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

Fellow so God with the spirit of unity and understanding, which enables us to face the multiple problems with a serene mind, with justice and charity for all.

So that may any and all decisions made by us will always be for the betterment and the greater happiness of all our fellow citizens.

So help us God.

I plagiarizations of the United States of America and the Republicans.

One nation with liberty and justice for all.

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

Alderman Clement.

Here.

Here.

Audible in Chess.

Audible women Smith.

Here.

Alderman Tiabo.

Here.

Alderman O'Brien is present.

Altuman Gray?

Here.

Alderman Dowd.

Present.

Alderman Sullivan.

Here.

Other senate?

Here.

Alderman Johnson.

Present.

Alderwomen Kelly.

Here.

Alderman Morgan.

Here.

Alderman Lopez.

Alderman Wilshire.

Here.

You have uh 13 members present.

We have a quorum.

All right, I'm gonna turn the public hearing over to Alderman Dowd.

Okay, this evening we're gonna have public hearings.

Uh the first one that was on the agenda, R 2607 is not going to be heard this evening because it's going to be modified at tomorrow night's Board of Alden meeting, and we'll have to go to a separate and later public hearing.

So we're going to start with resolution R26010, increasing the maximum allowable amount in the snow removal expendable trust fund and making a supplemental appropriation of $500,000 of assigned fund balance into the snow removal expendable trust fund.

Does someone here that give us an overview?

Thank you, Alderman Dad.

Good evening.

My name is Lisa Photo, and I serve as director of public works.

With me this evening is John Iberas, the superintendent of the Street Department.

We're here in support of resolution 26-10, which would increase the maximum allowable amount in the snow removable expendable trust fund.

It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone listening that this has been a tough winter.

It has taxed our staff and resources.

I want to thank all of our public works first responders who leave their own families and work around the clock to keep streets plowed and treated for Nashua residents.

We've had 23 events so far in fiscal year 26 as compared to 16 in fiscal year 25 and 12 in fiscal year 24.

We budget 1.5 million for snow in our operating budget and have spent about 1.8 million to date, which does not include last week's two storms.

Most of the money spent to date is an overtime in SALT.

150,000 has been transferred from the trust fund into our operating budget for SALT.

In 1998, a snow trust fund was set up with $300,000 to cover emergency snow removal costs in excess of yearly budgeted snow removal costs.

In 2008, the trust fund was increased to $350,000.

In the past seven years, salt alone has gone from $49.50 per ton to $79.79 per ton.

We are asking to increase the allowable amount in the snow trust fund to $800,000 and requesting a supplemental appropriation of $500,000 of assigned fund balance to be placed in the DPW snow removal fund.

Thank you for your time, and I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Not this year, that we could take some of the money and put it into that account so that when we have a bad year, we have can draw from that without having to have special spending resolutions and increasing the tax year.

So that amount of money hasn't been added to recently because it had that limit of 350,000.

But that's not adequate anymore.

So just for the new people, the new board of Alden, this is uh uh an item that we use to uh allow for years like this year, and unfortunately the count wasn't high enough.

Questions okay.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

So I'll now on R26010, call for testimony in favor.

Seeing no one.

Testimony in opposition.

Seeing no one.

Once again, testimony in favor.

Seeing no one, and testimony in opposition once again.

Seeing no one.

Uh now call a public hearing on resolution R26010 close at 7.05 p.m.

Open the public hearing on our 26010 at 705 p.m.

Our 26010 relative to the supplemental appropriation of 600,000 of assigned fund balance into fund number 7064 hydropower reserve fund.

Mr.

Chairman, you said you said 010, you meant 0112.

Yeah.

012, I'm sorry.

That's okay.

You read it properly.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

I'm happy to speak in favor of 0102 if you'd like.

I'm sure director for Photo would appreciate that.

I know she needs more funding in her snow reserve fund.

But here uh this evening, I'm here on behalf of 012, a $600,000 appropriation into the hydropower reserve fund.

