal counsel; as you know I often do for those interested in Planning or Zoning. When you look at her resume, it is very impressive to me the mix of experience that she has had and I have enjoyed meeting with her on more than one occasion and hearing from her and her perspective about what she does and how she feels connected to our community. It’s my pleasure to introduce to you Kristen Fitzpatrick who I think will do a wonderful job on our Planning Board. Ms. Fitzpatrick Thank you for having me here. As the Mayor just mentioned, I did come to her rather enthusiastically. I have been a long-time resident of the State of New Hampshire and moved down to Nashua just about two years ago and recently, about four or five weeks ago; I purchased my first home in Nashua. I have always been one to be involved in a community, in a job, and in extra curricula’s all the way from my high school years at Thayer Academy in Massachusetts up until even now. I wanted to get involved. I was interested in what was going on in the community, how it was happening and where and when things were being done. The Planning Board stuck out for me because of my background. My Master’s was recently completed last summer in Community Development Policy with a focus on environmental development and that’s what led me to that board and to the Mayor. Thank you again for having me. Alderman Siegel Thank you for taking an interest in the position. I noticed, as the Mayor had stated, that you have a variety of experience. It seems like you’re most relevant recent experience was as an environmental analyst but before that it was events coordination and some film work. Perhaps you can describe to me what brought you to the Planning Board and what sort of mind set that made you say I am going to go out of event coordinating and film and now I am going to go with community development planning. Ms. Fitzpatrick As you will notice on my resume, I have been involved in a wide variety of both volunteer positions as well as career jobs. I moved from a lot of event planning and very creative and artistic types of positions which I still do love and enjoy on the side to more of a community development and environmental development type of career both through my education through a Master’s at the University of New Hampshire and through the development coordinator position that I did down in the Dominican Republic to my position now as an environmental analyst where I do a lot of policy work, and comment letters that are sent to the E.P.A. Headquarters in Washington D.C. We also deal a lot with environmental policy on a large scale and also a smaller scale. How it’s affecting smaller communities and how it’s affecting states all throughout New England. Alderman Siegel It seems with your background it would be an almost more natural to gravitate towards something like the Conservation Commission. I guess to me the Planning Board I see more in terms of construction type background. I understand you have this Sustainable Micro Enterprise and Development Program at UNH. I am not familiar with that but just looking at what your current job experience is since February it seems more related to conservation than it does of planning of development. Personnel – 07/16/14 Page 3 Ms. Fitzpatrick I don’t doubt by any means that probably a lot of people that have sat on the Planning Board in past and that do sit on it now have a background in architecture or engineering; maybe even law. Mine is a little bit different than that. I think that the most important thing to bring to the Planning Board as a volunteer or a regular member is being objective and being able to look at state laws and municipal laws and saying this is what is outlined and being objective enough to look at the issue at hand and being able to line those up; removing emotion from it and removing your own personal vested interests and doing the job that needs to be done. Alderman Caron I was quite impressed also because it was just such a diverse group and I was thinking she could help us with the fairy tale festival. We are always happy to have community citizen’s volunteer on these boards and commissions because planning and zoning do take up a lot of your time. We thank you for whatever we are going to put you on and we are happy to have you on board. Thank you. Chairman Chasse Have you attended any of the Planning Board meetings yet? Ms. Fitzpatrick I have, yes. Chairman Chasse Do you know that you have to go through vigorous training? Ms. Fitzpatrick Sure. Chairman Chasse Welcome aboard. Alderman Sheehan Have you had any exposure to Form Based Code? Ms. Fitzpatrick I do not. Chairman Chasse We will take your nomination up in a couple of minutes. APPLICATION TO LICENSE HAWKER'S, PEDDLER'S, ITINERANT VENDOR'S LICENSE – None Personnel – 07/16/14 Page 4 APPOINTMENTS BY THE MAYOR Planning Board Kristen N. Fitzpatrick, Alternate (New Appointment) Term to Expire: March 31, 2017 31 Sullivan Street Nashua, NH 03064 MOTION BY ALDERMAN CARON TO RECOMMEND THE CONFIRMATION OF THE APPOINTMENT OF KRISTEN N. FITZPATRICK AS AN ALTERNATE MEMBER TO THE PLANNING BOARD FOR A TERM TO EXPIRE MARCH 31, 2017 MOTION CARRIED UNFINISHED BUSINESS - None NEW BUSINESS - RESOLUTIONS R-14-054 Endorser: Alderman-at-Large Diane Sheehan ESTABLISHING A TREE STUDY AD HOC COMMITTEE MOTION BY ALDERMAN CARON TO RECOMMEND FINAL PASSAGE ON THE QUESTION Alderman Sheehan