I'm going to call a regular meeting of the Board of Alderman to order on Tuesday, October 28, 2025, at 7 30 p.m.

in the Aldermanic Chamber, which has been duly noticed in two places, including the city's website in accordance with the requirements of RSA 91A.

The prayer will be offered by legislative manager.

Almighty God, we have the high honor and the serious duty of managing the affairs of our beloved city.

Phil us oh God with a spirit of unity and understanding which enables us to face our multiple problems with a serene mind with justice and charity for all, so that any and all decisions made by us will always be for the betterment and greater happiness of all of our fellow citizens.

So help us God.

Let's start the meeting by taking a roll call attendance, please.

Alderman O'Brien.

Alderman Timmins.

Alderman Moran.

Here Alderman Tibetov.

Here.

Alderman Gouveya.

Here.

Alderman Lopez.

Here.

Alderman Sullivan.

Here.

Alderman Clemens.

I am here participating remotely because my wife is sick and I'm in the room by myself and I can hear everyone.

Alderman Senate.

Here.

Alderman Jetty.

Here.

Alderman Tebow.

Here.

Alderman Clee.

Here.

Alderman Debs.

Present.

Alderman Kelly.

Here.

President Wolshire.

Here.

You have 14 in attendance.

One absent.

Thank you.

Also joining us this evening.

Uh Mayor Jim Donchus via Zoom and Corporation Counsel Steve Bolton.

Mayor, did you wish to address the board this evening?

I think he's muted.

You might be muted, Mayor.

He's not muted on the message.

It's not muted.

Okay.

Is he doing this?

No.

Can you hear us?

Can you hear us, Jim?

We can't we can't hear you.

We can't hear you.

We dreamed of just the wrong time.

But the nodding is very profound.

Okay.

Well.

He's not muted.

Now he's muted.

Yeah.

Can you unmute again, Jim?

Still can't hear you.

Yeah, it's something on your end that's not working, Jim.

The only thing he could do is call in Zoom.

Is there anyone here from IT?

He could he could call in separately, do a second Zoom but on a telephone, and just don't put the video on that.

How would he get a second link?

He he just used the same link but from his phone.

I want to call my phone and I'll just put them on speaker.

Yeah.

Mayor, can you call in?

See if I can see my message.

Technology is great when it works.

What day was that?

What day was that?

Good question.

Give him another minute and then we'll move on.

Okay.

Well, I'm going to move on, and if he can join us at some point, we'll let him speak.

Um let's see.

Recognition period.

There's none.

Reading minutes of previous meetings.

None.

Communications requiring requiring only procedural actions and written reports from liaison.

The communication has been received from Jason M.

Craven, Esquire regarding petition for street acceptance, Sanders Street.

There being no objection, I'll accept the communication and place it on file.

Without objection, I will uh suspend the rules to allow for a communication that was received after the agenda was prepared.

Communication has been received from Alderman at large Melbourne Marion Jr.

regarding five images taken at the Pine Street Extension campsite.

There being no objection, I'll accept the communication and place it on file.

Period for public comment relative to items expected to be acted upon this evening.

We have a couple people signed up.

Just a few.

Thank you.

This horseshoe has listened to all the stakeholders.

You have learned what has been tried in other areas and the outcome and what the outcome was for the unhomed.

Time to make a decision.

Cold season is quickly approaching, and it's not good for anyone to be sleeping rough.

When people say it just forces encampments to move, they're absolutely correct.

That is how we find ourselves here.

The police and fire have partnered with everyone and have been asked to assist public health, and we can do that.

But we are not public health.

We are participating because it is necessary for city staff to affect to effectuate change.

City Hall and the Board of Alderman know what the business owners have shared.

You know what the residents have asked.

You know that we are asking our children to give up mindful track access.

You know that it's not safe for the folks living in the encampments.

And you know winter is coming.

You know we're a good community, and governing is a tough job.

But it takes what it takes.

Make a decision without delay or tactics.

We all know that it's not acceptable to lead people outside.

Sometimes that means helping people understand this community's inability to meet their needs, and help them provide without area options or choices.

When you delay decisions, it doesn't help anybody.

The city becomes fractured, and the nonprofits are losing footing.

They're overwhelmed and not able to meet the need.

But whatever side you look at, everyone here is a morally solid person.

And as a long-term resident, I know what this vote takes.

Thank you.

Brian Kenny?

Good evening, Brian Kenny, Deputy Chief of Police.

I do not have any additional comments regarding the dangers of concerns that we have as it relates to Pine Street extension.

Everybody on the board has heard me speak numerous times.

They've heard Chief Buxton, Commissioner Tolner, and Chief Rock.

So I'll leave those comments to stand for themselves.

I would like to talk about the amendment that is before you tonight to the ordinance that we discussed last week.

Since NPD will ultimately be the ones tasked with enforcing an ordinance, should it pass?

I think it's important to relate that sometimes in our experience, laws and ordinances that are injected with extra paragraphs and extra requirements can sometimes actually make the enforcement, if that's what you so choose, to be more complicated.

Paragraph B of the amendment says that 15-day notice needs to be given prior to enforcement if the location has six or more individual campsites.

What qualifies as six or more?

Is it six individual tents?

Can multiple tents be on one campsite?

What if there are only five tents, but they accommodate ten or eleven people?

How far away do two tents need to be from one another to be considered separate campsites?

How far away does a group of six need to move to be considered to be in a new location?

If we give a specific group a 15-day warning and we come back in 10 days and there are 20 people there, 20 people more than were there the first time.

Do those folks get their own 15-day window?

Can multiple 15-day clocks be running at the same encampment?

How far away from the original encampment do they need to move to be considered a different campsite to get a new 15 days?

I know these seem like silly questions, and they are silly questions.

But when we cite someone for an ordinance violation, we are standing by ourselves in court.

And these won't be silly questions in court.

And I'll need the answer to these questions.

Six tents really isn't that big of an encampment.

I fear that the amendment as written will limit NPD's ability to assist in timely enforcement if timely enforcement is what's needed at one given time.

For example, I was here just last night at City Hall, and when I left, I saw a flyer posted on the planter outside.

And it said the next encampment could be here.

And there was some other verbiage and some alderman names, Alderman's names listed as endorsers of this.

None of that matters, but it got me thinking.

Well, what if six people who left Pine Street Extension got together and put their tents right next to City Hall?

And my officers, I can assure you, I would be flooded with calls.

Um not just from City Hall people, but from the public in general who utilize City Hall.

And if my officers respond there on the very first day that they get there, if there's six or more, I will have to let them stay for 15 days before I can do anything about it.

So I just want to make sure I point out the difficulties that sometimes uh legislation like this causes, and they're totally unintended.

I do think that this amendment was written in with the best of spirits and the best of intentions, but I think there's unintentional consequences that I think you all should take into account if this were to pass tonight.

Um all that being said, I do agree the Pine Street extension is too big.

So, in a situation where we have something that's too big, I think it's totally appropriate in this specific instance to afford that location 15 days.

So we'll pledge to do our part to work with public health, post it, and only do enforcement after the 15 days if that's what the board wants to wants to accomplish here tonight.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Kim Aponti is Kim here this evening.

Okay, uh James Livingston.

Oh good evening.

Um I'm gonna just stay right to the what I got written here.

The very issue that we have what the um let me see here.

There we go.

The very issue to have encampment in the city of Nashua painted with a broad brush that is illegal.

First, it must decide right now if we are a republic, which you just prayed to the flag, or democracy.

I myself choose a republic so my grievances can be heard and addressed.

A constitutional republic, which makes it so that I even have the rights to speak, though some would like to stifle it in any right to protections of freedom at all.

The stakes in this matter hinges on the First Amendment and the Fourth Amendment, opening the city of Nashua to lawsuits to challenge such an order, regarding their potential violation of my freedom of religion, Nashua is following the ways of people, people of ancient of old in Isaiah 315.

Grind the faces of the poor.

Uh with a broad brush to turn illegal encampments in the city.

How is Nashua not hindering my right to pursue happiness, which is my fourth amendment right?

My fourth amendment right, a pursuit of happiness is my right to decide, not yours.

Kevin Pusello.

Is Kevin Puscello here tonight?

Oh, there he is.

Good evening, everybody.

Thank you for having me.

My name's Kevin Pasillo, uh, 25-year resident of the city of Nashore, uh former city employee.

Um I wasn't sure what I was gonna say tonight.

Um, you know, I know it's a very um controversial um issue going on tonight.

Um, but the last on what you spoke, um, what about our rights?

Um he's on city owned land, camping, which takes way my right to use that park freely.

Um I've been in that park for 24 years daily.

Um I I feel pretty confident in my abilities defend myself, but I go in there and I worry.

Um not just me, I talk to a lot of people in the city.

And unfortunately, we're right now the minority here tonight, but majority of the people do not want this encampment.

It's dangerous for everybody.

Um why is it Nashua's responsibility to take on the burden of people who who can't afford this situation that don't even come from Nashua?

Um I bet you if we will pull the majority of those people, they're not they're not from Nashua.

And I know that some people believe that they're in Nashville for a few days that they they're Nashua citizens now.

I'm sorry.

I I can't, I can't even if my my own elderly mother, I can't go put a structure in the house in the backyard for her.

She has to have her own apartment.

Um, you know, I why can't I do that?

Is that what it's gonna come down to?

My liberty, my my ability to put structures in my backyard.

Are we gonna enforce that?

Um, or we take a blind eye that we want people to do here now.

The uh we're getting into the the issues with just the um the unsafeness of of that community down there.

Um I go by there and I see a lot of familiar faces that I used to deal with when I was a police officer.

Um we have lengthy criminal history on a bunch of those subjects.

You have your sex offenders.

I was a sex offender detective.

I know a couple of them down there.

Um drug use, open drug use.

I've seen it myself.

Um, and you have some of your our drug dealers.

Um, it's just not safe, unfortunately.

And I know I might sound harsh, and that's not my intention, and I have a lot of friends that are on the opposite side, and I hope we can continue to be friends, but I am very passionate about that park.

Um there's a lot of young kids that go in that park and use that park daily that that don't use it anymore because the their parents won't allow them back there.

Um I had a personal uh experience at someone in my family last year in that park.

Um so that's why I'm here.

I mean, it's we have to do something.

And as Commissioner Tolner had said something before, that we have to do it before the winter, and it is not fear.

But the thing is, though, it's not all of our responsibility to take on all these people.

I'm sorry if it sounds harsh, that's not my intent, but I'm just speaking the facts here.

Um I have two seconds, three seconds left, but I just want to thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Carrie Baxter.

There's no way that's gonna go any lower, huh?

Uh good evening.

My name's Kerry Baxter.

I live on Harris Street here in Nashua.

Anyone who has taken a class in organizational behavior and conflict resolution knows that avoidance is a conflict resolution technique.

It is not an effective one.

Because of that, I ask that you support the proposed ordinances as written, which restrict camping in our city.

The product problem isn't going away on its own, and it's time to do something about it.

The proposed ordinances do not criminalize homelessness and do not punish homelessness.

Homelessness isn't mentioned anywhere in the proposed language.

Rather, the ordinance was provide guidance and boundaries for what is acceptable and what isn't on public property.

I understand that some of you have your personal feelings on how to handle this, and you're trying to do what you think is best for the homeless population.

But please do not lose sight of the fact that there are thousands of other people who live, work, and visit Nashua.

You have an obligation to us as well.

Not that long ago, the city invested in Mine Falls at Pine Street Extension.

A large sign was erected, a new kayak launch was installed, and a new bridge was built.

I can't speak as to why those investments and improvements were made, but I imagine it was to create more access to the park, both on land and in the canals.

Currently, the extension has a camp of over 75 people that has enveloped the area.

They live in campers, cars, tents, and other homemade structures.

Some are running gas-powered generators with gas-filled jugs nearby.

The area has become unsafe and unsanitary for both the people staying there and those who use the park.

Human biological waste, drug paraphernalia, trash, a lack of running water, and other health issues, pose significant public safety and public health concerns.

The situation needs to be addressed and not avoided.

Our public safety experts from the fire department, the police department, as other as well as other city officials, have acknowledged the encampment is unsafe and not sanitary.

It's so unsafe.

Our own city workers cannot take on the task of cleaning it up, and it will have to be outsourced.

Many of you spoke about the cost of that cleanup.

The bottom line is the taxpayers are going to pay for it regardless.

If you wait, it'll just cost more.

It's important to ensure these public areas in the city, whether it be Mind Falls or the next campsite remain open and safe for all to enjoy.

When these spaces become de facto living areas, they become unwelcoming to residents and visitors, and that's why it's important to support these ordinances.

Our city leaders are prepared to work together to clean these campsites up and provide services to those who want them.

The best practices on how to do this have been outlined at previous meetings.

They are structured, thoughtful, compassionate, and have been successful in other parts of the country.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Mike Appleberg.

Good evening.

Mike Appelberg, President of the United Way of Greater Nashua.

Thank you to everybody who is behind me tonight for coming out and for you as well for caring about our community.

I believe we are all here because we want Nashua to be a safe, healthy, and compassionate place to live for everybody.

That includes our residents, residences, our businesses, our first responders, and yes, our neighbors who are experiencing homelessness.

Let's talk about the reality which we now face.

According to the 2025 point in time count, homelessness in Nashua and across New Hampshire is on the rise.

In Hillsborough County alone, which includes Nashua, 1,052 individuals were counted this year as unhoused.

That includes both people in shelters and those who are living unsheltered in tents, cars, or on the streets.

Statewide, there are 672 unsheltered individuals up from last year, and 1,754 people in shelters.

And with a rental vacancy rate, which we all know is below 1 percent.

Affordable housing is nearly impossible to find.

Shelter beds are scarce.

As of yesterday, I checked with our shelters, and there were two available beds in our city for those who are unhoused.

Two beds.

Housing vouchers have years long waiting lists.

So when we talk about enforcing camping bans, which we're talking about tonight, call it camping.

We know what we're talking about.

We have to ask ourselves a simple but critical question.

Where will these people go?

Where will they go?

If we cannot answer that question and provide a safe, accessible answer to that question, then enforcement is no solution.

It's a risk.

It will push people into even more dangerous and hidden situations, making things worse, worse for everybody.

That's why we propose a collaborative, city supported approach that is practical, compassionate, and focused on safety and dignity.

We propose expanding the overnight warming station and creating a daytime engagement center at the Elm Street Middle School while it awaits its permanent use in life.

We propose offering sleeping areas, bathrooms, showers, laundry, food, and a safe place to rest during the day.

So people aren't on the streets all day long after being in the shelter at night.

It will also connect people to services that can help them to move forward.

We are not ready to help at United Way.

We'll bring volunteers, food, and computers for job searches and applications.

And I know we're not alone.

We are partners with Hearts, Greater National Mental Health, Soviet, Solvero Mental Health, Harbor Care, St.

Joseph Hospital, and many, many others.

We stand ready to help and assist the city.

So the city is not alone.

Together we can build a solution that balances public safety with human dignity and one that gets people the support which they so desperately need.

Thank you.

Can we please not applaud?

We're trying to get through the public comments so everyone has a chance to speak, please.

Thank you.

Ken Lewis, please.

Good evening.

My name is Ken Lewis.

I'm the executive director of Heart's Peer Support Center in the middle of the largest encampment down in Mines Falls.

We spun out of Harbor Homes in 2009.

And we've been there ever since.

We've tried transitioned first year, got so big, you know, the need was there.

So homeless is nothing new to Nashua, but it's bigger now than ever.

If you look nationally, homelessness is in every city.

They're just human beings trying to survive.

Myself been homeless, been addicted to drugs, uh, had mental health at a young age.

Um, and I've been in recovery thirty 23 years now.

So uh if I can do it, they can do it.

I just wish that we would give a chance.

So I want to reiterate what Mike Appleberg spoke about is the services in the city want to support this.

Uh I just don't want to be a rush to judgment on these ordinances, and then you have a disbursement of a large encampment, and they have nowhere to go.

And they're going to come downtown, you think the businesses are mad now.

You know, it's going to get worse.

We've seen it in Manchester, we've seen it nationally in different cities, Portland.

You know, you guys were looking at those loos, which I think you could spend the 400,000 dollars differently, like a resource center that public health has proposed.

If you want a pilot program or evidence of it, Hart's peer supports been around since 2009, has proven that it can support your community even without a dollar because we're state and federally funded, and we've been here supporting this city because we believe in the city and we love this community and we love its people.

Thank you very much.

Please, Karen Lovejoy.

Hello.

My name is Karen Lovejoy.

I'm the owner of Banyan Tree Yoga at Five Pine Street Extension.

The yoga studio has been at that location for about 10 years, and I have owned the studio for just over one year.

When I bought the yoga studio, there was no homeless encampment.

I never imagined that in less than a year, in about six months' time, that an issue like this would severely affect my business.

It all boils down to one thing, panhandling.

As my customers and teachers arrive and depart, they must dash to get into the building or back into the cars before one or more people approach them for money.

This has happened to me on several occasions, and on one occasion when I said no, the individual walked back to his tent and came back with another person.

Once I saw them heading towards me, I jumped in my car and left.

Let me assure you, it's scary for any woman, especially at night.

It is a my studio is primarily women are my customers.

The parking lot is dark.

The landlord has done a wonderful job of adding a light, a sensor light to the top of the building five, but it does not encompass the entire parking lot.

My classes can start as early as seven in the morning.

The last one can end at 8:30 at night.

The studio is open seven days a week.

We have lost a significant number of customers who just don't want to be approached.

This problem is immediate for us.

Thank you very much for your time.

Bobby Bagley.

Good evening, and thank you for allowing me to present this evening on this ordinance.

As a chief public health strategist for the city of Nashua, our role at the division is to identify and address the root causes of issues that are impacting our community.

And we tend tend to do this by asking the question why.

We tend to ask the question why a number of times.

And for this situation, the question is why are there encampments in the city of Nashua?

Why is the number of individuals outside continuing to be a growing issue?

Why do we have individuals that are suffering from substance use disorder and mental health conditions, as well as other behaviors living outside?

Why do we not have enough affordable housing to support the growing housing needs in our community?

And why do we believe that an ordinance on encampments is going to help us address the root causes of homelessness since it is a housing issue?

Homelessness being a housing issue is compounded by the low availability of the type of affordable housings that are needed in our city.