For those that may not be familiar, particularly for newer members of the board, we currently operate two hydroelectric facilities here in the city of Nashua, a one megawatt facility at the Jackson Mills uh area adjacent to Margaritas, and the other within Mine Falls Park, a three-megawatt facility that we've operated for several decades now.

The way that these have been funded in the past, just because I think it's relevant to tonight's discussion, is that although the facilities generate revenue, that revenue actually goes directly to the general fund.

It's not it's not actually allocated to any kind of enterprise fund, it's not put within any other type of fund.

It in fact just precipitates to the to the general fund.

With that in mind, what we have done for critical repairs in the past is that we have set up a hydropower reserve fund.

And again, the primary use of this has been to conduct emergency repairs on the on these hydropower facilities.

The reason being that when issues happen, we need the ability to quickly mobilize capital and make those repairs in the interest of not losing critical revenue.

Certainly, uh with all of the white stuff outside on the ground, although it's quickly melting, we are in sort of the prime season when it comes to generating revenue at these facilities, and it's important to be running.

Unfortunately, about a month ago, uh we were given the news that one of the turbines at the minefalls facility had in fact went down and with a more critical uh issue.

In fact, one of the turbine blades had broke, broken.

These are fairly old uh turbines, they're several decades old.

Uh, we're doing repairs on a an ongoing basis, but we haven't had a repair of this nature of this magnitude in many, many years.

I want to point out right now that we are slated to repair these turbines over the coming five to ten years.

So if I get the question this evening of whether we're putting good money into bad, I want to be clear.

While replacement is planned, we lose the ability to generate revenue if this fix is not made.

And it's likely that these facilities will remain online for several years.

As an aside to that, we generate at the Mine Falls facility between 700 and 1.9 million dollars annually.

And having one of these turbines down results in a decrease in revenues of about half that, of course.

What I also want to point out is that with one turbine down, we actually increase the wear on the other turbine, which again is an aged turbine several decades old.

It's not a guarantee of failure, but it's not helpful to have us running on one turbine at that facility.

And so when this critical repair news came in, we had a very deliberate and long conversation with the mayor about whether or not to move forward with the repair and how immediately.

Again, being in spring snowmelt season, recognizing these turbines are likely to be in place and operating for several years until we do a turbine replacement.

We ultimately decide to bring forward the $600,000 supplemental appreciation request before you this evening.

And again, this will fix that blade, that turbine blade that is currently broken at the facility.

One of the things that's interesting about this request and other supplementals that we've asked for in the past is that we asked for these monies to go directly to the hydropower reserve fund.

We actually believe that this repair is going to cost less than $600,000.

But the reason that we're asking for that $600 is because there are some unknown unknowns with the project.

Once we open this thing up, it's possible there will be some additional costs.

And when we have a fairly reliable estimate, it's possible that we'll need more monies.

We will miss, I fear to say it, it's likely we'll miss the prime of snow melt season, but our hope is to come online for the end of spring and into hopefully a very precipitous uh summer season as well where we have lots of rain.

I want to just quickly mention that in the event that we don't repair the turbine, the facility will simply that turbine will sit without running.

Uh we really don't have an option.

We could certainly make the choice to do that, uh, but it will sit with some for some time without operating.

In the event that we choose to do that, it is possible that I could be back to talk to you about closing down that facility in its entirety because of that additional wear.

And I don't mean that to sound like it's an either-or or a threat of anything that nature, but we are concerned about the additional wear on the one turbine that is operational if we continue to go in the fashion that we're going right now.

Uh with that, I'm happy to answer any questions that the committee may have.

Any clarifying questions from the board of all the Oldman Sullivan.

Thank you very much.

Uh Director Sullivan, if since this turbine is offline now, and if this money were to be moved into the trust fund to fix it, are you confident that we'll get the parts and the the folks there to fix it in time should should we allocate this money?