This is the result of a few steps in the process where I think it’s come to all of our attention that people seem very, very attached to public trees that we have in our city. As different projects have happened, we have heard from people that either didn’t know that something was going to happen or we had tree work described that come out a little different than expected or things that were just suddenly missing one day. After hearing from a lot of people, I started looking into what a lot of other communities are doing. A lot of other communities have policies about trees. In very dense communities some of them have policies about all trees, even on private property but what I was most interested in are trees that are in the public property and how do we model some of the things that people are doing really well to enhance the protection of it and also open up a discussion before things are done that cannot be undone. When you have a mature tree it’s very difficult to uncut something or to replace it with something that is not going to look similar for another couple of decades. It occurred to me that almost everybody on this Board has spoken out about trees or the changing trees. It seemed to make more sense rather than trying to find one that might suit us well and kind of doctor it from there is to instead have people here look at what would you like to see. Visioning some sort of way to look at planning what trees are going to be removed in a logical step so that we are not just taking them out and then people are upset. When you remove a tree from your yard, you think about it long and hard before you do it so I think this would be more of a thoughtful and public process where there is some sort of work done there so that we all know what it is. Additionally, what about planting trees and putting those in and having some sort of plan and inventory process to determine which trees are starting to get in trouble. One of the trees at Sergeant’s Avenue Park is hollowed out and clearly that’s going to go at some point. Clearly things like that could also be addressed. In Boston you have to have a hearing before you can remove a tree on your own property and I think that’s beyond what anybody is interested in doing but I think that we have some areas that are fully shaded and that’s something that people expect to see and then one day when the shade is missing because we have lollipopped the tree up to 40 feet and we thought we were just doing a trim. It’s things like that, if we have policies, I think it’s easier for the people that have to do the work to be able to do it without Personnel – 07/16/14 Page 5 people being upset after the fact. My intention was to have it be a collaborative process where we look at how to remove them, where they should be added, and have people work together to come up with that. I have a whole bunch of great examples that are good jumping off points but I think an Ad Hoc Committee could determine what needs to be done and who should be doing it and come up with some recommendations. Chairman Chasse I don’t have a problem with trees; I’ve spent a lot of time out in the woods. The problem I am looking at if I just take a small picture and you bring this Ad Hoc Committee, there’s a good chance on this Ad Hoc Committee that they will all be tree huggers and there were a few Aldermen that were very upset about the trees coming down on Main Street for repairing the sidewalks so if you put this committee together, it just gives more fuel to the fire meaning more people will be upset. I have mixed feelings about this one. I understand your point. If they are going to take the tree down on Library Hill that has nothing to do with sidewalks then yeah, maybe but I am looking at fuel to the fire with this committee. Alderman Sheehan One of the things that launched this was that those aged trees would have cost us a lot more money to build around it when they perhaps were just going to die a few years later but I think part of the problem was that people were unaware of it and I don’t foresee this policy saying that you can’t cut down anything, I would see it more as coming up with a way to have a hearing that explains why we want to do this and if the public rose up and said if it’s going to cost $3 million more, we’ll fundraise that so that there’s a mechanism for communicating why something needs to happen and giving people a chance to speak up for it but not that it would wrap people around the tree. Your point exactly was that the main reason I started looking at this is because sometimes a tree has to come out, it does but I think if people are aware of that in a more visible way, I mean there is always going to be someone who is upset but trying to address exactly what you are saying in a way that is preemptive. Alderman Donchess I see this as a separate issue from the Main Street trees. I think this is a good idea. I think it is a separate issue from the Main Street trees and for that reason; I am not going to give any of my thoughts regarding the Main Street trees. I think here we are looking at trees in residential neighborhoods and around the city and I’m hoping that if this passes and I hope it does; that we can look at the possibility of encouraging the planting of trees not only in the right-of-way, where the city has absolute control but off of the right-of-way on front lawns on private property. If