Another root cause of the systems issue with not being able to address the unmet need for some of the populations also allows for us to take the opportunity to take our times when we looking at maximizing a coordinated response.

Unaffordable rental costs and those on fixed incomes that are not making enough money to cover the cost of rent end up outside as well.

What we have learned over the past couple of years and looking at what other cities have done, when they have passed an ordinance on encampments, it doesn't work.

And they've also found it to be more harmful than good.

We are in agreement with our police and our fire and other partners, our community, and understanding that we have an encampment that has increased to a size that is unsafe, and that we do need to address the safety concerns for all involved, those who live in the encampment, those in the community, and those who serve those individuals in the encampment.

Working together and using a coordinated approach, we have been able to close encampments in the past with a reasonable amount of time, safely, and with consideration for those who are living in those encampments.

And we have not needed an ordinance to do this.

In fact, we find that or we believe that it may create greater challenges for those individuals when it comes to getting them connected to services or even getting them housing.

Give us the opportunity to work together to get a resource center set up and also to work to close this encampment in a reasonable amount of time with the resources that are needed to support those that need the services.

Thank you.

Lakanya Muscioli.

Good evening, Latonia Mussioli, the Housing Services Officer for the City of Nashua Division of Public Health.

I'm going to share some of the essential job functions listed in my current job description.

It's quite lengthy.

Thank you, Director Bagley.

So I've pared it down to four.

Attend Board of Alderman meetings and Board of Health meetings as necessary to communicate the findings, successes, and challenges of the city's response to the housing crisis.

Review legislation and prepare and submit written and oral testimony as needed.

So here we are.

Convene and facilitate senior leadership meetings, work groups, and committees to develop innovative strategies to address issues related to homelessness, housing instability, and strengthening system capacity to address mental health and substance use disorders.

I've developed an encampment tracking and response process across all city departments.

We provided the same basic human amenity amenities at the Crown Street encampment last year and successfully closed that site based on this model.

We did not need an ordinance to do so.

We all are in agreement that the Pine Street Extension Encampment is unsafe.

We can close it the same way.

The last essential job function is lead and over and oversee the overall citywide response to address issues related to housing inefficiencies, including homelessness, the mitigation of encampments, shelters, and temporary housing.

My position has been funded in the public health budget that was approved by the board this year.

Respectfully, please let me do this job.

We have yet to be presented with any data suggesting that this approach is successful, reduces homelessness, reduces crime, or is cost effective.

We have actually overwhelmingly been presented with the opposite.

Real data, evidence-based best practices, the negative impact that this exact ordinance had on our sister city, Manchester, your constituents, faith-based leaders, our nonprofit service providers, fellow aldermen in our community mental health center, did their research.

They showed up.

They presented that information at the last meeting.

They, along with Dr.

Capetta and Dr.

Whitaker and the city's public health department, are all in agreement that the banning of the encampment without providing a place to go is not the right approach.

Society as a whole has grown extremely comfortable with ignoring science and real data.

As elected officials of the city, you have an obligation to be good stewards of how our tax dollars are spent and to recognize the value of the data being presented by the experts in this field.

The data says enforcement is expensive, yielding limited results as people still remain homeless.

Let's come together and spend money on our data-driven solutions.

Thank you.

Kim Bernard.

Good evening, members of the Board of Alderman.

My name is Kim Bernard.

I am the chief public health nurse for the City of Nashua under the Division of Public Health and Community Services, and a Nashua resident for the past 40 years.

We can all agree that Pine Street Extension Encampment is unsafe for those living there and for the broader community.

But this ordinance, which criminalizes camping on public property, will not solve that problem.

Instead, it will deeply harm, it will deepen harm to individuals already suffering.

Many are struggling not only with substance use, but also with mental health challenges, trauma, and loss.

And not all used substances.

Some are fleeing domestic violence or other unsafe situations with nowhere else to go.

The nursing code of ethics reminds us that every person deserves compassion, dignity, and respect.

This ordinance does the opposite.

By penalizing people for having nowhere to go, it pushes them further from outreach, medical care, and stability, increasing the likelihood of overdose, infection, and death.

We need instead, what we need instead is a multifaceted short-term and long-term plan based on evidence-based solutions, more low barrier shelter space, a resource center, more low-income housing, and better access to mental health and other services.

These are public health responses, not punitive ones.

We can uphold community safety without criminalizing poverty.

Thank you for your time and for considering a more compassionate approach.

Bob Keating.

People were applauding, so you couldn't hear.

Bob Keating.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak and appreciate all the people who have spoken with a wide variety of views.

She was also worked in the mayor's office, and she was also a legislative leader in the State House.

Said to us, essentially, I'm worried that the next generation will forget that homelessness was not a primary thing in our community nor throughout the United States.

So that's the fact that we've come from.

We know how to end homelessness before we do it day after day, year after year.

There's hundreds of people that have followed a model of housing first.

They've got affordable housing, whether it's a voucher or whether it's public housing with support services, so it works.

The encampment I think is is a result of we don't have enough housing, we don't have enough shelter, we don't have enough transitional housing.

So it's simply that's why we have so many uh people, and it is unfortunately grown after shrinking for a period of time.

So there's no surprise about that.

In terms of the dangerousness of people, I I do want to speak about that, and the number of people have, is that many of us work uh with people who are in that encampment and in other places who are stealth camping.

Um there's instances, but that's not been reported.

All we hear is about calls.

So I can't tell you about the number of you know actual uh criminal offenses, but I am concerned about stigmatizing and saying that you know people are such and such.

They're there because likely it's more safe, they believe, than another place in the in the community.

We've had a long history in this community.

I could go back to 1858 was the first poor house.

It lasted till 1908, and then it was closed.

And then 1930s, it began again by the airport.

There was a program out there.

The point being is that we've gone through waves, uh, a similar process, and it doesn't have to be.

Um last time I spoke for $750, you can get a studio.

So we have the money, we have the means, we have a powerful health department.

And the police have worked very well compassionately when they moved, but we don't need to do that.

Thank you.

Savitri Hongan.

Sorry if I butchered your name.

Good evening.

My name is Savitri Horrigan.

I'm a resident of Manchester, and I'm the behavioral health strategist for the city of Nashua, public health and community services.

Imagine that you've lost your home.

Now think about the top five things that are on your to-do list for the day, which might include where you're going to go for rental assistance, who you might ask for help, where you might get your next meal or find shelter for the night.

Now cross out anything that costs money, requires transportation, or requires a cell phone.

These are the barriers that people without homes have to navigate.

And if they do get the opportunity to make a phone call or get a ride somewhere, they have to try to do everything at once because there's little to no room for error.

Consider the fact that people experiencing homelessness have disproportionately high rates of trauma and PTSD.

The effects of trauma can include increased physical and mental stress, impacts on cognitive processes, including memory, attention and thinking, difficulty trusting others and forming close relationships, fear or concern about safety, and difficulty regulating behavior and expressing emotions.

Contrary to stereotypes in media, the vast majority of people with mental health challenges, around 95%, do not commit acts of violence.

The experience of homelessness itself can also be traumatic and make it harder to escape the cycle of poverty.

We also know that many people who have substance use disorders have experienced trauma as children or adults.

90% of people who go on to develop substance use disorder started before the age of 18 years old.

And oftentimes this is linked to having increased adverse childhood experiences and using substances as a coping strategy.

What people need more than anything is empathy.

Homelessness is not a crime.

Mental health challenges and substance use disorder are not moral failings, and system level solutions must be grounded in care, not punishment.

For years, our outreach workers and community health workers have been tirelessly and consistently meeting people where they're at, addressing people by name, sticking to a schedule so that people know when to see them, and providing trauma-informed care.

The level of trust we've built is critical if we want to connect people to services, shelters, and community resources.

We do not need an ordinance to do this work.

What we need is a resource center and a chance to continue working with folks in a trauma-informed way.

Thank you for your time.

Good evening, everybody.

I mean I am homeless and I am one of the residents in uh in Mainzwald.

What happened to me is that I got sick.

And I've been a resident here in Nashua for 35 years.

Now I get sick and I end up with a spine fusion.

I I spent almost a year back and forth, back and forth to uh Bethesda.

After finally my spine fusion surgery uh get none, I was shagged, and then I end up in Spring Street.

And then they kick me out because they want me to room the floor.

I have a class to do there, and with a walker, I just get discharged from like a put long surgery in my back.

So I couldn't do it.

That's how I end up with Bobby over uh over there.

But what I wanted to say, I am one of those uh people that I wanted to be given the time to pour my bootstraps and I can prove it again.

I can do it, and we don't I I've been doing it all my life.

This is so it's unfortunate that I get sick.

And see, maybe I am just a minority of disgust because it's pure medical, and God only knows all of us uh are not immune to being sick next.

So another thing I wanted to uh add a if you look at the countries in Scandinavia, Norway, Denmark, Finland.

They end up all the homeless there.

So homeless in Scandinavia anymore.

How did so?

Because what they did is they they said let's bigger about what's the cost of uh homelessness later on, but housing first.

Let's focus on that housing first.

It takes like a year or two and it's eradicated.

So why can't we do it here?

It's true, and I look it up.

Housing first.

And guess what?

Do you know where the concept came from?

Guess what?

30 seconds.

What do you think is the concept came from?

United States.

They got it from us.

Thank you.

Reverend Alison Palm.

Reverend Alison Palm.

She's not here.

Can I speak on her behalf?

I was standing gonna stand worth here.

I'm Kelly Turney.

I'm the pastor of Main Street United Methodist, and I'm here representing Alison and a group of clergy who work on housing justice issues in Nashua and the surrounding areas.

We've been working on issues of housing and justice in our community for some years.

We are here to agree with those of you on the board who have said that these ordinances, however they come out tonight, do not constitute a response to homelessness.

You're right about that.

Therefore, your work tonight will not be complete without voting on steps that will lead to an investment of people, money, and committee work toward true responses that work for most of the people who are living in encampments.

As clergy, we have to make commitments also.

Many of us have waited too long to become engaged.

We are pledging that we and our congregations will be better partners in the city and our social service nonprofits with our time, our attention, and our volunteers.

We are here to urge you to see the decisions before you related to homelessness, not just about the proposed ordinances, but about the human beings involved and all of their human needs.

People living outside are our neighbors, people reaching out to them to serve them and keep them safe, are our neighbors.

People who live and work in near the encampments are our neighbors.

People who work in police and fire response are our neighbors.

Here is what we said that meant.

Addressing inequities in existing and future policies, and ensuring that all Nashua residents, especially vulnerable populations, have access to resources that enable a healthy, safe, and vibrant life is fundamental, is a fundamental goal of the imagined Nashua vision.

Whatever amendments we have here tonight may make us feel better, but it isn't a substitute for working on the longer term issues that need solutions.

Truly addressing homelessness means working also right now on housing, health, economics, connections, not waiting until after the fall or the winter.

Thank you.

Susan Elberger.

Short people.

My name is Susan Elberger.

I'm a state representative from Nashua Ward 1.

I've been at two conferences in the last two work days that relate to housing and homelessness.

A couple of new bits of data.

To earn enough to live in or to be able to purchase a house, people have to earn $182,000 a year.

For those of you who think we're on an hourly level, that's $88 an hour.

Not a lot of people make that kind of money.

At the conference yesterday, which was put together by the Business and Industries Association of New Hampshire, basically the state chamber of commerce, by realtors, by union workers, by people representing AARP, they were talking about well, what can we do?

The governor was there, as was Jay Rue, who is the mayor of Manchester, talking about how he had gotten the big homeless encampment downtown dissolved, and people were no longer there.

What he didn't talk about was the people in the neighborhood where those folks had moved to, and the fact that the same issues were happening with them as were happening before.

It's kick the can down the road, leaf blowing, whatever term we want to use, but it doesn't deal with the issue.

Last year, the legislature passed several uh bills that the governor signed that will help reducing the permitting process from sometimes a year and a half or two years down to several months, two or three months, and allowing accessory dwelling units by law throughout the state.

We know that there are bills coming up this year to reverse some of those.

We're not working on that effectively.

We're all part of this community, and people who are here are here.

We can't say they shouldn't be here.

Where else they're thirty seconds.

When we have uh fire, the fire department comes over and puts the fire out.

They don't start thinking about what caused the fire first.

They do that afterward.

Our fire right now is that people don't have a place to live.

We need to get them a place to live, and maybe work more on the other solutions afterward.

Thank you.

Tonya Nisley.

When you find it right home.

Okay.

Hi, my name is Tony Nisley.

I am a natural resident.

Um, I have a resident council with uh the voices of major drive, and I'm part of the Granite State Organizing Project.

Um I've also been homeless myself with my children and had to go through a lot of these services, which led me to be a part of a lot of the services when I was in a stable um environment.

And I feel like definitely against this because as everyone has stated, punishing somebody for being poor or being unstable or being addicted is not a solution.

Um I don't even know if I'm allowed to talk to you about this or not, because everyone stated a lot of problems, but I personally am a part of the continuum of care, which has reformulated reformatted, and they're going to be having a retreat on the fifth, which directly is going to be talking about solutions for homelessness, because the continuum of care is a agencies that are actually helping the homeless veterans, the individual homeless, the families that are going into the shelter.

And part of that is finding an outside solution.

And part of the solution, I don't feel like is just the homeless people.

It's also a lot of our Nashua constituents, as um Susan mentioned, it's over $500,000 to buy a house in the city of Nashua.

Um I know that anybody who is marginalized or is unfortunate enough to have to be on social security, you're not allowed to make more than $2,000 a month.

Period, the end.

If you have more than $2,000 in your account, they will find out where that income came from, and then they will take it away the following month.

Actually, it takes them two months to punish you because the humans don't do it.

The computer has to find it.

But my point is if we don't, if we don't get together and create a community that combines people coming in after church out of transition with the workers that are directly responsible for helping them, who, mind you, aren't making enough money to buy their own houses either and might appreciate a place to actually help people and be able to have a home of their own also.

But my point is we definitely need outside of the box solutions and just throwing people in a in an apartment and expecting them to be all well and good because you can't see them anymore again is not a solution.

You still have to be connected to the services, and you still have to be connected to your support system in order to actually become a better, healthier, more productive human being.

Thank you so much.

Ben Henry?

Heaney, I'm sorry.

Hello.

My name is Ben Heaney.

I'm a resident in Ward 6.

I'm up here today because I'm deeply disappointed with the members of the infrastructure committee.

Last Tuesday you met here and listened for four and a half hours of testimony and debate regarding the proposals that ban camping and parking here.

Your constituents and members of the community told you that we do not want these ordinances.

Experts in social services and housing told you that these ordinances are categorically harmful.

Leaders in local faith communities agreed that these ordinances are neither moral nor just.

Yeah, could you please cover my voice?

Thanks, John.

Us short people, you know, when we get the tall ones and the short ones.

That's good.

Thank you very much.

Good evening.

My name is Paula Johnson.

I live at 15 Westbourne 5.

This has been a very emotional evening on both sides of the fence here.

And I've listened to a lot of the testimony.

I was here last week for four hours of it.

I think what I'm hearing basically is the encampment on Pine Street that a lot of people feel it's unsafe, and it's right down by Mines Falls.

What does the city have an obligation to do?

We have people who are homeless that have been homeless for years.

We have people like I know my friend Ken, I talk about him.

I wish he was here tonight because I brought him, I bought him a nice sweatshirt because it's getting cold out, and I wanted, I hadn't seen them in years.

But I think the question is, we give them 15-day notice, and then where do they go?

That's the question.

And I think the answer has to be before you give them a 15-day notice, the city needs to start working with the nonprofits that we just heard.

Hart's peer support the United Way.

So when you're moving them out of the encampment, that some of these people start getting services that they desperately need, especially our addicts.

I spoke to the mayor, and I'm going to say it again, three years ago.

Three years ago, I saw this happening, not even being elected, and I said to mayor, what are we doing with the homeless population?

Do you think we should take a piece of city land and put some tiny homes for them so they have shelter, especially in the winter time?

He was more upset with me, I think, because I have bacterial pneumonia than he wanted to listen to me about the homeless.

And you know, and that's the thing.

Where has been the downtown improvement committee?

You mean to tell me they haven't seen what's been going on downtown that this just magically appeared out of nowhere?

This just doesn't happen overnight.

This is something that's been brewing, and now it's peaking.

And now we we need to do something.

But the city doesn't have any money.

I think what the city, and this is my opinion, we need to start working with the other communities because when we remove them from Manchester, the homeless come to Nashville, and they're going to keep moving around.

And when we take them away from their encampment, where are they gonna go after?

So this isn't just a Nashua issue, this is a Manchester issue, this is a Hollis issue.

This is a Nash, this is a New Hampshire issue.

And do we need some funding?

We need funding from the federal and state governments.

We need the medical community to come in here and help to intervene because there are people who are addicted, and there's, let's face it, there's homeless people that maybe don't want the help.

What do we do then?

We are a citizen, we are a city, we are citizen, you're elected, but somewhere we all have to get together as a team to try to work through this and to get the people the help that they need if they want it.

If they don't want it, what can we do?

Thank you very much.

Bill Pereiro.

My name is Bill Ferrio.

My home is number 35, Indian Rock Road.

So last week I heard some of the aldermen talking about how they had visited the Mill Yard and they were reporting back on some of the stuff that they had seen there.

And there was some talk about who they went with, and it was a count of how many all of them had actually gone.

So I wanted to talk about um why I go to the milliard and some of the stuff that I see there.

The first reason that I go is I actually work part-time in one of the buildings in the mill yard.

And when I go, I park in the lot pretty close to the tents, and I go in and out of the building, I walk through, walk past a lot of the homeless people.

And the thing that I see, the big takeaway I get from that is how little these people have.

The other thing that takes me to the milliard carmalini is I like to run through Mindfalls Park, and one of the routes that I take cuts through the milliard.

And again, when I do that, I get pretty close to the tents and to the people that are living there.

And again, the thing that I see, the big takeaway I get is how little these people have.

Every time I go there to either run or to work there, after that, I go home.

My house is like three and a half miles from the milliard.

And when I go home, I see something different.

I would ask each of the aldermen, and I may be too late for this.

I would ask each of the aldermen and the mayor, do what I do.

Go to the milliard and look around.

Then go home.

Go to your house.

How can you possibly take away one of the few things these people have?