If I may, Mr.

Chair.

Um Alderman Sullivan, it's a question of what what in time means, uh, to be quite honest with you.

Uh, up until today's weather and tomorrow's weather, uh, I was confident we would get the parts in time to capture the bulk of snow melt.

Obviously, it's a it's a lagging process though, right?

So we're not going to see the the the flows at their highest level right now when the snow melt is happening, but we will see it over the coming month.

I'm not confident that we're going to have this facility fixed over the next month.

I am confident we'll have it fixed over the next two months.

But I want to be really, really clear that it is not a guarantee it's going to be up in this next month, and it's likely it won't be.

Okay.

So I don't want to want to make false promises.

All of them.

Uh the money that goes into it, and you had mentioned that you may not need all of it for the repair.

Sure.

Uh given the age of the other turbine, would it would it make sense to use some of those leftover funds perhaps to buy spare parts for the other turbines?

So should you get up against it again, at least they're on hand, and you don't have to worry about supply chain and and whatnot.

Our new hydropower manager, Alderman Sullivan.

That's exactly that's exact that's in all in all seriousness.

That's exactly what we're planning to do.

We actually I we actually have identified some PM tasks that need to be done to the other turbine in this interim period.

Um it's one of those things that when you see a failure in one of these turbines, you start to then go back to the other one and say, you know, is that part at failure potentially?

I mean, these are huge, complex things.

You've seen them, you've been to the facility, uh, but we are hoping to allocate additional monies to that.

I also want to be clear.

The existing reserve fund does not have a zero balance.

There are monies in there.

What we try to do, however, is to maintain a balance that would allow us to make the average critical repair, but to be frank, not a critical repair of this magnitude.

So we are carrying balance.

Uh we could pay for a portion of the existing repair with what's in there, but not the whole thing.

What we're instead saving that money for is some of that spare part ordering and PM that needs to be done on the other turbine.

And again, we we fund the Jackson facility out of there as well.

Fortunately, our Jackson turbine is brand new, and so we don't really expect expenses when it comes to PM over the coming year.

Okay.

Any additional questions, Olivan Clee?

Uh thank you.

Um Director Sullivan, you had commented that um annually that particular uh unit, is that correct?

700,000 to 1.9 million.

Um I assume that's over the you said annual, so that's over the entire year of it.

Um if I and you said without that turbine, we could lose up to about half of that revenue.

So when I think of losing 350,000 to almost 1 million dollars, um, it almost pays for itself by getting putting this money into it and and making sure.

My only concern um is that we fix this one and the other one goes.

Do we know what the health of that is and and what uh the previous speaker had mentioned, that was going to be my comment.

Are we prepared if that does happen?

If I may, Mr.

Chair, respond to that.

Um we are we did a pretty intensive preventative maintenance preventative maintenance inspection after this other turbine went down all the womanically.

Uh we are planning to make some improvements to that existing turbine.

That said, you know, I I want to be clear, these are these are old pieces of equipment.

Uh a catastrophic failure can happen due to a log due to any, you know, anything really.

That said, I don't see anything immediately on the horizon.

Um in the event that something does come up, I I expect we'd have a very clear conversation with the mayor.

We do the same analysis we did this time of is that repair actually worth it depending upon how much useful life or frankly how long we have until our turbine replacement project.

So I don't see anything on the horizon, but anything I hate to say anything can happen, but truly anything can happen.

Quick follow-up.

Follow up.

Yeah.

Um and I I know that spring is probably the height of the power because of the melt in and so on.

But throughout the the year, and I don't really want to read you summer, but throughout the year, we um we we're still generating um with the two.

Absolutely.

And we would still lose that whether we caught the spring or not.

I mean, we would hope to catch as much of the spring as possible, but even not doing so, we lose a lot of this revenue or some of this revenue or we we lose a substantial portion of it.

I mean, the reality is that if we assume that it's going to be two to three years until the turbine replacement happens, if we choose not to make these repairs, the the facility will just be down.