you look at some of the streets in the city where everything is well kept and there’s room for trees and I think some of those streets could greatly benefit by more trees. I think particularly of some of the streets on French Hill and Crown Hill in the tree streets so it would be great in my mind to encourage the growth and planting of trees and I do see it as a separate issue from the whole downtown tree issue. Alderman Caron Who would you put on this committee and how many people you are looking to put on this committee? Alderman Sheehan It is initially set up with five people and three of them would be Aldermen, one would be from the Planning and Economic Development Committee; one from the Infrastructure Committee; and one being unnamed. One person being from the Board of Public Works and one person from the Conservation Commission. The intent is to make a recommendation and not to be an on-going body so if you felt more comfortable Alderman Personnel – 07/16/14 Page 6 Chasse, and wanted to amend to have an end date when this list of recommendations was done, I’m okay with that. The Greeley Park Band Shell Committee came up with a recommendation and then it was dissolved so I see this functioning the same way. In the interest of doing it collaboratively rather than saying “here’s what I think worked in another community that might work here.” Alderman Caron I heard conservation and I heard Board of Aldermen but what about the tree warden. We do have a tree warden here so why wouldn’t that person be on that committee to give input? Alderman Sheehan I believe the tree warden is also on the Conservation Commission so that might be the person that they choose to include. Alderman Siegel I suppose we have to address the concept of diversity here. We have the deciduous and we have the conifers and we certainly have our aging trees and our saplings and who is going to protect them? Honestly, I understand the concept as being good hearted, I just see this as a committee of making work for people that have other things to do and that we have this covered between the Board of Public Works and the people that are specifically involved in trees. I can’t support this just because I can’t get a handle on how this can possibly function in a way that is any more helpful than the personnel that we have and what we are already doing. Alderman Schoneman Which towns in New Hampshire have committees like this? Alderman Sheehan The ones that I am more familiar with are cities in Massachusetts. Newburyport has them, Boston has one, and Cambridge has one. Not a lot of places in New Hampshire are like Nashua because we are more urban. It’s more the urban areas that I was concerned with. Alderman Donchess Alderman Siegel threw down the direct challenge of what this could possibly do. What if there was a program that was a very low cost, it costs several hundred dollars to plant a tree, that encouraged the planting of trees in certain places in the city where they would greatly improve the neighborhood? Could we do an outreach program? By investing a relatively small amount of money, a few thousand dollars, could we change the whole look of a street; make it shadier and make it cooler. Everybody likes streets that have trees more than those that don’t. I’m talking about residential streets. Is there a way for the city to undertake an outreach program to encourage the planting of trees through limited cost and in ten or twenty years from now just change the entire environment for the better of one or more streets in Nashua. I think that is a question worth looking into. I am not saying that I’ve convinced Alderman Siegel but I have given an example of something that could be accomplished. Alderman Caron Alderman Donchess, we have a tree planting program in the city. Certain wards within the city are able to pick up tree samplings from Parks & Recreation during certain times of the year so they can plant them in their Personnel – 07/16/14 Page 7 yards. It was still on when I left and I would assume that it is still going because Nick is the tree warden and it doesn’t cost you anything. You just have live within a certain parameter. I don’t know if that parameter has expanded or not but that has been on-going and we have had a lot of people over the years that have picked up trees to plant in their yards. Alderman Donchess We do have a tree planting program and I know someone in Crown Hill who recently participated in that but if you read the literature and you find out how it is working now, first of all, the tree has to be planted in the right- of-way; number two, the person has to pay for the tree; and number three, they have to know about the program. Should we look beyond that? Should we look at the question of whether if we could plant ten trees on a particular street at a cost of $3,000; should the city invest part of that money? Should we look at a program where the tree wouldn’t have to be in the right-of-way? Should we look at an outreach effort which would inform people about that availability of whatever program is designed? In my opinion, the tree warden should be on the committee. If you were to ask how many trees have been planted through the tree program in the last six months, I bet you would find that it was miniscule. Alderman Sheehan I understand that Alderman Siegel may not see why people might want to participate in this but I think