Without giving them something equivalent or better.

Immediately.

Not in six months when you're done talking about it and slapping it around and being all political about it.

And certainly not in a couple years when some developer has built some apartments that they probably can't afford to live in anyway.

How can you kick them out without giving it someplace to go?

That's it.

Thank you.

Travis Morgan.

I'm sorry.

Travis Morgan.

Ladies and gentlemen of the town council, fellow citizens and neighbors.

My name is Travis Morgan.

Please hear me tonight as a sovereign soul standing on the sacred soil of America.

I'm not just a resident of this 10 city.

I am a child of this great nation, born with the unalienable rights, our founders etched into eternity.

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

The pursuit isn't a luxury for the few.

It's the heartbeat of every American dream.

And woven into that dream is a hard-fought battle of for homeless rights, a legacy of resilience that echoes through our history and demands justice today.

I hear your worries, safety, the mess, the problem we represent.

Your shelving apartments as the answer, like a one-size-fits-all bandage on a gaping wound.

But for me, it's a prison of echoes, ghosts of past failures, whispering in the dark, bills like chains, isolation that feeds the demons louder than ever.

I've been there, tried, failed, shattered.

It all nearly ended me.

Out here, I breathe, I heal, I connect without judgment, that crushes.

Don't erase that.

Don't erase me.

Shutting down our tent city is a violation of our Eighth Amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment and our First Amendment right to religious freedom.

My faith teaches me that every soul is sovereign, that we are all pilgrims on this earth, seeking grace and simplicity, not in jails or asylums, but in the open air under God's vast sky.

Think of your own families.

What if hardship knocked on your door?

Would you want compassion or cold eviction?

I'm pleading from the depths tonight.

Choose compassion, choice, humanity.

Don't tear us down, rebuild with us.

Toilets, trash help, showers, the vital harm reduction net, counselors, kits, therapies, right where we stand.

Let apartments be an option, not a mandate.

We're not disposable.

We're fighters with hearts that still beat, dreams that flicker, fires that won't die.

True progress doesn't trample the broken.

It mends them, hand in trembling hand.

Thank you.

Kane Bloomfield.

Good evening.

My name's Kane Bloomfield.

I want to state first off, uh, we're looking at this the completely wrong way.

It's not the homeless community that is the issue here.

And I'm going to speak from personal experience on what the true issue is, which is landlord and property manager corruption.

I'm gonna read what I wrote to a judge in my reconsideration uh motion to recon reconsider judgment uh on my criminal and illegal eviction in 2023.

I'm asking for a reconsideration of judgment on my eviction case.

The manager Pamela White has had my mail and withheld the letter from the court stating the date for my final hearing.

A chance encounter with the court's housing advocate was the only reason I was able to at least appear in court that date.

My key witness was supposed to be their witness based on the initial allegations.

However, when Pamela found out that I had talked to Caleb, the heating guy on January 16th, and he told us both he had nothing to do with it.

She obtained counsel and changed the verbiage of her allegations to now exclude Caleb's involvement where there is now not any witness as to smelling marijuana.

I spoke with Caleb on April 20th uh 23rd, 2024, and got his mailing info.

Caleb agreed to have a subpoena sent out to him once I got the court date to stand as my witness.

Pamela White's had all the mail for the tenants sent to her on the fourth floor.

Although we have our own separate boxes in front of our building, she never gave me a chance to showcase my evidence as she withheld my mail only to then put it underneath my door after the final hearing was over, where it had been opened and resealed.

My next door neighbor witnessed her put the letter underneath the door that morning after the hearing is over, and it is also on camera.

I would be contacting authorities on this matter separately.

Furthermore, I'm also obtaining counsel on this matter as I've had federal offenses committed against me to prevent justice, which is obstruction.

There's absolutely no evidence of drug usage nor my behaviors affecting anyone.

The alleged witnesses were not even required to testify, so I was preventing my uh opportunity cross-examine.

The verbiage behind the attorney's legal eviction notice was deliberately changed as they have no witness state, they smelled marijuana, nor is there any witness to finding an alleged meth pipe, so no statements were made.

I was told by the court's own housing advocate that my recorded conversation with both parties consented to will be evidence to be heard in court.

However, I was denied the ability to support my case by having it heard.

I did not feel I need to counsel uh on this matter as the entire premise of the eviction is completely fraudulent.

But somehow suffice uh I'm sorry, uh yeah, completely fraudulent, but somehow sufficed to justify an eviction, although evidence was shown against me.

The verb uh the eviction was retaliatory in nature as I was threatened by Piloma White with an eviction because I was trying to prevent them from illegally kicking out Walter Lemir the month before.

Walter was evicted by Pamela with no evidence, and he died lesson two weeks after she gave him five days to leave as he was left hopeless, handicapped, and homeless.

How does the tenant protect themselves against the stone of the state of the landlord?

They need compelling evidence in Nashville Soup Kitchen shelter provided none.

I'm doing with extreme and outrageous conduct, which is breaking the implied covenant of habitability.

I'm sorry by the decision because I have an immense amount of irrefutable evidence of retaliation, perjury, deception, slander, contempt, libel, intentional infliction of emotional physical distress, defamation of character, and so on.

Pamela White is up, sir.

I urge you guys all to uh watch a YouTube video called National New Hampshire, safety city in America with a question mark.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Christina Chilpaki.

I did this once before and I wasn't the best at it, but I'm gonna give it another whack.

It may be better, it may be worse, but it is what it is, and here I am.

My name's Christina.

Okay.

My name is Christina Chalpaka.

I'm a resident at Pine Street Extension.

It is what I call home for now.

It is not home forever, but it is home for now.

I wanna just say that all the people in front of me and all the people behind me, all the faces, all the testimonies, all the opinions and all the perspectives, they all matter.

We won't agree with them all.

They're gonna be all across the board everywhere.

Um with that being said, um, not everybody will always be happy.

I I I personally want to represent uh represent the fact that I I feel safe as a homeless person there.

I know that can be a shocking statement, and I'm sure that it can be um unfathomable.

Uh those people are from all over, um, just like all the faces in this room that are speaking today, they come from different backgrounds, they all matter, and um I have come to know know a lot of them.

I can't say I condone all the things that they've done in their past or that they still choose to do, um, but I can say that a lot of them have some decency.

Uh they can make good choices and they can be good people.

I have had my own share of struggles while there, and uh they can definitely pick up the slack and be a community for each other.

I definitely can understand how people running through may not feel safe or want uh the people there in the park, but I want to reassure you that as much as you'd rather run through and not see those people on the side, or those people would rather not be there.

Um they'd also like to leave the park and go to a better place that is warm, safe, and affordable, and providing called home.

Uh, this is a huge issue, and it is a real issue.

It has a lot of real people, and it's gonna take real money and it's gonna take real solutions.

It's also gonna take some time.

I would like to support 79 and 80, and maybe five years ago I would have, but tonight I don't.

Um, because of all the people, and also for the people here and uh for and against it.

Um they all need to feel safe.

And if they take these people that are in this encampment right now, uh, and they shut it down without proper way to absolve and resolve those issues.

It's gonna be like taking a hot pile of coals and tossing them into the woods.

You're gonna have one controlled area where you could have a cooktop of coals versus if you disperse them out into the wild.

Uh that's a lot more possibilities of fire, and it can be detrimental.

I don't want to consider the other residents and neighbors at Pine Street that stand next to me as uh flames of possibility, but if you can think of it as at least right now, they are collected.

Uh our wonderful police officers do come through on a regular.

I am glad that they patrol.

I don't want them to stop patrolling, but I want them to make sure that their resources are utilized properly, whether it's in the encampment or outside the encampment.

Um if you displace all those people and wipe them right off the table, there's gonna be a big mess all over the city as far as resources dispersed and being collected.

That's what I would like to share today, and thank you for your time, and I hope that good resolution is found for the people.

Thank you.

Joseph Lewis Joseph Lewis.

He left.

Okay.

Sam Burden.

No, we're no, we're not taking any uh other speakers at this point.

Sam Vernon.

Verdon.

Okay.

So I live at the encampment.

And for the record, I have been a resident of Nashua for 13 years.

So I wasn't always homeless here.

Some of you might know me, maybe not.

I run the Hen and Pa, the dog bus here, the doggy daycare.

We run New Hampshire Chronicle.

I fundraise, donate, bring human uh supplies to people in need.

And I also provide free services when I can to community members in need.

I've also sponsored the fire department.

So I have a clean record, don't do drugs, rarely drink.

I may smokable before bed at worst.

I built a tiny house on a trailer myself and even hand sawed most of it.

I'm not homeless, I'm landless, but I'm treated the same.

There should be a system in place that looks at the homeless as individuals and create action plans based on the needs.

Some need some need rehab.

Some of us have animals that we see as family and refuse to part with.

That's why we we refuse some housing, other than the money factor.

Also on the subject, um, obviously, like people said, where are they supposed to go?

They're gonna move out to neighborhoods like they've done before, like they still do.

And if they keep just going out further and further, realistically, you're just gonna have a bigger problem because then eventually they're gonna be too far, yes, from resources.

They're gonna start looting houses or something.

You guys have talked about like sex offenders and drug addicts, you really want like people all over the place and all around your houses are in, yes, one spot where they can be watched and obviously hopefully monitored and so I was also one of the first residents on Crown Street.

I was actually there first, and I was there for a year before anyone even seemed to notice.

Um people were displaced there, just like what's happening now, it's just the same thing over and over.

So sorry, I'm nervous and I'm still trying to look through.

You do find it.

Okay.

I think that we should have campsites reserved for those who have proven to be active members of society, given that they can keep the areas clean.

Those afflicted by addiction should be sent to rehab facilities with the unused budget money from the opium opioid epidemic instead of getting hotel vouchers for a week as a band-aid until the public forgets.

I also support another person's point about using city budgets to provide services for the homeless since most of those people do not choose to live in unsanitary situations.

Most of the issue issue boils down to unaffordable housing and the city not committing to pouring into all of their residents only some.

30 seconds.

I walk the line between both of your worlds daily as a business owner and an active member of community member of the community and one of the homeless people that you know you see walking around and people call me a junkie too, and because they don't recognize me, and then sometimes people do, and it's a different story, so it depends on where I am, really.

So if we're all a community, then we should act like it.

Thank you.

Flori Olano.

Lori Ordelano, 41 Berkeley Street.

Um, I listened to last week's meeting for four and a half hours, and um I took it all in, and there was a lot going on there.

Um I support the ordinances, um, but I think we came to this situation because the board and the administration as a whole simply uh didn't do its job in looking at what's going on downtown.

I live in this area, I'm part of downtown, and I'm tired of listening to the mayor say, you know, downtown is the heart of the city.

We have to invest in all these projects.

But you didn't put the project of a um shelter or resource center for the homeless into the budget to even look for long-term planning.

I think you're totally skewed on how you address this.

And your back's against the wall with dealing with the ordinances because you really got to do something, but it doesn't really give you the solution.

And when I hear people come up here and say the experts are telling you, the nurses, you can't do this.

Well, we have other experts like police and fire who tell us a different story.

I think we have multiple experts, and they are conflicting um opinions here that are looking for different solutions.

But I, for one, don't want to see more money invested in riverwalk projects because this is where your expanded population needs to go.

Putting in 30 or 40 million dollars into a library renovation, don't want to see that because you have eat needs with your homeless population.

And I know that that may not help my property value or be the way downtown should look.

But if you want to make a heart and home and call it, make it look all pretty and make people all comfortable.

Start investing someplace else.

Go out on Amherst Street, go to South Nashua.

Because you can't do it downtown because all your resources are there for these people.

Everything is consolidated there.

And you've grown those resources such that it's not surprising to me that these encampments and homeless people have grown in this area and exploded.

That's the way you designed downtown.

This is what you wanted it to be.

So stop trying to tell us it's going to be something different.

I support the ordinances because you need to start somewhere.

But it can't be the only solution.

As soon as you pass those, you better get people to the table and find out what locations are available to move people to.

And I'm sorry, it doesn't fall together like a nice puzzle and a nice plan.

Because nobody made the plan.

And I want to thank the mayor for his speech tonight, because I'll tell you, I thought it was his best one ever.

Thank you.

Eric Bozoyan?

Hi, my name is uh Eric, and I've come here today to urge you to vote no for the ordinances prohibiting camping on public property and camping, uh recreational vehicles on public property.

I want to thank you for your service and time that you go give to budgets, contracts, capital planning, routine, and essential government work.

Those are duties that keep the streets plowed, trash collected, and departments coordinated.

But I want to also address a core responsibility that runs through all these duties I just mentioned, safeguarding the health and safety of every resident, including people living outdoors or in vehicles.

Many of us here tonight will go home to a bed, a thermostat, a roof.

Neighbors who are unhoused don't have that certainty.

Any ordinance that this body adopts should advance the health and safety of every Nashua resident, housed and unhoused alike.

If you choose not to expand shelter capacity, create real pathways to stable housing and invest in outreach behavioral services, you are failing in your primary duty to protect all residents of Nashua.

The simple path is to make people illegal, and that is precisely what this ordinance does.

Such a punitive step should be taken only as a true last resort after every other option has been fully funded, implemented, and demonstratively exhausted.

Can we honestly say today that all options have been exhausted?

If not, we must reject criminalization of people who are in need of help.

How can you in good conscience vote to take away the last thing these people have?

The ability to lay down and rest.

How can you consider banning sleeping and resting in public spaces without first ensuring that someone has a place to safely go?

For those of you on the board that are religious, I remind you that Scripture states share your food with everyone who is hungry, share your home with the poor and the homeless, give clothes to those who are in need.

And Jesus directly states when I was hungry, you gave me something to eat.

When I was a stranger, you welcomed me in.

When I was naked, you gave me clothes to wear.

I'm asking you to act from the same place of compassion and responsibility before voting to remove one of the last things people have the ability to lay down and rest.

I close with something simple.

Kindness saves lives, as Charlie Maxie reminds us.

Sometimes the tiniest act of kindness can save a life.

Tonight, your act of kindness is a no vote.

Vote no so people in our city can have their dignity, their hope, and yes, their lives.

Thank you.

Don?

Are you able to Mayor Donchus?

Do you hear us?

Yes.

Madam President, can you hear me now?

We can, yes.

You're up.

Well, first of all, I apologize for the technical difficulties.

Uh, we'll try to work better in the future.

But I've been listening to all of the people who are speaking, and of course, we are um adjusting ordinances o 25, 79, and 80.

Um, but I think we need to go back and recognize, and I think everyone in the audience, everyone, everyone in the city must recognize that homelessness, the unhoused people that we have as residents.

Uh this isn't an issue just in Nashua.

It's a issue across New Hampshire and in every basic every city in the United States.

And in all these cities, when you see what's happening.

Housing and funding for that, more mental health services and funding for that, uh, more addiction services, uh, recovery services and funding for that.

But that is not coming from the federal government.

Uh if anything, it's the reverse.

So Nashua and all these other communities, Manchester, Concord, Laconia, Claremont, everyone.

We're all struggling with this locally.

Now, and we've heard many, many eloquent people tonight speak in opposition to these two ordinances.

And obviously, I mean, they we have to respect them for coming forward and voicing uh their opinions on this.

But neither this ordinance nor anything that the city can do is not going to solve homelessness.

We can only try to do what we can to make some people's lives better and also recognize the interests of our entire community in terms of uh their desire to enjoy the parks and other places, and we also have an obligation to protect people from danger.

Now some people who've spoken, I think, have the assumption that the city has just woken up to this problem and that nothing's been done for all these years.

Um, and I I want to create correct that misimpression.

I mean, let's start with the police department.

Um they have been in contact, they, our officers from top to bottom, have been in contact with the unhoused residents of the community for years.

I mean, years ago, they took me to various uh, you know, and at various times since to different campsites around the city.

They know people individually, they know exactly where people are living.

They've been reaching out, and and I have to say, I mean, they've done a great uh, you know, a very good job in recognizing this as an issue and helping the city trying to uh design solutions and working with other departments, the health department and with nonprofits to try to help people, individual people where that is possible.

So they have been working on this for years.

Same with the health department.

I mean, uh, you know, Bobby Bagley, uh uh first and foremost, but also the community health workers that she's advocated, and which the Board of Alderman and the city has provided, uh, reach out every day to the homeless population and actually have uh helped solve the problems of a you know many people who they've been able to successfully uh uh help to to transcend homelessness and get a better life.

But then there's always some, you know, there's someone else.

The because there is no national solution, uh the city supported the new shelter on financially and otherwise on uh Spring Street, and uh where the soup kitchen went from a shelter of just a really shoddy place for 40 some people now to a doubling that capacity over on Spring Street in a I'd say you'd have to say uh a you know first rate uh homeless shelter.

Um but is that's and the city supported that that was years in the making, and of course that hasn't solved the problem either.

So what we're dealing with now is these the encampment and and the police department who's who's asked us to endorse it asked us to support these ordinances.

They didn't they've been working on this for years.

I mean, they didn't ask for this three years or two years or four years ago.

They've asked now, and why?

Because the encampment at the Pine Street Extension into Mine Falls Park has grown to a size and to a complexity that presents they're telling us, and when you listen to public health, they agree on this point, is a danger to the residents who are there and a danger to the community.

Drug dealing.

There have been assaults, there are 200 police calls or something like that.

So it is, you know, it is a problem.

And we though we don't have housing for people to go or anything, as many people have already pointed out, um, the police department doesn't believe, and I believe that they are right that we can continue to allow a can't camp with the features that we see on the Pine Street Extension to continue to fester there.

Uh it will, and not everybody there is doing things that are wrong.

I mean, that there's no question about that, but some of the residents have you know are, and people come to that site that don't even live in there.

Uh and they're causing problems as well.

So I think we need, in my opinion, we need to give the police department the tools they need to solve that one situation.

We don't want to close every make it impossible for people to live outside or anything like that.

I think what we're being asked to do is to enable the police department to manage the situation as they have been doing for for years, uh to uh to keep everyone safe and as safe as possible.

Um but people, you know, that but the the health department and others who are speaking on behalf of the unhoused residents are asking the city to do more, and many of the things that they're calling for, you know, are really beyond the city's capacity.

Some of the things, more housing, you know, hundreds of housing units and all this kind of thing, which would be necessary.

Certainly the housing first model we know works, but we're talking tens of millions of dollars that would be required.