Um so to be to be really clear, even in a very, very, very, very low yield year, this is going to be a net neutral investment.

Okay.

Um, you know, even if we yield only 300,000 of revenue from this turbine, if you will, it will make its it will make itself up over the next two years.

If the turbine replacement were next year, I'd be telling you something different.

I wouldn't say spend six hundred thousand dollars on this piece of equipment.

It'd be a very different calculus.

But given two years, based on the timing of this, I think this is the right thing to do.

Um and to be clear, you know, the when speaking to the mayor about this, I want to you know speak on his behalf here.

He asked me those exact same questions.

You know, can we wait and save this repair?

And again, based on the timelines, the answer I think is uh is a no.

And that was the point I was trying to make loss of revenue versus the cost.

So thank you.

Any other questions?

Olivan Johnson.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for giving us this presentation.

Sure.

Um, how much is in the reserve fund right now?

Do you know?

Um, I can confirm Alwan Johnson just while I go back to my computer before the actual meeting, but I think it's about 300,000 that's in there right now.

But I'll I can confirm and take a look at at least the most recent balance sheet that I have.

I can't I can't remember off the top of my head, but I can look.

Okay, so roughly almost about half of what you're asking for.

Yes, yes, that's correct.

And we anticipate using a portion of that for some of the PM, but then the balance of the of the 600,000 would go into the rest of the PMs on the other turbine.

But I can confirm that exact number just so you have all the info you need.

Okay, thank you very much.

Any other questions?

Uh just from a logistics standpoint, since I spent about 40 years in that subject.

This turbine uh repair hopefully is going to last until at such time as if we decide to replace the entire generator.

Um could be five years.

So I mean that's one thing.

So you spread it out over that period of time.

Yeah, and and also um, you know, if we replace one generator at a time, we can keep the other spare parts, and this would be a good part for quite some time.

And you know, the other point I wanted to make is we need all the revenue we can get this year.

So uh I think that's an important point to make.

There are no other questions.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'll now call for testimony in favor of our 26012.

Seeing no one, and we'll call for opposition to resolution 26012.

Seeing none.

Once again, testimony in favor of R25012.

Seeing none.

Once again, testimony in opposition of R26012.

Seeing none.

I will now close the public hearing and resolution R26012 at 718 and open the public hearing on resolution R26013 at 718 p.m.

R26013 is relative to the supplemental appropriation of 280,000 dollars of assigned fund balance into Department 168 solid waste account number 55520, NHDES surcharge fee.

Yes.

Jeff LaFleur, Superintendent of Solid Waste.

Um we're requesting this for uh a rule change that happened with uh New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services.

They decided to uh charge every ton of waste that goes into our landfill at $3.50 per ton.

Uh this we have to accept the charges at the landfill.

We'll have to refund or send a check to DES to make up for the three three dollars and fifty cents a ton that we that we uh take in.

And at some point they will re reimburse us some monies back for the for the trash that we pick up curbside or for the trash that's been dropped off at uh in the residential dumpsters.

So there's a whole uh calculation that DES wants us to do, and I have to have the monies available to pay them and then wait for our monies to come back.

The director and myself went and or we spoke with uh the director at DES, and there is no leniency for municipalities, even though we own our own landfill, we run it, we take the trash, and that's all that we take in the city.

They still want us to do this uh money swapping, I guess you call it.

So I have to have the monies available off of what I've been uh using our um cap capacity analysis of $80,000, 80,000 tons a year, which multiplied times 350 is the 280,000.

So I'm not using or requesting any more monies that we're hopefully gonna be close to what we need to pay DES and hopefully get reimbursed for it.

Questions?

Yes.

Can you explain the reimbursement portion of this?

So right now it's uh it's an interim rule.

They're still trying to go through the rulemaking policy.

They threw this on us last October, November.

We still weren't 100% sure if it was gonna happen.