that I’ve heard a lot from the community that there was interest in something like this and this is not meant to create work for people but to find a way to set a policy so that it’s not just directed by a person. If we have some sort of a policy that we have the tree plan ahead of time so that it’s done the year before and we have a good idea. If we have a list of trees that we come up with that are historically significant and if we have a list of trees that are in trouble. I mean we haven’t done any of that collective work and I think there are people that are interested in doing it so if your main concern is that nobody is going to want to do it, I’m pretty sure that I have enough people that want to be involved and are going to be okay with that. I see that once you take down a tree you can’t undo it and having some sort of policy about if a Willow falls down, do we replace it with another Willow? I don’t see it going on forever, I think we come up with a list of things we should have policies on and then it’s up to the Board of Aldermen to come up with a policy for these things but at least to get an idea around what it is that people would like to see. Chairman Chasse I did ask you if you were going to be here tonight and you told me no and now you are here and there is a Finance Committee meeting at 7:00 p.m. Alderman Sheehan I didn’t realize I told you no; I thought I told you yes. Chairman Chasse I don’t want to hold up the Finance Committee meeting so I would ask that you refrain on this one. Alderman Siegel That’s fine; I am a member of the Finance Committee as well. MOTION FAILED Personnel – 07/16/14 Page 8 MOTION BY ALDERMAN CHASSE THAT R-14-054 BE SENT TO THE FULL BOARD OF ALDERMEN WITH NO RECOMMENDATION MOTION CARRIED NEW BUSINESS – ORDINANCES O-14-022 Endorser: Alderman-at-Large David W. Deane Alderman-at-Large Lori Wilshire Alderwoman Pamela T. Brown Alderwoman Mary Ann Melizzi-Golja Alderman Ken Siegel Alderman Michael Soucy Alderman Sean M. McGuinness Alderman David Schoneman Alderman-at-Large Diane Sheehan ESTABLISHING AN ALDERMANIC LIAISON TO THE NASHUA AIRPORT AUTHORITY MOTION BY ALDERMAN CHASSE TO RECOMMEND FINAL PASSAGE ON THE QUESTION Alderman Schoneman I am here to speak in favor of having aldermanic liaison to the airport community. I have been involved in the airport myself since around 2001. The Nashua Airport is what drew me to Nashua. I was down at Hanscom for a long time as a flight instructor and I saw the airport change around me and the policies that were put in place drove people away. Nashua had a community that I liked, the flying environment that I liked, good fuel prices, affordable facilities, and a very active community. Right now, I think we are facing the possibility of some changes that are happening around the airport community at the Nashua Airport without full input and consideration for that community, the same as I saw down at Hanscom. My concern is that these things can be destructive to a community and we just want to make sure that the process is followed and that there is clear transparency with what happens at the airport right here on the aldermanic board. I support it. I think any time there can be communication from board to board is beneficial. I understand there is a communication from our phone call from Mr. Davidson today. Did that come today? Chairman Chasse A phone call came in today. Alderman Schoneman I fully support doing things by a proper process. I think one of the problems we have at the airport is that things are not being followed by a good process. I do think it’s appropriate and necessary that there be good communication between the authority and the board. Alderman Siegel I don’t know if it was your intent to wait until other people were here but what I will say is that there is more than just a Chairman of the Airport Authority, there’s the Vice Chairman, there’s also the Airport Manager. There’s any number of people that could speak out either for or against this and Mr. Davidson is not the only Personnel – 07/16/14 Page 9 person that might avail themselves of the opportunity so given that we are into the summer session and we don’t have a lot of meetings, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to have a discussion about this and vote on this at the committee level at this time. I am in favor of it. Chairman Chasse I’m going to check this one. The Airport Authority is meeting tonight and that’s why they could not be here to put their two cents in. Another question is the legality of having an aldermanic liaison to that committee. With that said, and I know Attorney Bennett is in the audience so if he could look that up for us and send something in our packet next week to the whole Board I’d appreciate it. MOTION BY ALDERMAN SIEGEL TO TABLE O-14-022 MOTION CARRIED TABLED IN COMMITTEE O-14-017 Endorser: Mayor Donnalee Lozeau ADOPTION OF AMENDMENTS TO MERIT EMPLOYEE RULES AND REGULATIONS EFFECTIVE JULY 1, 2014  Amended & Tabled 4/21/14 O-14-020 Endorsers: Alderman-at-Large Diane Sheehan Alderwoman Pamela T. Brown ESTABLISHING A GREELEY PARK ADVISORY COMMITTEE  Also assigned to the Board of Public Works; Tabled 4/24/14 DISCUSSION PUBLIC COMMENT - None REMARKS BY THE ALDERMEN - None POSSIBLE NON-PUBLIC SESSION ADJOURNMENT MOTION BY ALDERMAN CARON TO ADJOURN MOTION CARRIED The meeting was declared closed at 7:07 p.m. Alderman June Caron Committee Clerk