And property taxes, which is all we've got, are already too high.

So we don't have tens of millions of dollars.

Now, what Bobby and Latani and others have suggested is at least we could bring about an improvement with and and the the possibility of helping more people transcend the their living situation, get into a more productive life, uh, with a with a so-called resource center, a place where people could go, a staffed center where people could go uh during the day.

And uh we of course, as you know, we have the warming center at night that we've been uh in the colder months, which we've been operating for some for several years.

Now I'm confident that we can put together a resource center.

We've located um, I mean, in terms of we don't want to get there's some we have to do a uh an RFP request for proposal and all this, but we think we can find space, we can rent space for a resource center uh that will enable uh our staff, uh all of the social service agencies, the nonprofits have been working on on this as well for years, uh, to gather and uh they can then um encounter people uh in a uh in a in an indoor space where they can and people where people can go during the daytime and with and uh our public health department and our nonprofits believe this could help them help uh some of the unhoused residents, and it would provide a place for people to go at least during the daytime.

So I think we can improve the situation.

I I believe I'm very confident that we can find a good location.

In fact, I believe we've identified at least one, and uh if we can allocate the resources, which I believe is going to, which we can uh uh within the next month or so, um, we should be able to establish a resource center that will help.

Will it solve homelessness?

No, it will not.

Will it provide more help?

Yes, I think it can do that.

So I think we need to pass the ordinance, in my opinion.

We need to pass the ordinance.

I don't believe we're really criminalizing homelessness.

I think all we're doing is enabling the police department to manage a dangerous situation.

If we pass these ordinances, I believe the police department will continue to act with compassion as they've been doing for some years.

And the city, based upon the valid points that are being raised regarding the need for more services.

The first thing on our agenda will be to provide the resource center that the health department on a nonprofits believe would at least provide significant help, but if not a solution to the problem that we're facing along with every other community around the whole, every other city around the whole country.

And again, Madam President, I apologize for the technical difficulties.

But before I conclude, I would like to on a lighter note remind people that there is Halloween at City Hall on Friday from 2 to 4 30.

Children or anyone else can visit City Hall and City Employees in the various departments.

City employees will have you know trick or treats and Halloween decorations and all that for any uh young people who would like to uh stop by the city.

And if people have questions for me, I will be on the call and I will continue to listen, but um otherwise that's the conclusion of uh my remarks.

Thank you, Mayor.

Alderman, I do have a question for their mayor.

You want me to hold it until the legislation?

Yeah, okay, thank you.

Communications requiring final approval.

Communication has been received from Linda LaFlam, Chairman, Nashville Public Library Board of Trustees regarding library renovation update and request to form a joint committee.

Alderman O'Brien Thank you, Madam President.

Uh I would like to uh approve, make a motion approve the formation of a joint special building committee made up of the committee of infrastructure and another uh Nashua Public Library Board of Trustees by roll call okay.

I think we all received the communication that they're asking for a joint committee so that when they do their renovations to the library, um they'll have they'll have some uh input from this board.

You've heard the motion, discussion.

Seeing none, would the clerk please call the roll?

Alderman O'Brien.

Yes, Alderman Moran?

Yes.

Alderman Thibodeau, yes.

Alderman Gobaya, yes.

Alderman Lopez, yes, Alderman Sullivan, yes.

Alderman Clemens, yes.

Alderman Senate, yes.

Alderman Jetty, yes.

Alderman Tebow, yes.

Alderman Clee?

Yes.

Alderman Dowd?

Yes.

Alderwoman Kelly, yes.

President Wilshire.

Yes.

You are 14 y's, zero nays.

That motion carries.

Petitions.

Petitions.

Petition for street acceptance, Sandra Street.

Alderman O'Brien.

Thank you, Madam President.

I'd like to make the motion to grant the petition for street acceptance, Santa Street by roll call.

Can I speak very briefly?

Alderman O'Brien.

Thank you.

This has to do in case you're not familiar with the riverfront landing development as you come in off of Bridge Street.

Uh you come to the intersection of Sanders Street, and this will enhance the public flow, plus allow the residents of uh uh four, five and six uh Sandy Street access to uh city parking and everything.

So it's passed the infrastructure committee and ask you to approve it.

You've heard the motion.

Is there just further discussion on the motion?

Seeing none with the clerk, please call the roll.

Alderman O'Brien, yes.

Alderman Moran?

Yes.

Alderman Tibodeau, yes.

Alderman Gobea?

Yes, Alderman?

Yes.

Alderman Sullivan?

Yes.

Alderman Clemens.

Yes.

Alderman Senate?

Yes.

Alderman Jetty.

Yes.

Alderman Tebow?

Yes.

Alderman Clee?

Yes.

Alderman Dow?

Yes.

Aldwoman Kelly?

Yes.

President Wilshire?

Yes.

You have 14 yay, zero nays.

That motion carries a street.

The petition for street acceptance, Sandra Street is hereby granted.

Nominations, appointments, and elections, there are none.

Reports of committees.

There being no objection.

I'll declare the report of the September 16, 2025 Planning and Economic Development Committee be accepted and placed on file.

There being no objection, I'll declare the report of the September 17, 2025 finance committee be accepted and placed on file.

There being no objection, I'll suspend the rules to allow for the oral report of a budget review committee meeting held Monday night regarding proposed recommendation for resolution 25210.

Alderman Dowd.

Yes, uh at the meeting we addressed uh two pieces of resolution.

One was R25210 relative to the acceptance of a horse trailer donated to the City of Nashville Police Department by friends of the National Police Department mounted unit.

It passed unanimously.

The uh second uh piece of legislation was to um relative to the supplemental appropriation of 148,035 dollars and eighty-nine cents of unanticipated revenue to fund 7024 to opiote abatement expendable trust fund.

We had a public hearing on that piece of legislation, and much of the explanation was given to the motion.

So uh the uh when it passed the budget committee unanimously thank you.

Confirmation of mayor's appointments.

There and on unfinished business resolutions.

Second reading of resolution R25210 relative to the acceptance of a horse trailer donated to the City of Nashua Police Department by friends of the Nashville Police Department mounted unit.

Alderman Dowd.

Yes, I'd like to make a motion for final passage of R25210 by roll call.

You've heard the motion.

Is there discussion on that motion?

Seeing none with the clerk please call the roll.

Alderman O'Brien.

Yes.

Alderman Moran?

Yes.

Alderman Thibodeau.

Yes.

Alderman Gobaya.

Yes.

Alderman Lopez.

Yes.

Alderman Sullivan.

Yes.

Alderman Clemens.

Yes.

Alderman Senate.

Yes.

Alderman Jetty.

Yes.

Alderman Tebow.

Yes.

Alderman Clee.

Yes.

Alderman Dowd?

Yes.

Alderman Kelly.

Yes.

President Wilshire.

Yes.

You have 14 yes, zero and nays.

That motion carries and resolution 25210 is declared duly adopted.

Unfinished business ordinances.

Second reading of ordinance 025069 authorizing a stop sign on Wilson Street at its intersection with Almond Street.

Alderman Thibodeau.

Thank you, Madam President.

I'd like to make a motion for final passage of 025-069 by roll call.

Okay, you've heard the motion.

Is there the motion?

Discussion on that motion.

Madam President, can we ask the mayor to meet his phone?

To what?

We asked the mayor to mute his phone.

Maybe Don I can do it.

Done.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Um you've heard the motion.

Is there discussion on the motion?

Seeing none, would the clerk please please call the roll?

Alderman O'Brien.

Yes.

Alderman Moran.

Yes.

Alderman Thibodeau.

Yes.

Alderman Gobaya.

Yes.

Alderman Lopez.

Yes.

Alderman Sullivan.

Yes.

Alderman Clemens.

Yes.

Alderman Senate.

Yes.

Alderman Jetty.

Yes.

Alderman Tebow?

Yes.

Alderman Clee.

Yes.

Alderman Dowd.

Yes.

Alderman Kelly.

Yes.

President Wilshire.

Yes.

You have 14 yes, 0 nays.

That motion carries.

And ordinance 2569 is declared duly adopted.

Second reading of ordinance 025079.

No parking on Selena Avenue.

Alderman O'Brien.

Thank you, Madam President.

I'd like to make the motion to amend O 25078 by replacing it with the Goldenrod copy of recommended amendments made by the Committee of Infrastructure by roll call.

And may I speak briefly?

Alderman O'Brien.

This uh amendment seems to be when the uh original draft of uh 02578 came out, it had no parking at all on Selena Street.

Thank you to members and not members of the committee.

It was identified that there is a you know tractor trailers there for a limited time, and there are people from the overflow from the uh postal uh company use Selena Rab for parking.

So the amendment that came up basically says that you are allowed to park there, but with a two-hour limit, which will not affect the Numolus business and uh seems to adjust the needs of the postal workers.

So pass the infrastructure committee.

Thank you.

Alderman Gabe.

Thank you, Madam President.

I just want to thank the members of the committee and of the board for sending that over to committee where uh it could address some of my concerns.

I am fine with the goldenrod copy and would urge my my colleagues to support it as well.

Thank you.

Motion is to amend.

Further discussion on that motion.

Alderman Lopez.

Um I attended the committee meeting and I stated basically there that it was directly commented that this was precipitated by people who were using mobile homes and campers uh in a campsite or an adjacent campsite.

Uh it was further presented to the committee that this may have been precipitated by a business nearby that was offering uh cheap gym membership, which was allowing people to take showers.

Um I don't have a problem with people taking showers or using the bathroom or gyms doing their business.

Um I think if the city is concerned about vehicles that are parking overnight, then they could enforce the overnight parking van ban in other areas of the city since they focus very much on the residential areas.

Um and I think something that's that's punitive to this and which the business is no longer offering that, and there's it was stated at least at the time that there aren't uh mobile homes or campers there now, um, is no longer you know an issue.

This is a solution in search of a problem, I guess.

So um I will not be supporting us.

Further discussion.

Alderman Jetty.

Yeah, I too uh attended the the meeting and uh heard the same thing and came to the same conclusion.

Uh we were told that the um that the uh you know the problem of uh homeless people or people occupying uh campers or trailers that were unregistered, etc.

Uh you know, was solved without this ordinance.

Uh there is you know, a you know it it is illegal to park on on the street now overnight.

Um, technically it's you can't park between the hours of uh I think it's uh uh between midnight and six a.m.

for more than two hours, so it effectively eliminates overnight parking, you know, which you know that's that's the current law, so this is really not you know serving any purpose, uh I don't think and they were able to solve the problem without without this ordinance, and um the health department told us that a lot of the people that were living there on the street and were were in in the subject of the complaints, uh are now living behind the uh uh the medical building on the on the an adjacent street.

So um you know, I you know, I I think um you know someone else mentioned that the Board of Public Works or the Department of Public Works wants to be able to plow the street and they don't want any cars there.

Um, you know, I've had experience with the Board of Public Works when I tried to get you know some a street in my ward opened up for overnight you know parking, except in snow emergencies, and and the argument was made that you know we you know that they need to be able to plow the street, and it's it's a wide street.

Selena Avenue is is a very wide street.

You know, if the uh if the plows can negotiate the tree streets, the downtown areas, you could they can certainly deal with with Selena Avenue and um you know forgive me board of Department of Public Works, but you know, I I don't think you'd be happy unless we eliminated parking on every street uh every time because you know how many snowstorms do we have?

And we're gonna ban parking, you know, um you know, on on every night because of uh you know the the possibility of having to plow a you know in in a few snowstorms, you know, we could eliminate parking during snow emergencies.

So I'm I'm not gonna support this.

Alderman Clay.

Uh thank you.

Um Madam President.

Um to the to those that just spoke previously.

I I um I respect your opinion and I was the the loan vote against the ordinance as amended.

Um I voted for the amendment, and I'll tell you the reason why I did.

Um when I was up in the State House, one of the things that we learned is oftentimes we feel that there's a good chance or a possibility that something is going to pass.

And what you do is you try to make an amendment to make it not as biting, not as bad.

Um so therefore I supported the amendment, but I did not support the legislation as amended.

So if you don't support the amendment, um, and if this were to pass without that amendment, it would mean absolutely no parking.

So I'm going to, you know, it's we all have our own opinions, we all have our own vote votes, but I will support the amendment because it makes the legislation better.

I still don't believe that it's there, and I'll speak to it when we get to that point.

Um everybody has made good points, but thank you, Madam President.

Motion is to amend.

Alderman Moran.

Uh thank you, Madam President.

I concur with my colleague from Ward 3.

Thank you.

Okay.

Alderman Jetty.

Um I jumped the gun.

Um so we're we're we're now discussing the amendment, not the uh the final uh ordinance.

So you know, just remember what I said.

We'll remember.

Okay.

Nothing further on the the uh motion to amend.

Would the clerk please call the roll on the amendment?

Alderman O'Brien.

Yes.

Alderman Moran?

Yes.

Alderman Thibodeau?

Yes.

Alderman Govea?

Yes.

Alderman Lopez.

Still no.

Alderman Sullivan.

Yes.

Alderman Clemens.

Yes.

Alderman Senate.

No.

Alderman Jetty?

Yes.

Alderman Tebow?

Yes.

Alderman Clee?

Yes.

Alderman Dowd.

Yes.

Alderman McKelly.

No.

President Wolchier.

Yes.

11 yes, three three nays.

That motion carries.

Alderman O'Brien.

Thank you, Madam President.

I would like to make the motion.

Uh for final passage of O 25078 as amended.

And I think we already led into a little bit of the prior discussion, so I'll let the vote stand.

Okay.

Alderman Clee.

Uh thank you, Madam President.

Um, as I stated earlier, I was the lone dissenting vote on this particular um ordinance as amended.

And my concern is that this is not an issue right now.

Um and I do believe in unintended consequences, and there could be unintended consequences on both sides.

By not voting this, we could end up with um what we had before.

But the truth of the matter is that with or without any ordinance about camping and so on, there's still state legislation that says this is illegal and it can't be done, and and so on.

Um I think that stands alone.

There's no um perceived uh approval of this or consent that would allow anybody to park there.

My fear is that um we're gonna put uh more um hardship, so to speak, on our parking people that are gonna have to go there more often, and we know they're short-staffed as it is.

My other concern is something that I saw, and I'm really not being a NIMBY, so please understand that it just happens to be my route.

But um it wasn't um just days ago that um I saw some of the um the campers from um Pine Street in front of um Greeley, in front of the um the Stonehouse.

And so my next question is going to be are we gonna do legislation that only allows two-hour parking in front of Greeley?

Because I would say no.

For events and things like that, we're not going to have a two-hour parking limit.

I don't think this solves that problem.

A two-hour parking limit or eliminating all parking.

I mean, I would definitely be vehemently against eliminating all parking in front of um down Concord Street on Greeley.

Maybe some of the neighbors would disagree with me, but you know, I can't ask people to come to Greeley and so on and not have parking, some parking there for them.

So I I just think this sets up a bad precedence.

Um I will not be supporting it for that reason.

Um I'm I'm glad that we did a two-hour one.

My gut tells me this probably will pass.

I hope it doesn't.

Um I hope that my gut is wrong.

So thank you, Madam President.

Alderman Moran.

Uh thank you, madam, madam president, through you to corporation council.

Um Attorney Bolton, could you remind me on this ordinance what the fee schedule would be for the ticketing?

Well, this has no special provision on it, so I think it's the same as other parking and fences.

So I think it might be $25, but I'm I'm not certain.

Alderman Moran.

Thank you.

So it's not one of the ordinances in which there's no um fine established, so it would be the automatic like $1,200 or things.

I think this would fall into that category with as a grid in the whole parking section which says which prohibitions get what level of fine.

So I think this is a fairly small one.

This is not like the handicap parking uh violations or something that has a more significant level of fine.

Thank you.

May I?

Yes.

Um and at what point does someone need to be ticketed to initiate a tow in the current I think maybe the police department may know more than me on this, but I think when someone falls into arrears on paying tickets to the level of 200, the the car can be towed, and until they clear that uh arrearage in fines and pay for the cost of the towing and the storage of the vehicle, they don't get it back.

Thank you, Attorney Bull.

Madam President, if there is anyone else who has further clarifying on at what point the dollar amount or the amount of tickets issues the actual towing.

And my thought is like this in additional questions, it's gonna be one issued on a Monday, one is on a Tuesday, then on Wednesday, and then you're in four in the tow.

I just wanted more details on the actual process of what every day can be a separate violation.

Okay, and um it sounds like no one's objecting to the 200 rears, and maybe all the director Cummings Thank you, Madam President, for the record Tim Cummings Director of Administrative Services.

I'm doing this from memory.

I believe we just changed the ordinance, and I believe it's 100 dollars now.

It used to be uh at the 200 mark as previously mentioned, but we just amended it.

Thank you.

I'll defer to Alderman Clean.

Okay, Alderman Clee.

Uh thank thank you, Madam President.

Um Director Cummings is right.

We did just change the ordinance.

We also changed the ordinance.

If I remember somebody said that they just kept paying the $25 fee because it was cheaper.

But the new changes in the ordinance says that if there's X number, and I offhand don't know how many it is within a certain period of time, like within a one year or something, it can automatically be towed.

Ms.

Stansfield's not here to to cooperate that, but I'm 95% positive that that was the situation.

We debated it over and over again and had long long conversations about it, but we did put that in there to kind of protect the um person who continues to violate and just pays off the fine.

But I do believe we we changed it to the hundred dollars as well as the um so it's not just in arrears, it's the number of cumulative that you've had within a period of time to be towed.

Thank you, Madam President.

Thank you, Alderman Clee.

Motion before us is uh for final passage as amended.

Further discussion on that motion seeing none with the clerk call the roll, please.

Alderman O'Brien, yes, Alderman Moran?

No.

Alderman Thibodeau, yes.

Alderman Gobaya, yes.

Alderman Lopez, no.

Alderman Sullivan, yes.

Alderman Clemens, no.

Alderman Senate, no.

Alderman Jetty?

No.

Alderman Thibault?

Yes.

Alderman Clee?

No.

Alderman Dowd?

Yes.

Alderman McKelly, no.

President Wolskier.

Yes.

Tyboth.

7 to 7.

That motion fails.

What's the pleasure of the board?

Alderman Govea.

I move the table.

Okay.

Motion is the table.

Would the clerk please call a roll?