So basically, what it is is three dollars and fifty cents a ton uh for every ton of trash that comes into the landfill.

The reimbursement, as far as our understanding is right now, would be for anything that the residents bring in, or that we pick up curbside.

So the difference would be any commercial that's coming in from any of the commercial entities.

That's where the difference would be.

Follow-up?

Yeah.

So if we if we st theoretically, I'm not saying we should do this, but theoretically, if we stopped taking commercial, we only took our own resident trash, that we wouldn't have to pay this.

We we would still have to pay it.

But then they're reimbursing.

For before, we'd have to pay it, but but going forward, we this would be we we'd have to pay them quarterly, and then they would reimburse us quarterly.

If everything lined up perfectly, we get everything back, yes.

Just but then you're taking revenue out of the landfill.

Yeah, it's gonna be clarification.

We get paid for that trash that goes in the right clean.

Uh thank you.

Um the commercial trash is only from residential is that correct?

I mean from Nashua.

From natural from Nashua only.

Any waste that goes into the landfill is from Nashua.

So it it would be businesses that generate it, or if um I had work done at my home and a company was doing it, they could bring that to their.

It's not like somebody from Windham can bring their trash.

It's only Nashua, whether it be commercial or whether it be, you know, someone so on.

So they're saying that regardless, and let's face it, so commercial just means it's being brought in by somebody other than a physical resident or our landfill.

Yes.

It's still national trash.

Yes.

And they're not gonna reimburse us for that because is it because we charge?

Well no, it's because it's uh uh municipal waste that's coming into any of the landfills.

They're trying to keep it neutral for all the all the landfills, so like the Casella owned landfills, the uh you know um Bethlehem, any of those.

They're trying to get funding from us, the three dollars and fifty cent surcharge so they could pay their employees now.

So they're passing it on to us.

Oh god.

Unbelievable.

Thank you.

Not the residential, I know what we charge.

Best deal in town.

Commercial, what do we charge per ton?

We're at $80 a ton right now.

$80 a ton.

But I added the surcharge on in January.

We started or February 1st we started the surcharge.

So we're doing actually $83.50 a ton.

Okay.

We're trying to recoup it.

Yeah, right.

I mean, it's something that we shouldn't be taking on, so we funded them.

So same thing with all my demo gets the $3.50 surcharge.

Any any waste that comes into the landfill gets the $3.50 surcharge on it.

Okay.

Uh so the so the three fifty, I know we have to do the supplemental appropriation, but on the go forward, it'll this will help that surcharge will help us recoup our cost.

Yes, the monies go directly into the general fund, so I need it appropriated in my budget to cover for it.

Okay.

All right, thanks.

Additional questions.

Just out of curiosity, knowing how the state hates to give up money.

How long do you think it's gonna take them to reimburse us?

Well, they have uh according to the rules, they have a certain amount of time.

I think it's 30 days.

So we have a certain timeline that we have to pay them, they have a certain timeline they have to pay us back.

Okay.

Sounds good.

But again, it's interim rules right now, so they're going through the rulemaking policy.

We're going to stay on top of that and uh go and speak to it, trying to fight it still that why are we a municipality paying you money to pay us back?

It's a paper trail.

A legislative, it'll keep us informed.

Any other questions?

No.

Seeing none, I'll now open the testimony in favor of R26013.

Seeing none.

Testimony in opposition of R26013.

Seeing none, once again, testimony in favor of R 26013.

Seeing none.

And once again, testimony in opposition of R26013.

Seeing none.

I'll close the public hearing on resolution R26013 at 725 p.m.

And now I'll ask Alderman Clements for our favorite motion.

Sure.

I move that the March 9th, 2026 special meeting of the board of Alderman be adjourned.

Motion on the floor is to adjourn.

All in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Opposed.

Motion carries.

We adjourned at 7.26 p.m.

Okay.

Oh, who's that?

We have somebody online.