Not yes.

Alderman O'Brien.

Yes.

Alderman Moran?

No.

Alderman Tibetan?

Yes.

Alderman Govea.

Yes.

Alderman Lopez.

No.

Alderman Sullivan.

Yes.

Alderman Clemens.

No.

Alderman Senate?

No.

Alderman Jetty?

No.

Alderman Tebow.

Yes.

Alderman Clee?

No.

Alderman Dow?

Yes.

Alderman McKelly.

No.

President Wolchhire?

Yes.

I vote.

I move for a definite postponement.

Motion is for indefinite postponement.

Alderman Lopez.

Point of clarification.

If we just voted twice, seven to seven.

Is this gonna be like the game of checkers where everyone?

Does it need another tie that the tie has to be broken or something?

I think you want to take a vote on this motion and see what happens.

But no, you can have as many seven to seven ties as you want.

Alderman O'Brien.

Yes, uh is this motion a definite postpone open for a discussion?

It is.

Okay, may I um we've been through this before in regards Pine Street extension.

Remember, we had the big discussion on the parking lot there, and we wanted to put lights in and everything else, and now we have a homeless issue.

Okay.

This ordinance came up because yes, Alderman Lopez.

There was a problem.

But what's gonna stop the problem from coming back again?

Okay.

It's a two-hour limit.

That's something I think everybody could live with.

If you've been to Salute Avenue, I don't think you gotta want to hang out there more than two hours.

It's an industrial type of street.

There's not really anything, there's no amusement park, there's no Starbucks, nothing there to entertain you.

So a two hour limit kind of assists with what all our parking lots do.

And what they do is to try to increase the flush and keep people moving.

And that's the thing.

It's not a statement with the homeless or the whatever and what gym office showers.

I don't care.

But the thing is just to keep the traffic moving, and that's what's the intention here.

We seem to be playing Ronald Robin again.

So I encourage maybe to one to change a boat too, and definitely postpone.

That way it will keep it somewhat afloat that maybe we can re-look at it at a different time.

It won't, Alderman and Oh, okay, it won't.

Then I'm content to let this die.

Fine.

You don't.

I don't know.

I don't want to say you don't want to work to try to solve.

But I'm getting that impression.

Thank you, Madam President.

Alderman Moran, then Alderman Lopez.

We'll go on.

Uh thank you, Madam President.

I'm not gonna uh beat a dead horse.

Um I I would urge members to vote to support indefinite postponement and let the next board address this this matter.

Um it's only what two and a half months, and it would die here in anyways at the start of the new term.

Um clearly it needs more work if we're on a tie.

Alderman Guevaya?

Thank you, Madam President.

Uh the business owners came down here with a problem.

We came up with a solution, we compromised on the solution.

I still think it's a good piece of legislation.

I'll be voting no on the indefinite postponement.

Alderman Lopez.

Uh, I just want to defend my honor a little bit here.

So I have in fact used Planet Fitness, and I frequently go to the gym for more than two hours because I am a slow runner.

Um, and so I think people might potentially use it.

But for the reasons that I pointed out before, um, I think this was specifically targeting a situation which is resolved other ways, and very similar to what was inferred about the parking meters, which I appreciate the people actually are acknowledging out loud that what they were trying to do.

We have ordinances that already handle this.

We have an overnight parking ban, which I loathe and have gone a million rounds with my uh esteemed colleague, but um we could just enforce that.

We don't have to add more raw laws and rules and muddy the waters and all that kind of stuff.

Alderman Tieble, then Alderman Klee.

Thank you, Madam President.

Um I I I agree with Alderman Gueva.

Um it his ward, it makes sense.

I thought we came to a compromise.

Um I'm gonna go against indefinite postponement.

I think I think we should uh should pass that.

I want to talking to an officer last couple weeks ago or last week, they said that they think the problem might come back.

So um let's be preventative about it.

Alderman Clee.

Uh thank you.

Um president.

Um the the I I do feel for the businesses because they put up with a lot.

Um, and and it went on for way too long.

And if I remember correctly, there were some um vehicles that had been literally towed there that weren't working and and and so on.

Um and and for that I understand, but we do have laws already on the books that stop that from happening.

Stops camping on public streets, on public property, etc.

Uh the reason why we're putting through the next grouping of that um not to jump the gun was because of the um um written aspect of that versus what the state just says is uh permission by.

Uh the reason why we're putting through the next grouping of that not to jump the gun was because of the um written aspect of that versus what the state just says is uh permission by um so we put in that new ordinance this, but it the state still did it, otherwise they would have never been able to tow or move that previous grouping of people.

It was just there way too long.

Um something should have happened sooner.

I'm not pointing fingers at anybody because we're we've all been watching and listening to all of this, but I think if it started happening again, they already have the teeth to move it.

I don't think this is necessary.

I'm just fearful that this sets up a precedent that every time something comes into an area we don't like, we start putting in no parking ordinances or two-hour parking ordinance.

We have two and a half months as was pointed by my colleague.

The next board could bring this back, even if we indefinitely postpone it to sit here and volley this back and forth when we know we've got two really large um ordinances or at least one large one with a uh a sister one to it.

I think we should indefinitely postpone this and then move on to the next uh point of business.

We're gonna sit here with a 7-7 tie.

Um, so I think it's it's time to put this one to bed, and then in January, if if it wants to get brought up again because we're seeing something happening, um, I would support it then.

But now I don't see an issue here.

Um, and I think that it's um it's just setting up a bad precedent for nothing to be there.

I have a feeling, and I I'm not I'm not privy to this information.

I'm just completely guessing that this was probably bought brought forward uh right after what had happened or um while it was happening, trying to give the police teeth, but the police had enough teeth to move it previously, and I applaud them for doing so.

So thank you.

Okay.

Motion is for indefinite postponement.

Further discussion.

Seeing none, would the clerk call the roll, please?

Alderman O'Brien.

No.

Alderman Moran.

Yes.

Alderman Dibodeau.

No.

Alderman Goveya.

No.

Alderman Lopez.

Yes.

Alderman Sullivan.

No.

Alderman Clemens.

Alderman Clemens.

Go ahead.

Alderman Senate.

Yes.

Alderman Jetty.

Yes.

Alderman Tebow.

No.

Alderman Clay.

Yes.

Alderman Down.

Yes.

Alderwoman Kelly.

Yes.

President Wilshire.

No.

Alderman Claubins?

No, he left.

He's gone.

Um seven years.

Six nays.

That motion carries.

Ordinance 2578 is indefinitely postponed.

Just give me one second.

Mm-hmm.

Second reading of ordinance 025079, prohibiting camping on public property.

Alderman Clay.

I'm sorry.

I turned the page too soon.

Thank you.

I'm my apologies.

I motion for final passage of 025-079 as amended by roll call.

And Madam President, this was actually brought forward during the infrastructure committee, and we let it go to um You have to amend it first.

There's no amendment.

Isn't that oh, I'm sorry.

Oh my God.

It's a couple of things.

I jumped really too.

Motion to amend 025-079 by designated the current proposed section 225-6 as subsection A and adding the following subsection B, whenever coordinated enforcement of subsection A above is planned to be directed at an encampment consisting of six or more individual campsites.

Reasonable notice shall be provided to the occupants thereof by means of signage, hand bills, or oral in-person discourse 15 days prior to the enforcement activity.

C.

If in the course of any enforcement action, city agents, employees come into custody or position of any sorry, possession of any person's personal papers, reasonable efforts shall be made to return such property to its rightful owner for purposes of this subsection.

Personal papers means documents of identification, including driver's license, professional licenses, birth certificates, passports, and similar items, as well as financial documents, including bank statements, insurance policies, and declarations, credit and debit cards, wills, cash, bills, and invoices, and similar items.

And D, the requirements of subsections B and C above are not elements of the offense described in subsection A above, nor shall any failure in to adhere in to adhere to such requirements constitutes a defense.

Oh, he's back.

Okay.

Um Madam President, um, as I said, this was brought up in infrastructure, and um it was originally um asked for me to to bring it forward by um Alderwoman um Kelly.

So if you don't mind, I'm going to ask her if she could speak to it.

Thank you.

Alderman Kelly.

Uh thank you.

Um so I'll just start by being clear that I don't support this legislation at all, which is why I appreciate Alderman Klee at least um reading this into the record.

Um the intent here uh is based on some evidence I had in front of me through a report to mitigate harm uh to the people that uh maybe moved out of this encampment.

And the report that I was referring to and bringing this forward is called Swept Away Reporting on the Encampment Closure Crisis.

It's written by the National Coalition for the Homeless.

And towards the back of this report, uh they discuss it's about 20 pages of how can just clearing encampments doesn't work.

But at the back it says, for example, in Indianapolis, a bill requiring officials to provide 15 days' notices to encampment residents before sweep may be conducted past the city-county council by an overwhelming 23 to 2 margin.

That's a significant lead time compared to other cities.

The city cannot destroy campers, so they did that part as well.

Um that was the intent of this.

Since um since our infrastructure meeting, I pulled up the full uh the full legislation that Indianapolis put together, and it it is quite impressive.

Um it it doesn't just do 15 days, it talks about harm reduction, it talks about um ensuring and looking at the feasibility of uh where these people could go.

Um there's a lot in there, so I'm happy to share that with the board at some points in the proper way because I know I'll get yelled at.

Um but the intent of this was to at least reduce the harm if the purview of this board is to put this legislation through.

I am not in support of that, but I am supportive of reducing harm and hearing some of the social workers uh who talked about property, etc.

And how if that's seized, then they can they're just continuing to be in this cycle of homelessness.

Thank you.

Alderman O'Brien.

Thank you, Madam President.

Uh as chairman of the infrastructure committee, if this was a boat, it would have sank.

A lot was written in to this amendment that wasn't necessarily fully vetted in the infrastructure committee.

What was vetted was the discussion of what to do with the personal material of what was going to be removed.

I think when anybody ever gets arrested and incarcerated, I think the police department duly does record all personal items, and it is returned to you.

But I did not see a particular problem.

I question the legality of this amendment, because it says any encampment consisting of six or more individual campsites.

So what are we gonna allow?

Five.

That's okay.

No, it's not.

We're here to address an issue.

So maybe perhaps we should look at it, that maybe one is already too many.

Okay, and uh to notice in 15 days.

Right now, the city kind of does have a rules of one you could utilize facilities, some of the parks are closed at dusk and different things.

So this weighed what was I think a very good if the authors want to trim it back to what was discussed in the infrastructure committee as regarding the personal information, I'd be fine with that.

But this is way too heavy for me and wasn't intended, I think, by the committee.

Thank you, Madam President.

If I could respond, point of privilege.

Sure.

Just want to clarify that this was written by legal.

Um they requested in infrastructure that they have a little bit more time to vet this.

So this was written by legal.

Right, but excuse me.

May I throw it a trio?

May I ask the allowed.

Was that discussed completely?

And I don't think so.

I'll look at the minute.

But I'll I have a list, okay?

I'm working on it.

Alderman down.

Madam President, I I apologize.

Can you add me to the list?

Um I'm on my phone, and it's just very frustrating.

The connecting keeps uh going in and out.

You're on the list.

Alderman Down.

Yes.

Um I fully appreciate the intent of this amendment from Oliman Klee and the words of all the woman Kelly.

Um but based on what we heard from the police department, there's a lot of ambiguity in some of the definitions of what's in here.

And I don't think it's it will help the situation at all without clarifying those ambiguities, and therefore I won't be supporting the amendment as it stands right now.

He left us.

Oh okay.

Alderman Gavea.

Thank you, Madam President.

Nope.

No, I'm sorry, Madam President.

Oh wait, that's fine.

I've had to use the restrooms.

Which is if Alderman O'Brien was speaking, we wouldn't have a time.

No offense, Alderman O'Brien.

I meant in the most positive way later.

Uh yes, it was just time for you.

Um I wanted uh to uh just express um it is does seem hefty.

I understand the uh the point around it, and I will support the amendment, but I think it um so context.

Uh I had to leave the infrastructure more uh meeting about an hour early.

I was able to watch the remainder of it from home the very next day.

I was actually at the New Hampshire treatment conference, uh court treatment conference, which engages uh PD prosecutors, defense attorneys, um, and treatment courts throughout the state here in Hillsborough and probation, etc.

So I didn't have the opportunity um to sit through the remainder of the movie.

Uh sorry, movie.

That's right.

I watched it from home and it seemed entertaining.

Um sometimes the words slip out, it's called an intrusive thought.

Um, but I just wanted to bring attention that um I think the makers of this motion um who I believe went through corporation counsel to have it designed.

Legality, I don't know, because I've seen corporation counsel and Alderman Jetty uh hash it out every now and then they're both attorneys.

So and then different attorneys have just different opinions based on who you talk to.

But I think it nails the the down the basic thing that these folks that are there uh deserve compassion and can care, and the folks that are troublemakers need to go.

Um and giving someone a 15-day notice or holding on to their belongings is a very important thing.

Um I mean, if we seize property, we should be holding on to it.

We've already built a fence to hold on to campers.

Uh we're paying thousands, thousands of dollars to do that.

Giving notice, what's the harm in giving notice?

Um, I know uh the you guys were all gracious enough to allow for these images to be introduced after the meeting was made, but I mean, if you go down to the encampments again down there, how am I I went down to some health care workers on Greater National Mental Health, uh, harbor care uh hearts, we were at Hearts, public health was there, uh and we fed the homeless, I guess, on site with Soul Sisters that allowed folks to come out, get to know us, trust us to come out even more, because some folks that don't trust you don't come out.

And I know a lot of times, you know, I had some clinicians that are newer and students there, and they say, What do you do when you walk into the encampment?

I usually just say I'm a social worker, I'm here to help.

Um, I certainly don't say I'm from the government, I'm here to help because that's a good bad thing, right, Chris?

Um, but it makes a point that after time being there for three plus hours or so, you start to see the actual humanity there.

And one of the pictures of the folks lining up at Soul Sisters um catering truck, the disabled person, first person line in a wheelchair.

Multiple people in wheelchairs are down that encampment.

These people have medical disabilities and they need as much notice as possible.

These people who are in the wheelchairs aren't criminals, they're not running away from Chief Rourke on the battery power that they had that they're charging at the heart's respite.

Okay.

People there are mentally ill, have substance use disorder, have physical disabilities, and yes, there are other people there, and maybe some mixed in between who are uh uh causing trouble and by use of later law.

New Hampshire Medicaid does not have a medical respite fee schedule.

Harbor Care's medical respite could never uh become uh operational because of that.

There's no medical respite other than Boston, which will not take our uh our clients because they got their own problems to deal with.

Um you gotta go down there and see the actual people that are there.

I saw Bob Keating there today and we just had casual conversations, and the folks that are troublemakers for the PD and doing all these calls, some of them clearly have a mental illness, and there's no amount of ticketing or noticing or anything that's gonna affect anything.

That's a state process.

The civil commitments have to be changed.

There has to be low barrier group homes.

I know four or five of the folks there that I know are causing a lot of the calls, and there are the violent criminals that are going there.

There's the public safety and public health.

They're uh competing opinions, but they're both correct.

You cannot have one without the other.

You have to do it together, and this helps do that.

This amendment.

It it is a bit confusing.

Maybe we're gonna spend some time to go through the confusion piece so it can actually be enforced appropriately to the best of the PD's ability.

But I mean, yeah, come on, guys.

I brought these photos just so you would know that when we're voting, there are people in wheelchairs that are actually homeless in these in these uh tents.

You're taking one person's house plan away, too.

I don't know where we're gonna have to oh it's the mayor's upset with the city.

Oh joking.

Uh and then you got the animals.

You mean society's full too.

Where are we gonna put the animals?

We're we get probably people why aren't we enforcing animal whatever things down here?

Well, guess what?

There's nowhere for them to go either.

Um we got a problem here, guys.

And uh it's not just the guys who are strangling uh women um who are cowards, it's people who are sick who need our help, and government can do a part of it.

Private business can do another part.

I went down there as a private business and private health care providers, didn't even tell the city.

I told Director Bagley, I think at seven in the morning, I'd be there.

Good luck stopping me, kind of thing.

Uh, but we were there.

Um, and so many other organizations came out, and I know Mike at the United Way was there at hearts uh right after meeting with Ken talking about the situation as well.

So it's a collaborative effort.

I call the PD all the time.

Last two times they come to my facility, it's about shooting threats and uh pedophilia.

That's what they should be responding to.

Not disabled women trying to get some food at a food truck.

Give them 15 days' notice, guys.

Thank you, Madam President.

So I am uh opposed to the amendment here, and I think my colleague from across Amherst Street in Ward 2 hit the nail on the head with the ambiguity with the uh kind of the gray areas here.

And I think with me, it it kind of comes down to the encampments consisting of six or more individuals on a campsite.

What are we defining as a campsite?

And I I think the deputy brought up a very good point during his public comment of this is all gonna be stuffed stuff we're gonna be asked in court.

Well, is can you justify the campsite being the full city?

Is that a quarter-acre lot, acre lot, two uh 200 by 200 plot?

There's no plot lines here, and that's uh to me that's gonna open up for a lot of debate over what we call a campsite, how big we're calling it, and like he said, is that six tenths, six people?

I just think there's a lot of area for interpretation on this.

Um I think uh it's gonna just bog down this piece of legislation in my opinion.

I won't be supporting it.

Well and Clee.

Uh thank you, uh Madam President.

Um, first I want to clarify something.

Um, this was discussed at the infrastructure committee, but based on um counsel's um assistance, we pulled it back because I made the motion for this, but we pulled it back because it had not been vetted through legal counsel, and that's why that entire conversation had not happened.

So to to say this, and I even said it at that committee.

I want to make this loud and clear that when this gets brought forward and was not completely discussed at that, we knew why.

So um you can go back, read the minutes and so on, and I and I understand where you're coming from, but we did.

We did discuss it, and I did make that comment about um the uh fact that this.

Now, having put this forward, I'm going to kind of talk out of both sides of my my mouth here.

Um the um the 15 days when I first brought it up, um, when my colleague had asked me to bring it up.

I thought the 15 days was just for the current encampments.

But it does read that it would be all encampments and so on.

So, as was put forward, if they were to um to move to another site, we'd have to give them another 15 days, or if they were to move maybe five feet, they would give them 15 days.

I will be honest, I am not for that.

Um I am for the personal papers.

It was originally talked at the um at the infrastructure committee, and a little bit more conversation happened about I think it had been brought up, not personal papers, but personal belongings, and it was very clear, and that made a lot of sense that the city doesn't have the ability to store personal belongings and so on.

So all that conversation did in fact happen um at the infrastructure committee.

Um so I would not be forward to belongings and so on, but I do think just trying to make an effort to get personal papers and so on is is a good thing.

Um I am not um opposed to saying that this 15 days is for um current um current encampments that exist at this very moment that we're trying to clear up and that the next ones that build up they can move them immediately.

I would not have an issue with that.

I think that would meet the um and I know that um I I won't state who, but I was given clear indication that they would be giving at least 15 days to the Pine Street in encampments.

Um I feel comfortable with that, but I would feel more comfortable if it were in writing that said that they had to give at least 15 days to the current.

So I'm willing to to make that change, but I want to have discussion to continue.

Thank you, Madam President.

Alderman Clemens.

Thank you, uh Madam President.

Um I'm gonna stay off of my camera because I have been having all sorts of connection issues tonight.

Um so I I appreciate the amendment.

And um, however, I I can't support the way it's written.

I do think that uh we need to give people reasonable notice.

I think we need to give everybody reasonable notice, not just people that are in groups of six or more.

Um 15 days is too long.

Uh I would support 24 hours, and I would support holding documents as well.

So you know, if this if this were amended to uh give every person who is camping, or every tent or whatever, however we want to do it, I guess every person 24 hours uh notice to leave.

Um would certainly support that, and of course, I would support the rest of the uh the amendment regarding the documents.

I think that's the right thing to do.

Um but the 15 days for me is too long because uh others have mentioned um that basically just gives people license to to move around and continue to um stay on our on our you know in our parks and things like that, and it kind of defeats the purpose of the ordinance.

Uh I think 24 hours notice is more reasonable.

Thank you Alderman Lopez.

Um so to the previous speaker I would observe that um the ordinance amendment as presented is specific to six or more campsites because the larger campsites it may not be in the interest of public safety or health to disperse 80 plus people at the same time.

So the idea of giving a advanced notice is coupled ideally with outreach and and alternative services is to provide the same incentives that the police feel an ordinance would provide, but also enough time to logistically respond to the notice because you know, as alderman of the wards surrounding the current campsite, I am concerned about how moving people around all at once could potentially disrupt the you know residential neighborhoods and programs in the area and the businesses, and that was also a concern that was acknowledged earlier this evening by the police that it probably wouldn't be a good idea to try to do this all at once.

They pledged that they could probably do 15 days' notice if that's the will of the board.

Um and my understanding from the previous presentation that they made was the primary intent of this is to signal to them in a in a clear way that the city does not approve of camping.

Um to some of the other comments that were made, I was present at the infrastructure committee meeting the public and view that it was brought up, and I actually was not entirely in favor of the initial form of that because what was presented initially was all the belongings should be stored, and I thought that was unwieldy, but where some of the public speakers, I believe uh Jen Bishop had pointed out that documents can get lost, um, and where one of the previous speakers mentioned that there's a high need for health care.

Health care relies on documentation, and if you lose your documents, it can be a massive setback.

Even getting into housing, which we want to happen.

You might need a criminal record printed out, and that costs 20 bucks.

Take you forever to get 20 bucks if you're living in a camp.

Like there's there's simple things that paper that are on paper that we that people need in order to furnish it.

Um ideally, everybody at a campsite has an alternative.

They know about Google Drive, or they can scan it or keep it somewhere safe.

But some people don't have phones, they don't have access to those kind of things.

Um so this provides a mechanism for us to not only allow the police to do what they're trying to do, but make sure that we don't have an immediate blowback effect where a lot of people are suddenly in a worse-off situation, and now the police are gonna have to repeat the measure somewhere else, you know, or ideally as they presented it, bring them before a judge and hope that that person can navigate all of the decision making that's necessary to successfully find housing and stabilize themselves instead of putting themselves in an even more precarious situation that taxpayers will have to pay for, and our system will be overburdened by.

So this is common sense.

Give people notice if they have absolutely nothing, because it takes time for people who have no resources to figure out what they're gonna do.

Make sure that you're focusing on the documents and the essential belongings, and I say essential in a very pragmatic way.

I got a little feedback there.

Um in a very pragmatic way.

We're not talking about family photos or you know, belongings of of lost loved ones, which I have had I've worked with so many people who've lost the only photos they have of their lost child, or the only records that they had of their DD 214.

Like this is very important stuff, and it should be a consideration.

The amendment says reasonable efforts, it doesn't say you know, do the impossible or the immovable.

I think this is i is fair.

Um I would point out that in the actual ordinance, which I know we've all probably read to death, it defines camping as essentially storing your belongings and then coupling it with other activities like preparing to sleep.

One of my initial concerns about that was if I'm a freak really park listening to a concert and I have a backpack and I'm I'm getting ready to take a nap, I'm accidentally camping.

It's a very broadly written ordinance.

We're assuming the police aren't gonna chase me around and look for me to start nodding off.

They use their discretion, they use their application.

So will they necessarily you know hold up in court?

That was expressed earlier that they they struggle sometimes to take have their cases prosecuted, and I infer personally that that may be why they don't necessarily intervene with the existing state statues and and other tools that are available is because they they don't want to engage and then uh intervene and then just lose in court or open themselves up to any kind of lawsuits or negative publicity.

I can see that, but I also think we can't write a perfect ordinance for people who don't want to use it.

And there are already tools and resources.

This at least balances the scales a little bit so that we can say we're focusing on providing advanced notice to larger campsites, and when you have a lot of people who might suddenly be displaced and might suddenly be be in need of additional welfare assistance or you know, support from nonprofit organizations or charities, at least they have their IDs in their documents so that we don't get swamped by people who need IDs and documents.

I think that's the intent here.

Um I would support the amendment, certainly.

Uh let's see who I have next.

Baldwin Senate.

Thank you, Madam President.

Uh, I'm going to support the amendment purely in the interest of harm reduction.

Um we we've bandied out a lot of words about what different people perceive this legislation to be.

Um if we're acting in the interest of notice, then I think we can at least partially acknowledge this as the city evicting people from the only home that they currently know.

Without actually providing a wraparound of someplace feasible to go.

Um it's been a long time since I've ever had to worry about navigating the court system in regard to a rental unit, but it's my understanding that there is still a legal notice required for a landlord looking to evict a tenant somewhere in the market, Alderman Moran could probably correct me somewhere in the market of 15 to 30 days, depending on the offense.

Um I think we do I think that state law exists because we acknowledge that taking people from their homes is a hardship that they need to prepare for, and I think that in passing this amendment, we can at least acknowledge that the folks that we're dealing with in regard to this specific ordinance are still people.

So I am wholeheartedly behind allowing them that notice to prepare their next move, and I'm wholeheartedly in support of them preserving their personal documents.

Thank you.

Alderman Tebow.

Thank you, ma'am.

Um yeah, I'm not gonna support it.

I think it's a rough amendment with with not very specifics on the stuff that that we said earlier.

And um, yes, the police said they would do what is the will of the board, but they said a bunch of other stuff before that, and uh they were not supportive of that at all.

Um and so you know, I'm gonna I trust our police force.

They say this would be hard to um do.

Uh I don't see the reason that it doesn't make sense to do it.

Um the as far as the the belongings, that's fine.

I have no issue with that piece.

It's the everything before that, um the days and how many camps and what's a camp and all that.

It's just it's too difficult for them to implement.

So if that was the case, we shouldn't just do it at all.

So I'm I'm not voting for the for the amendment.

Alderman Clemens.

Yeah, I'm all set.

Thank you.

Aldman Sullivan.

Thank you, madam chair.

I'd like to make a motion to further amend 025079, please.

Okay.

I would like to uh make the motion to amend it by striking the language in subsection B where it says uh whenever coordinated enforcement of subsection A above is planned to be directed at an encampment consisting of six or more individual campsites.

Could I speak to it?

Yes.

As I listened to the discussion, it seems that the uh it it was it was mentioned in during public comment by Deputy Chief Kenny that Nashwa PD would extend a 15-day uh notice.

However, if we leave this in the amendment, it memorializes it, it's in the ordinance.

That way it's written down.

As far as uh the personal property, it's my hope that that's what happens anyway.

Um I would I would like to go and maybe ask uh director Bagley when they cleared out Crown Street what they did with all the personal property there.

Uh the gray area during public comment seemed to be around the size of the campsite.

I think that when we make an ordinance, we have to understand that while we, the makers of the law, while we make it, it leaves this room and then it's left to others to enforce.

I think what's important is when you're trying to enforce a law that it's clear, it's concise.

You absolutely understand it.

Um that's why I think if we strike that first part of the language, it clears it up a little bit more and brings it in focus and allows us to do things we were going to do anyway, but now it's passed and it's in law.

Okay, so we have two amendments now.

Can't go any deeper.

Well, you vote on the amendment to the amendment first, and then you vote on, depending on what happens with that, you vote the prior amendment as it's been amended or not.

Okay.

Alderman O'Brien.

Yes, uh, question would be to my through you to my colleague Alderman Sullivan.

Uh, not to make the third amendment, but on your second amendment, would you consider uh the notification?

You know, we have what is designed to sign the chain bills and oral, but 15 days.

Are you content with the 15 days, or would you like to have it, you know, short at 24 hours or two days' notice?

I think that I think 15 days uh is if I may.

Yes.

I think uh 15 days is good.

I think that um given where we are in the calendar year, I think um any time that we can can give a bridge to these folks to uh uh find a place to go.

I think that that we owe that, and uh and uh and I'd like to leave that as it is Alderman Clemens.

Uh thank you, madam president.

Um yeah, I I again I can't support this because it's um to me the 15 days is unreasonable.

Um you're basically what you're going to have is somebody that you could potentially have somebody that just continues to live in different spots 15 days in a row, and you're gonna have the police chasing them.

I think the point of the ordinance is that we want to prevent people from uh camping on public property.

And you know, I think the humane thing to do is to give notice.

However, um I what I don't want to see is having the police chase people around the city.

I think um we need to be stricter, and uh that's just how I feel.

Thank you.

Okay, Alderman Clee.

Uh thank you, um, Madam President.

Um I I I appreciate this.

Um, and I'm going to ask a question, if I may, Madam President, to the maker of that motion.

Um I I I hear what the police and what Alderman Clemens just um stated about that the way this reads is it would be any encampment, even future encampments.

Would you be willing to, which is what I was going to do, um, change the motion to be um of currently known um encampments of any size so that we don't have that problem um of the police having to chase somebody that moved to 10 feet or down one street and have to give them 15 days to move.

Um that was kind of I think the comment that the police had made.

I don't think his motion had to do with the 15 days.

I think it had to do with the size of the camps, yeah.

But I think we if if I'm mistaken um to to through you, um madam president to legal counsel, we can only have two amendments.

Is that the case, or can I can I make that amendment?

You cannot amend a proposed amendment to a proposed amendment.

Okay.

You vote.

Then I can make the amendment.

And then you then that would open it to the level amendment would be available.

Thank you for for that advice.

And I'll take what I said back and I'll bring it up in a moment.

I've got other reasons why your thing would not work.

Okay.

I'd love to hear it.

Okay, how about if we take a vote on the amendment that Alderman Sullivan made, and then we can go back to the regular the amendment that was original?

I suggest you have it restated.

Yes.

So that it's clear what it is.

Thank you.

Yes.

Alderman Sullivan, would you mind restating your motion?

Yes, ma'am.

I would like to make a motion to further amend uh 025079 by striking the following language is planned to be directed at an encampment consisting of six or more individual campsites.

Don't you want to leave the word is planned in advice of counsel?

I would like to leave in is planned.

So I would strike to be directed at an encampment consisting of six or more individual campsites.

So you've heard the motion.

Let's move.

All right, let's take a vote on that motion.

Would the clerk please call the roll?

Alderman O'Brien.

Yes.

Alderman Moran.

Yes.

Alderman Thibodeau.

No.

Alderman Gobea.

Yes.

Alderman Lopez.

Yes.

Alderman Sullivan.

Yes.

Alderman Clemens.

No.

Alderman Seneth.

Yes.

Alderman Jetty.

Yes.

Alderman Tebow.

No.

Alderman Clee.

Yes.

Alderman Dowd.

Yes.

Alderman McKelly.

Yes.

President Wolchhire.

Yes.

11 years, three days.

That motion carries.

We're back to the original motion.

Minus that.

What was just stricken?

Alderman Clee.

Uh thank you, Madam President.

I think we've already heard me state what I wanted to do, and I'd love to hear from legal counsel as to why this would create issues.

It's going to be unenforceable when you go to court.

Okay.

How is anyone going to prove six months from now?

Okay.

Is that you?

Is that the police officer who issues the citation?

Is that the judge?

You've got to you've got to be specific as to what you're talking about.

I I and I and I appreciate that advice.

Um so I I guess I was just jumping to the conclusion that I remembered at some meeting they said that we had seven encampments, so but I appreciate that.

So I will um be more specific.

I think the largest encampment that we have, and the most concern that I have is the um Pine Street.

So I'm going to say that um uh 15 days prior to enforcement activity for the Pine Street extension in case.

And one of the boundaries of that.

Oh, okay.

I don't, I just yeah, right.

Okay.

Um I I don't have that, I don't have the boundaries, sir, so I can't I can't speak to that.

I think you're setting it up so it's unenforceable when you do things like this.

Okay, but then thank you.

I will withdraw any motion I was going to make now.

Okay.

Alderman O'Brien.

Madam President, we seem to try and in motion, try to build something, we should be a little bit more stable.

When I was up at the State House, if it wasn't ready for prime time, you didn't bring it to the floor.

You worked on it in a committee.

Uh infrastructure.

I hate to do it to you guys, but we'll hear it again if need be.

And try if you've got to do something, let's get it right.

I'll take it back.

Is that a motion?

Is that a motion?

All right, I'll make the motion to re-refer it.

To the infrastructure committee.

And it's entire 025,079.

That's debatable, right?

Motion is to re-refer.

Alderman Dowd.

Yeah.

And I was having a problem with the again with the original motion.

Well, without the amendment, I think the amendments are coming close together.

And in the last few days, I've had meetings with a couple of people that do things for the housing.

And I had talked to Director Bagley.

Uh and in talking to this pastor of one of the churches in my ward, and who uh another home that that not only cares for homeless people but provides them with apartments and food and clothes and refrigerators and places, you know.

And it's it's an infant Jesus church.

Uh Infant Jesus School or was a school.

And in talking to those two people, they wanted to coordinate with other people to have a centralized approach to helping the homeless.

My problem is I don't want us to go in and close the people homeless and have no place for them to go.

So I mean, we're gonna be talking about some sending a couple of a couple other pieces of legislation about a resource center.

And you know, I don't want us to go down and say you're out of here, and with no comments as to where they can go, no resources.

And there the only reason I would uh pass the original ordinance is I trust our police department to be compassionate.

I mean, I work with them all the time, and and they're not like things you see on TV.

They're gonna work with those people, and I think that it should be a closer relationship with public health, and somebody needs to coordinate these agencies so that we can send the homeless people to place to live.

We want to get them out of the cold.

We're opening up the warming center.

Hopefully, we can open up sooner.

And and uh we're gonna have the resource center set up, hopefully, in the near future.

So while I I have uh I'm in a turmoil because I don't want to displace the homeless people.

They deserve a place to live.

And and as we've seen, a fair number of them are not the problem.

But I'd like to give them a place to go.

And as far as the the people that are uh having drug addiction, I know that St.

Joseph sends a mobile place down there, and they're trying there's people trying to work with them, but they need a place to go.

The problem is the people that are have uh addiction problems, there is no place to go.

Whether it's the federal, state or or even ourselves, there's no place for them to go.

And most of these places I've talked to that take in the homeless, you have to take a background check and a drug test.

If you fail either one of those, you don't get in.

So how do we handle that particular group?

And the other reason that that um I want to I want to support this legislation is there are actors in the Pine Street extension that are causing public safety issues.

Now that we have to separate, there are a lot of homeless people there that aren't causing any issues from safety standpoint, but one of the ordinances with the trailer and the motorhomes, from what I've heard from the police department, those are primary problems.

And I will be supporting that legislation, but I want to I want an understanding that if the if the legislation passes uh with or without the amendment, um I uh I I want us to have some coordination is to help these people find a place to go and live.

Um and I found that there are there are openings in places, but if we don't coordinate all of these agencies that are trying to help the homeless, then how can the police department tell them hey, you should go here or go there?

I think when the police go in to do the enforcement, public health and some of these other agencies ought to be there in the parking lot, ready to say, okay, you can come with us, or you know.

Uh so it's an extremely difficult problem.

And most of the people that I've talked to are concerned about mines falls.

We have a beautiful park, and now people aren't using it at all.

Um when it gets really cold and it's winter, you know, that'll probably solve a good part of the Pine Street extension because uh it's gonna be tough to live there.

Now, you also can't have open fires, and and if you have an open fire, that's a violation.

That that's a risk of burning down the park.

That's that's something that has to be enforced.

So I I think the police department has said we need this ordinance so that they have some teeth to go in and get rid of the bad actors, but I also want them to have and I also think they have the compassion to work with public health and these other agencies to help the homeless people and give them a place to go, especially in the winter.

The warming center is great, but that's at night.

We need the resource center that we're hopefully gonna be enacting soon, will be a place for them to go to the day.

I I mean I'd prefer that we have a place where they can spend the entire day, and that requires the coordination of all the agencies that want to help.

But if we don't coordinate all of those agencies, it's a it's a mishmash.

So it's a very difficult situation, and and that's why I'm I would uh fighting with the original ordinance.

Um we're getting close on the amendment.

I appreciate it, Olivan Sullivan's uh amendment.

Um and I hope we resolve all the issues that the police department has is somebody that's actually been the naval justice school, of course.

And they when you go to court or court martial in the Navy, you uh you better have your facts straight or else.

But you know, I I don't want us to take people that are just down on their luck and homeless, you know, with fines in court, but also if we offer them the help and we have a place for them to go and they refuse that's a different story, and I don't know how we handle that.

So I'm still conflicted on this entire ordinance, but I want to hear more motion is to re-refer.

Uh next I have Alderman Thibodeau.

Um with this ordinance, um, much like the next one that's gonna be coming up, neither of these were were intended to to solve homelessness at all, right?

Right, they're to solve two issues.

And the people that we entrust to make sure we sure stay safe are highly recommending these because in their opinion, these are powder kegs waiting to go off.

So that's why they need to pass.

And then immediately we also need to worry about the then, right?

So what happens then?

You can't state mine falls, then what?

Right?

Where do they go?

I get that.

Um but this is not to solve homelessness, this particular piece of legislation.

And I and the reason I voted no against um Alderman Sullivan's amendment was the amount of of days.

I I just don't think that 15 days is is too long in my personal opinion.

Um the size of the camp, I my opinion again is that the reason these become so heartfelt is because it was able to get to the size of 76 individuals.

If it was a camper or a tent, it would not feel as heartless trying to find a solution for a individual or a family versus trying to find a solution for 76.

So I think allowing it to once we handle Pine Street to enable it to another encampment to get to a large size again is just going to continue to proliferate that problem.

And so say it's five and not six.

Well, is it allowed to stay five for nine months?

So I the only thing about this amendment that I like would was is protecting the people's property.

I get that from I've only gotten the one, but the continuum of care, a lot of people were talking about to be able to get them out in Alderman Lopez as well, to be able to get them the appropriate services.

They need all that um documentation and to have to redo it again and again because they're it's lost or they weren't able to retain it.

It's expensive, it's cumbersome, and it's it's a burden on the city as well as the individuals that are losing their stuff.

So I get that.

So I'm in favor of it just with without B.

Reminder, there was a question on the table.

And I know that didn't kind of cover the the particular motion, but no, it didn't.

Alderman Clemens, yeah.

Thank you, uh Madam President.

I'm back on my phone again.

Because uh again, having trouble.

Um so um, yeah, I um I'm concerned about this going back to committee.

Um we it was disgusting committee.

You guys are right.

Um I thought that um I I only caught the tail end of that uh meeting.

I had uh an emergency where I was coming back from Boston.

Um, but I I did hear um you know the tail end of that that committee meeting, and I thought um I thought it was well attended, I thought it was well done.

Um you know, but I'm I'm concerned uh of this going back to committee because if it does, then we're we're just delaying, we're just delaying the the the issue.

Um and I I don't think that that serves anybody anybody well.

Um so you know, I I think we're either gonna do this or we're not and my concern is by not doing it, um we are then effectively opening ourselves up to allow anybody to come into Nashua uh and and camp on our public lands, uh including just people passing through.

Um so I I really think that we need to do something.

I think we need to do something tonight.

Um because if we don't do anything, uh then this problem is going to get worse and not better.

Thank you.

Alderman Clee.

Uh thank you, Madam President.

Um I I'm gonna support going um back to um committee, and and my reason for it is much of some of what has been said um in in speaking with um city officials.

I know they're working really hard on a resource center.

Um this would give them some time to kind of get their plan together.

I know it's not gonna happen overnight, but the one thing I heard when I spoke to people from the nonprofit agencies was that um they were willing to step up.

Some people say, well, why didn't they step up before?

You know, I think sometimes until a tragedy happens or until something extreme happens, we don't open our eyes well enough.

You know, we um a year ago I was willing to come to this board with Alderman Clemens on a something very similar to this that stated that we should do what Manchester did.

Um I I would probably support this if it if it went forward.

Um I I'm not sure that I necessarily agree with the the 15 days forever because I do I do have that that issue that someone is just gonna move and we're giving them 15 days and 15 days.

I would like to to um state that you know maybe the 15 days starts as of a certain date.

I don't I don't know.

Um I mean that it it's extinguished, it expires after you know January 1st or whatever.

But I think that can be talked about in committee.

And the reason this was not talked about in committee is what I said before was because it had holes in it when I was just speaking to it, and I appreciated legal, you know, putting the brakes on me and saying, stop, you know, you're gonna put us into into jeopardy and so on.

And I appreciated that counsel.

I have to listen to what um he says because I do respect him.

Um so for that reason I really do want it to go back to committee so we can have this conversation to give the nonprofits hearts united way, whoever that are willing to step up and to work with public health.

I also feel that you know we we have to respect our police officers and so on.

Um I do believe that one of the things that we had a problem with with the current situation is um we put porta potties there and we put um dumpsters, so therefore we gave implied permission.

If another camp comes up and we haven't done that, I don't understand why we wouldn't be able to break that up immediately because we haven't given them any of those resources, and the state legislation already allows them to stop that.

Um so let's be honest here, we're really talking about about Pine Street.

Um, and I and I think that to suddenly throw 75, 76, I hear a lot of numbers, anywhere from 75 to 100 people out there immediately.

My fear is for the businesses.

My fear is for the residents that they're going to be, you know, sleeping in people's yards or sleeping on the doorsteps.

And and Manchester does have the problem that they scattered to the wind and um they're all over, and maybe you don't have a large encampment, which in this particular case is a dangerous encampment.

But I really am gonna support um sending this back to committee, and I appreciate the chairman um having having mentioned that.

Um I really do, but um I think you know, at the committee this may live, this may die, but we'll have that conversation.

Thank you.

Alderman Teball.

Thank you, Madam President.

So uh Alderman Klee hit it on the head, right?

It's like, oh, we put this legislation through, and then all of a sudden everyone's coming out of the woodwork for it.

And the last four years I've heard not enough about it, other than from Director Bagley and her team.

Um because they work hard every year trying to get the warming station in.

Um, and I think Alderman Clemens, Alderman Thibodeau made some great points there as well that I agree with.

Um tried to do a second reading on this because you we were told how important it was.

Uh three of us, three different Alderman made a second reading plea on three of these legislations.

It did because we were told it was a ticking time bomb.

You know, what Alderman Thibodeau said.

That didn't work.

Okay.

Got to expedite it to committee.

Which was okay, great.

We spent four hours in committee.

Four hours.

It went five-zero.

Five-zero to come here.

So what did we miss in committee?

That five people passed it unanimously.

And now we're gonna send it back there after debating it for another three hours.

I mean, it just doesn't make sense for me to support going back to committee.

And and the 15 days to me, the reason why it's just too many days.

Like I think it's just gonna be bouncing around.

It's Alderman Timodeau and Alderman Clemens point.

So that's I'm not gonna uh approve to send it back.

Alderman Senate.

Well, thank you, Madam President.

Um I'm happy to send this back to committee.

Um certainly.

Um I came here with an amendment in my pocket that I was gonna make um once we had disposed of the first amendment.

Um mine was much less wordy for the benefit of our legislative manager.

Um but I'm happy to in the interim um pass that by legal.

And then join the folks at infrastructure and hopefully manage to get that amendment on the uh floor for discussion and uh a vote up or down.

Um we're constantly, constantly, constantly saying that the work is done in committee.

And I think I proved last can I?

Yes done.

Thanks.

Sorry, it's hard for me to talk with people making um you know gestures in my peripherals.

Um but nevertheless, I I think I proved last week that I'm willing to come and do the work and join that conversation if I'm allowed.

And as long as that invitation stands, I'm perfectly willing to do that.

So I'll certainly vote to send it back to committee.

Alderman Moran.

Uh thank you, Madam President.

Uh thank you to my colleague at large and colleague from Ward 9.

Um Alderman Sullivan tends to always surprise me with um things like this, which um the amendment and I know we're also talking about the reef referring to committee, but um uh I'm glad this is happening.

The conversation, I'm glad we got to hear where we are.

Um I'm okay supporting the main ordinance with some of these amendments through the compromising of making it less harsh so that folks that are not criminals or disabled, etc.

have neat things to go and do.

Because Alderman O'Brien and Alderman and Sullivan, their their motions or their amendments represent the ability to look deeper into the issue beyond just the camping thing.

That's what we're talking about.

We are talking about no camping, but it's about who's there.

Um, because we can't pretend like we don't know who this is impacting.

I mean, come on.

And I know I'm not saying anyone here, everyone here is very intelligent.

Everyone knows what we're talking about.

Uh but the bare bones of it is it's no camping ordinance.

That's correct.

Um I just want to point out again, Farnham Center in Manchester shut down, no no state funding.

Oh, look at this.

There's more people in Nashua and Manchester who need more treatment.

Oh wow, wow.

Surprise.

Federal government shut down folks in that encampment who I talked to can't reactivate their Social Security benefits because they can't have their paperwork certified by a human being because the government is shut down.

That's not our fault.

No one it we could take that in consideration and say, hey, let's wait till the government's reopened so at least and get your benefits turned back on, right?

We got folks there that are literally going to work and leaving their animals with someone to care for um who is disabled and can't leave.

That's a community.

Give people who are in apartments a notice to vacate, give people a notice in the park.

Yes, they should not be there.

We need to put places uh for them to go.

Everyone needs to enjoy and uh enjoy the um the parks.

And I'm gonna support that motion to re-refer, but even if it doesn't get that way, and we make some changes here at the fold board, which I'm also willing to do to stay all night to do, I'll do that too, and I'll support whatever comes out of it as long as there's some amendments made that take into fact that humanity piece that Alderman Sullivan is really nailing there with that that notice piece and then balancing it with public safety.

Um we also have to understand that the state decided not to follow through with its commitments on the federal settlement agreement for mental health services in the state and shut down the apartments at the mobile crisis center right there, Pine Street Exten extension.

Nowhere for crisis uh people with mental health illness to go.

That's not the hospital anymore.

The Pierre Hart's respite, that's not from mental health crisis, that's for stable folks who are trying to get back on their feet, stabilized, and move forward.

The mobile crisis unit had licensed clinicians, doctors, physicians, nurses, medical care, in addition to psychiatry.

Um the county attorney has found it not uh to be an appropriate endeavor for his uh county prosecutors to join the drug court um treatment team.

You'll show up to termination, but guess what?

The folks that shouldn't be in the drug court that should have been terminated by now, we're getting federally indicted for trafficking are still stuck in the drug court program here in Hillsborough County, but because the prosecutor won't show up to the team meeting to collect the evidence to kick those folks out, so someone who actually can fit into that program and get treatment and get out of jail and go into the community and get back to work, can't happen.

It's not happening.

And we're also at risk of losing our certification nationally uh for the drug court treatment program.

Learned that last week.

Judges, defense attorneys, prosecutors, police officers, probation department, Hillsborough County told me these things.

Um these are the things that are pressing down upon everybody, and it just happens they're coming to Nashville Manchester.

And it just happens they're coming to Nashua Manchester.

You're right.

We can't bear the burden.

There is legislation at the state that's supposed to change the what is considered uh social welfare services on who's considered a resident.

That might change things in the future, but right now we have to follow the law that says someone's in Nashua and needs help financially, we have to help them.

State law, not an ordinance in the town or the city.

Um these are just things you have to keep in mind because it's a bigger picture.

I don't expect anyone around the horseshoe who's not involved in on a day-to-day issue to know these nitty-gritty details.

The police, again, their position on public safety is right.

The fire department position on public safety is right.

Director Babbie's position on public health on this issue is right.

And we're working right now to find a balance that strikes uh the for the betterment of the city, and I love it.

I think it's the greatest thing that we're doing right now.

I can't think of a better way to exit my term doing something just like this.

And I appreciate everyone here who's participated in that.

Um I think I have one last thing on the minute O'Brien.

That's okay.

Well, I'm gonna make the motion to move them up.

Yeah, it's not over.

We have discussion to pretend motion.

I know, I'm just joking around.

Um, you know, these folks are probably warmer than they've been for a bit, so longer we talk the better.

Um but I I'm hopeful um that we can do more on this if it doesn't go best back to the committee or we can resolve it tonight, that's great.

I just want to point out one small story of the encampment visit over the uh over the past couple days.

Um my business partner, my wife, um, came down with us.

She works at my company, our receptionists.

Oh, my wife, Nashua Native.

I have to point that out.

33 years here in the city.

I know people think that's a thing.

Um, my receptionist and a person at the encampment, all Nashua natives grew up together.

Three girls who were in the same clique, right?

All three of them have experienced homelessness here in Nashua.

I think generational Nashua has a problem taking care of its citizens.

And it's not just generational Nashua that's here.

We can all work together to help the problem because it's impacting generational Nashua and quote unquote new Nashua.

We can work together to resolve the problem because clearly the same old samel's not working a three-generational Nashua native women can stand together in a camp in Pine Street and say we all went to the same elementary school and graduated from the same high school, and where are we now?

At some point we're all homeless and then we have different lives.

And some of them just recently got a job in back into housing, thanks to neighbor works for my receptionist for uh is one example.

But those are full.

So I just want to keep that in mind.

Like it's not a I've been here this many years kind of thing.

I've been here forever, I've been born here, I'm whatever generation.

Because if it's based on that, generational Nashua is failing.

Uh it's children.

Aldman Lopez.

Um, so I have a couple comments.

I'm gonna try to be quick.

Um the first is that I have no problem with the amount of time we're spending on this because I mean, cumulatively, maybe eight or nine hours at most of meeting time compared to one single night sleeping outside and then waking up in the cold and then being expected to solve your your problems.

I mean, 15 days is is a stretch, especially this time of year.

I can get other times of the year where it may be a little bit easier.

Um, but I think we need to do this work, and I appreciate very much that people are willing to actually do the work and make sure that we're thinking this through very carefully because it's people's lives and it's a reality in the encampments.

It's also the residents around.

We really need to make sure we're thinking about the ramifications of this because I wasn't sure I should bring this story up, but there's already a woman who has moved out of a campsite or out of a campsite at Morens Park, and she moved there for DPW uh displaced her.

Then she went uh and part as far as I know, like three different locations around Palm Square apartments and uh a lot, and the police were responsive to it as with as much discretion as they could.

Public health was using their discretion, and she was moving around because there's nowhere to go, and the resources are very limited.

Now she's blocking the rail trail behind another business who's calling and saying, What are we doing about this?

And the solutions are not clear.

And I would point out that the police are human too.

The police officer who's going to respond in the moment and has to answer the question that we have not provided an answer for.

Where am I supposed to go?

If you talk to most of the people in the encampments, not only this year, but last year, they're in the super encampment because the city has been closing encampments throughout the summer and and periodically to clean them up and to manage them.

They've been doing it as humanely as they can, but they've also been telling them, police included, go here.

So this is last man standing.

This is the end of the summer and livable uh months.

We've closed down all the campsites that were near people's homes that they were complaining about that were near schools or near businesses, and people have been gravitating to the last place that everybody telling them to move is saying to go to.

So there isn't like a beacon at Pine Street Extension saying come here.

People are saying go there when they're being pushed out of where they are.

So if we don't create a solution, if we don't figure out the drop-in center, and you know, if we don't give the continuum time to lick its wounds from everything that the that is happening at the federal level funding-wise, and and reconsolidate their plan, then we can't move forward.

You can't walk without two shoes on your feet.

You have to have the enforcement, but you also have to have the opportunities and the alternatives.

And if we go with only half of it, we're just gonna keep hopping all over the the city.

So I really am concerned about how this will affect my residents and my businesses.

I appreciated uh Bonyan tree uh coming out.

I'm familiar with the business, I didn't know they changed hands, but I feel like a bill of goods was sold if they said there was never homeless people in Pine Street extension because they're 20 years of working with the homeless people, there have been campsites all over that place.

Never this big, admittedly, but dozens of people all around in different sites behind NIMCO building, behind the sign, like it it's it's very much a popular area because it's out of sight and it's away from people, but it's also close enough for resources, it's also close enough for help.

These are issues that you are that are somewhat perennial, but we've always been able to address them and respond to them in a humane way, using our nonprofits, using our charities.

And this this year, a lot of things, it's been 17 years and three months.

A lot of things have happened that have changed and upset the social services support system to one of the previous speakers' uh points.

There is a coordinated entry system.

There is an every single shelter, every single transitional housing program, sober house, domestic violence shelter.

There is a coordinated entry system in place.

There isn't capacity.

There were like two openings at any given time at all.

Periodically, you have little waves of it.

The soup kitchen did a great job last month, and we're able to move a lot of people out of their permanent supportive housing and bring new people in, uh, which was amazing.

Like there, there's an uh an incredible amount of work being done in the community right now.

And if anybody doubts whether the continuum of care can handle this, I would remind all of you of what happened when Stepping Stones closed and the the 20 or so people that were living over at Daniel Webster College, nothing because the continuum stepped in, organizations changed what their plans were, worked together, and helped people find housing.

They can do this.

We have to give them the opportunity to do this.

And if we're gonna write legislation which is permanent and enacted on everything from one person's campsite to you know, 200 or whatever, God willing, we'll never see that size again.

We need to make sure that we're doing this in a way that is sensible.

And we're doing this right now because of one campsite that is at the end of the season that has literally had people pushed towards it.

Same way last year pointed out that the capacity of the railroad encampment, which predates the Crown Hill, if anybody's remembering all of this, it was huge too.

And public health was working on that all summer.

I I know because I was helping clean it up all summer with a core of volunteers.

There's a lot of stuff that needed to be done.

And a lot of the origination of that issue wasn't because people are slovenly or lazy or whatever, because there was nowhere for them to throw trash.

So putting dumpsters out isn't necessarily an invitation to to put up your campsites and be homeless, it's public health 101.

We need to make sure there's trash cans so people can throw away trash.

Same thing with porta potties.

You know, we we should have those out in that area anyway.

So I think it's important for us to get this right.

We need to do what Nashapy is asking us to do.

But we also have to recognize that we're the legislators, and if we write legislation, they have to enforce it, and that goes doubly for if we write it without clear intentions and clear boundaries, but also if we set them up to handle the immediate situation in front of them and then just end up having to play whack-a-mole over the next you know couple of of weeks.

This is a very important time.

People are trying to figure out where they can go and what they can do.

And if we disrupt the partnerships that are actually making that happen, we are not doing anybody any favors.

We need the housing solution, we need the emergency shelter solution because we're missing that.

It was mentioned that the city put the mayor mentioned we put a lot of effort into helping expand and manage the uh the national soup kitchen.

So the single occupancy is basically the same.

We expanded family occupancy because the old configurations of the shelters just didn't allow for families with more than two or three children to reasonably occupy.

And we were seeing families get split up.

We're seeing the dad take the older son and go to Manchester, and then the mom take the two younger kids, and and they may never get back together.

So it was a very humane decision made by the soup kitchen, but it didn't necessarily increase our overall capacity.

And right around the same time they were getting ready to open, Maple Street was closing.

Our shelter our city needs more shelter capacity to give people a way to access the resources and services that they need.

And because we haven't been doing that over the last probably three years.

You know, we all know what happened with the ARPA funding, and suddenly we had a bunch of people whose vouchers expired at the same time.

We all know that we pulled together and and tried to navigate the crisis that was at hand, but ignored people who are getting further and further afield, and we built up an unsheltered population.

We have to take our time with this, and I'm not trying to stall it to kill it.

I'm saying we can't screw this up.

Because if we do, people are gonna die.

People are gonna be displaced, they're gonna be in extremely dangerous places we can't reach, they're gonna have to make decisions more decisions that are there's no good option.

And all of the work, all of the investment we've been putting into expanding public health and building these partnerships and trying to do these outreach programs, which are only really two years old, it's gonna be wasted.

We're not gonna save taxpayer monies, we're not gonna make anything safer.

We really need to think this through.

So I will I would definitely support the motion to be referred to.

Alderwoman Kelly.

Uh thank you.

While I would prefer a motion to indefinitely postpone this, I will support going back to committee based on so many of the comments that have been made before me.

I think that as a board, this is probably the most consequential piece of legislation that's been put in front of us.

And I want us to sit in that for a minute.

Because the decisions we make are going to affect people in ways that we have not seen hit our desk before.

And I'm gonna tell a little story, and then I won't bore you with the three pages of of comments I wanted to make.

But I was getting ready to leave, and I had bought these uh lunch notes for my son, and he was drawing on them during dinner and handed them back to me.

And I thought they were pretty profound given what we um are taking up tonight.

So one says, don't stop until you're proud, and the other says it may not be easy, but it'll be worth it.

Alderman Dough.

Yeah, I'm not gonna sport going back to committee because we can have a four-hour discussion.

There's only five people with vote in the infrastructure.

Here everybody gets a vote.

And even if it whatever happens in infrastructure, it'll be won't come back to the full board for another two weeks or more longer.

I don't know when the infrastructure meeting would even be.

And where are we?

You know, just so you know, it's snowed on Halloween more than once, so we're getting into desperate times, and I think we need to make a decision one way or the other.

Motion is to re-refer Alderman O'Brien.

Yes.

Uh I heard a lot of your comments.

Some of them the question is to refer it back to committee.

But I heard all your comments, everything else.

But the question again, and why did I suggest to bring it back to committee?

If we look further down the road, we're gonna be asked on our 252 twelve and not 25-213, establishing expandable trusts for our National Resource Center and uh fund from donations and one through appropriations.

I don't know.

You know, what came first, the chicken of the egg.

We were asked to defend parks for our citizens.

You know, yes.

The in-house has rights, but so do our citizens and infrastructure committee did a fine job.

Alderman Dow, you were right, they came out five to nothing to support it.

But it seems here in the chamber, people have other complexities.

Perhaps maybe, and I hope by referring it back to committee that we look at the uh the expendable trust that's gonna be going to budget, establishing the resource national resource center.

Maybe you might feel a little bit more comfortable in defending the parks for the people again.

So I know I apologize to my committee members.

Yes.

Alderman Teva brought up that we had like what a four-hour meeting, a five-hour meeting.

I hate to put us all through it again, but it seems that that's this is how we got here.

We can't come to a clean consensus.

So I welcome it back.

Alderman Sullivan.

Madam President, I'd like to move the question.

Motion is to move the question.

Would the clerk please call the roll?

Alderman O'Brien.

Yes.

Alderman Moran?

Yes.

Alderman Thibodeau.

No.

Alderman Gobaya.

Yes.

Alderman Lopez.

Yes.

Alderman Sullivan.

Yes.

Alderman Clemens.

No.

Alderman Senate.

No.

Alderman Jetty.

Yes.

Alderman Thibault?

No.

Alderman Clee.

Yes.

Alderman Dowd.

Reluctantly, no.

Alderman Kelly.

Yes.

President Wolsire.

Yes.

Nine yes, five nays.

And that motion carries.

So the motion before us is to re-refer.

Would the clerk please call the roll?

Yes.

Oh that was just a Alderman O'Brien.

Yes.

Alderman Moran.

Yes.

Alderman Thibodeau.

No.

Alderman Gobea.

No.

Alderman Lopez.

Yes.

Alderman Sullivan.

No.

Alderman Clemens.

No.

Alderman Senate.

Yes.

Alderman Jetty.

Yes.

Alderman Thibault.

No.

Alderman Clee.

Yes.

Alderman Dow.

No.

Alderman McKelly.

Yes.

President Wolf Shire.

No.

Fails.

Seven yes.

Seven nays.

Tie vote.

Motion fails.

Okay.

Right.

Motion before us now is for final passage as amended.

No, it's we never voted on the amendment.

We didn't vote on the amendment.

Oh, her amendment.

Okay.

Can you make it a little bit more?

Right.

Could you tell me again what your amendment is?

I'm sorry.

The one that we have in front of us minus the one sentence from the previous amendment.

Okay.

So the motion is to amend.

Right.

We didn't take a motion.

A vote on the so point of order.

Did we pass uh Sullivan's amendment?

Yes.

Yes.

We did.

So the motion.

The motion is to amend.

Alderman Sullivan?

So the motion is to pass as amended.

Amended amendment.

The amended amendment.

As amended by you.

Right, but we've already passed the amendment.

Yes, it was.

We passed yours, but not mine.

Oh you amended.

You changed the language of the amendment.

Okay.

Sorry.

So the amendment is everything that Alderman Clee read minus the part we struck on Alderman Sullivan's amendment.

Right.

Okay.

That's the motion before us.

Alderman Moran.

Uh thank you, Madam President.

Just um through you again to corporation counsel.

Um, what's the fine schedule on this one?

I don't know if we set one on this one.

Is it the thousand dollars per offense kind of thing?

Maximum of a thousand when may I when you say maximum like to the judge?

It's up to the judge.

The judge can do anything from zero to a thousand I like that.

Okay, thank you.

Any further discussion?

Seeing none.

Did the clerk call the roll?

Alderman O'Brien.

Yes.

Alderman Moran?

Yes.

Alderman Thibodeau.

No.

Alderman Gobaya.

No.

Alderman Lopez.

Yes.

Alderman Sullivan.

Yes.

Alderman Clemens.

No.

Alderman Senate.

Yes.

Alderman Jetty.

Yes.

Alderman Tebow.

No.

Alderman Tlee.

Yes.

Alderman Dowd.

Yes.

Alderman Kelly.

Yes.

President Wolchhire.

No.

Nine gays, five days.

And that motion carries.

Alderman Senate.

Thank you, Madam President.

Since we're not going back to uh committee, I'd like to make a motion to amend 025079 by striking the words upon passage in the final line of the ordinance and replacing them with the words no sooner than the opening of the city-run overnight warming station for the 2025-2026 winter season, and I'd like to speak to it.

Alderman Senate.

Thank you.

Oh no.

We can't say no soon.

You've got to say a definite time.

Or some way to determine the definite time.

You could say the day the warming central, but I'm I'm amenable to amending my motion.

Okay.

Um to forego the words no sooner than.

Um could I no that would be the same issue?

Yes, I I'd I would I would like it to read on the day of the opening of the city run overnight warming station for the 2025-2026 winter season.

And I'd like to speak to that.

Is that past Muskbert?

That's acceptable.

Thank you.

Alderman Senate.

Well, first off, thank you to Attorney Bolton because legalese is not my forte, and that's why we keep you around, and I really appreciate your input on that.

Thanks.

Is that why?

One of the many, many reasons.

We were all underless.

We're back here for final passage, and the question still has not been addressed.

Where will they go?

This doesn't, in my opinion, make the ordinance any better.

I'm still not a gigantic fan of it.

But at the very least, this holds our feet to the fire.

If we can get the warming station open sooner, terrific.

Then we can start issuing citations sooner.

If we can't, and we're locked in on that December 1st date that we've been advised by public health, and I did speak with public health on this when I was contemplating this uh amendment, and they said that we are still at the very least on target for December 1st.

Then upon the point of citations being issued or issuing warnings, what have you, people can have at least a place to go overnight.

It doesn't solve the issue, but it wraps it around a little bit.

It puts that stop in that we're right now just telling people you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here.

You know, people need a place to go.

We've established at least far out a place for them to go.

So let's make this coincide so that we're not continuing to put the cart before the horse.

At the very least, they can walk alongside each other.

Thank you.

Alderman Sullivan.

Thank you.

Question through you to the maker of the motion, please.

Yes.

The 15-day uh grace period that was passed into the ordinance.

When does that start?

Does that start on December 1st or does it start 15 days prior?

And the 15th day is December 1st.

If I may my intent here is to change the effective date of the ordinance, and I I believe in doing so, um, this would take effect upon the opening of the warming station.

So that would be day one for all intents and purposes.

Follow-up.

Yes.

So just to clarify, day one would be December 1st.

That would be day one.

Assuming that's when we open, if not sooner.

Yeah.

Alderman Lopez.

Um, I brought this up when we were talking about the warming station specifically, and I think it applies here.

Um, we're not opening the warming station until after the holiday shrill, which I think is kind of unwise.

Um, and I also am pretty terrified about the idea of breaking up an encampment just a couple weeks before that's happening and having the subsequent effects on the downtown businesses.

They've been aware of the situation, they've been bringing it up.

I've been attending a lot of meetings with them.

I've encouraged them to interact with the continuum because, in my opinion, the best way to navigate the situations that they've been bringing up is to engage nonprofits, have them have a friendly relationship with them and be able to reach out to outreach workers and and things of that nature.

But they have been very clear that they are concerned about you know activities downtown.

And I know uh we've had several meetings about that.

In my opinion, as soon as it came up at the library, the board of Alderman did a meeting, we've acted very quickly on that, and subsequently this action seems to be coming into place as well.

But I would argue that probably these are not exactly the same populations.

The people that are doing the things that downtown business owners are concerned about are a fractional portion of a much larger population that is versus the people who are over at um Pine Street extension.

And I I do not think that downtown businesses have actually seen what it might look like to have a full-blown I guess invasion of people coming to places that they need to go once what's going on at Pine Street is broken up.

I don't want to see that happen, obviously, but I also think that the motion to amend as we have it right now might also kind of push that at least to where we have a warming station, but also to where we're not looking at major downtown holiday activities and also trying to deal with the social justice crisis Alderman Clemens.

Thank you.

Uh Madam President.

Yeah, I uh am going to make a motion to further amend.

Okay.

And the motion is that uh the effective date of the ordinance will be November 16th.

And I'd like to speak to that.

Did you say 16th?

Yes.

Okay, you can speak to that.

As opposed to as opposed to when the warming station opens okay.

Um purpose of the motion is we're giving people 15 days to notice before they have to evacuate um a camp.

So by doing the by making the ordinance effective on the 16th of November, uh, by the time the uh warning station is open if it if the latest date is December 1st, um it will um that station will be open if it's before then, then it's a moot point anyway.

Um but this at least will get the ordinance be able to take effect and have the police be able to uh to do what they had wanted to do.

Okay, just uh through you could um could I ask the um there?

Somebody from the health department to know is Director Bagley is here.

Okay, uh then Director Bagley, could can you tell us you know when you can guarantee that the warming station is going to open Director Bagley Bobby Bagley, Director of the Division of Public Health and Community Services?

We are expecting to open the warming station on December 1st, so we're still on track.

We've uh sent out offer letters to nine people already.

And we interviewed 12 people today, and we'll be sending out offer letters to all of those 12 people uh tomorrow.

So we're on track as long as we can get through the hiring process.

Well, what's today?

Today's the 28th of October.

So could I follow up?

Alderman Jetty.

So if if so if we pass legislation that says that this ordinance will take effect on the day the warming station opens, and we have a provision, or excuse me, if we say it um it takes effect on November 16th, um trying to tie into this 15-day notice period.

Are you are you comfortable with that?

You know, are are the are you comfortable with the police on November 16th, telling people they've got 15 days to leave and that you're going to be able to coordinate their moving into the warming center?

Even though the warming center is not open yet, you're going to be able to manage that.

Do you feel comfortable with that or not?

Director Bagley?

Bobby Bagley.

So the terminology of moving into the warming station is not a terminology that we want to use because it's not a shelter.

So the warming station is a place for people to be able to go in to warm up.

They can go in for two hours, four hours, six hours, all the 12 hours that it's open, but they don't move in.

Um with the closing of the encampment, and then giving people the two weeks that they need, we'll give folks the opportunity to get their stuff packed up, and then either if they find storage or have storage, they have to find some place to put their things, those things would not come to the warming station.

What we would provide in that time period is again we would still work with individuals to try and get them connected to other services as well.

Warming stations will is one option.

We would still try and get people to seek out shelter, going into treatment or recovery, um, finding or going in to stay with family if they can because it's going to be cold.

It's already cold right now, but the warming station will allow for folks that don't and can't get into the shelter to be able to come to Elm Street to warm up.

Okay, and um could I ask another question?

So they can come into the um Elm Street to warm up, but we know where are they going to be the rest of the time So on December 1st the uh National Soup Kitchen and Shelter is gonna have this extended uh warming shelter open warming station open during the day, which they normally do, and then they'll also have 20 additional beds that are supposed to be available for sheltering their extended emergency shelter.

Um did I understand you correctly they're gonna have 20 additional 20 beds more than they have now?

Yes.

That is the plan.

Okay, thank you.

Alderman Moran.

Uh thank you, Madam President.

Um, and I appreciate my colleagues from Mort Seven and Colleague at Large for bringing forth the the two amendments that would support either one of them.

Um I again I think um after hearing more of the conversation today and these amendments that were proposed, I would um reluctantly support the overall ordinance at the end of this, but I'm not sure if my colleague at large would consider maybe terminology changes to um 15 days prior to the opening of the um the warming uh station shelter, non-shelter.

Um just in case maybe it gets changed at December 2nd or 3rd because of a staffing issue.

And I'm sure Department of Public Health would know ahead of time, and then if it did get opened earlier, then that's 15 days earlier that it can be enforced.

I'm not sure if that's a something you would be willing to do if I may respond, Alderman Clemens through you to Attorney Bolton.

Is that is that language possible possible?

I'm not you know if some crises were to happen, and you may not know on November 20th, you may fully expect that the warming station is going to open even if it gets delayed, it will be open by December 5th, but between the 20th of November and the 5th of December, the heat goes out in the Elm Street building, and it doesn't open until January 1st.

Yeah, you you won't have known that, right?

So you won't have a definite time.

Frankly, I you want you want me to finish or not?

No, I'm gonna withdraw my motion.

Thank you.

Okay.

So the motion before us is Alderman Senate's motion.

The day the warming stations open.

Further discussion on that.

Alderman Thibodeau.

I I have a question just because I I like the amendment.

Um once that's instituted, right?

That that's in perpetuity, right?

So that's so what happens come spring.

Alderman Senate.

Uh I I think my amendment just refers to the go live date, if you will, of this ordinance.

That's it, just the I mean one.

You know, whatever we enact or fail to enact beyond tonight and the decisions that we make here.

Whatever happens, this ordinance is what it is.

So I would I would assume an attorney Bolton could correct me if I'm wrong that all we're doing here is setting an effective date for this ordinance.

We're not uh, you know, putting putting a uh twilight on it or anything like that.

Right, good that's no part of the current motion.

Well, I'm not gonna do that.

Sunset or anything, not yet, anyway.

No, what what happens is you know shelter opens on December 1st.

This ordinance takes effect and then it's in effect until it's repealed or otherwise altered Alderman Moran?

Thank you.

Just bouncing off of attorney Bolton and my colleague from Word 7.

Um, that would uh uh assume that the next board could say we can amend this next at the next term for that year and so forth if it was in the flavor of the of the next board.

Is that correct, Attorney Bolton?

Absolutely, thank you.

Ohderwoman Kelly.

Uh I think you in essence I support the um intention of this, especially where we don't have places for people to go, um, and it's getting very cold.

Um I'm gonna throw an idea out there.

I know that when our housing director spoke about this at the infrastructure meeting, uh, she talked about how enforcement and support services working together is a best practice.

Don't want to cut off debate.

Wanted to hear your thoughts on doing a joint infrastructure and budget meeting where we can talk about the legislation that's coming under suspension that's brought forward around a resource center alongside this piece of legislation and work out all these pieces.

Not only does it allow us to look at both of those measures together, but it also is a I think it's the whole board.

Pretty close to the whole board on both of those committees.

So we don't have the issue of only five people in infrastructure got to look at it.

So we're referring it back to committee.

Do you have a motion?

Okay, I left it for discussion because if I make the motion that it just get this passed, okay, all the memorandum.

I I would um I I would like that idea if it was January.

Um I think what we have now is um or where we can uh what tonight uh is the best that we can do at the moment in time, and I think clearly this all has started a great conversation about what really is needed in Ashua, and I'm proud of that, very much so, and I look forward to those ideas that Alderman Kelly has uh being further discussed and amended or changed at the next board because I there's only two months left, and I know we all have a duty to the very end of the year, but this is so substantial.

I don't want to rush it too too much, but the work we're doing right now is so so great.

The original amendments, the changes.

I just don't want to see that falter okay.

So the motion before us is the amendment by Alderman Senate that the day the warming stations open would be the effective date of this.

Okay, how about we take a vote on that amendment?

Would the clerk please call the roll?

Alderman O'Brien, yes, Alderman Moran.

Yes, Alderman Thibodeau, yes, Alderman Goveya, no Alderman Lopez, yes.

Alderman Sullivan, no Alderman Clemens, yes, Alderman Senate, yes, Alderman Jetty, yes, Alderman Tebow.

Yes.

Alderman Tebow.

No.

Alderman Clay.

Yes.

Alderman Dow.

Yes.

Aldwoman Kelly.

Yes.

President Wolchhire.

Yes.

11 yes, three nays.

And that motion carries.

Okay.

We are back to the amended motion.

We're back to the amendment that Alderman Clay brought in.

Didn't we vote on that?

We already voted on that.

I now have to do as amended.

I have to read.

Okay.

Okay.

Um at this time, Madam President, I would like to motion.

Well, maybe.

But then it wasn't voted again.

Okay.

We already moved.