Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and the Republic for which it stands.

One nation liberal visible with liberty and justice for all.

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

Alderman Clemens Aldman Clay here.

Alderman Chess.

Alder Woman Smith.

Alderman Tiabot?

Yeah.

Alderman O'Brien is present.

Alderman Greg.

Here.

Alderman Dowd.

Present.

Alderman Sullivan.

I'm here attending to Zoom as I'm out of town on work.

I can hear you, and I'm alone in the room.

Alderman Senate.

Here.

Alderman Johnson.

Present.

Alderman Kelly.

Here.

Altuman Morgan.

Here.

Alderman Lopez.

President Wilshire.

Here.

You have you have an eleven present.

Thank you.

I'm going to turn the meeting over to uh Rick Dow, the chair of the budget review committee.

All right.

This evening we have a public hearing on two resolutions, R26003 and R2607.

And we will start the proceeding with a public hearing of R 26003 as amended relative to the supplemental appropriation of $15,000 of assigned fund balance into a department 161 streets account 5130 over time and 40,000 of assigned fund balance in a department 177 parks account thirty five one three zero zero overtime for the intended purpose of covering expenses related to the cleanup and maintenance of Main Street, the riverfront, and the library walk.

Is there anyone here that can give us presentation on this?

Now we have the official um wording uh that we agreed upon the at the last budget review meeting.

Um but this would be um for cleaning um would be for uh overtime for uh DPW in both streets and parks departments to do cleanings of the river walk, um the library walk and main street, um as well as some of the side streets um on occasion as well.

Um so that would be for April 1st through June 30th.

Um and then we would we would talk about the next piece at our budget hearings.

Okay.

Does anyone have any clarifying questions on the legislation?

Seeing none, thank you.

I'll now call for testimony in favor, R2603.

Name and address for the record?

My name is Bill Ferrio, my home is number 35 Indian Rock Road.

So uh a few weeks back this was 200K to do this task.

So can Liz maybe come back up and explain.

Did she de-scope it or that's uh shorten the schedule or find some budget elsewhere or that's that's my question.

Not the way we normally do public hearings.

I can't ask questions, sir.

You can ask a question.

Um we did cover that in the last year.

It's it's been we had another budget meeting.

We went over it in depth.

Yeah, the last budget meeting it was fully explained and made public in the minutes.

It's it's basically the reduction in cost was due to the scope of work and the time left to do it.

Thank you.

That's all I need to say.

Thank you.

Any other testimony in favor?

Seeing none.

Oh, we got somebody on my change so fast.

Uh Paul Shea, uh Commissioner of the Board of Public Works, 42 Hills Ferry Road.

I just wanted to take a moment and speak in favor of this and express appreciation for Director Hannems, um, work with the division and uh the amount of deliberation and thought that has gone into ensuring that all areas of the Riverwalk that need this level of um uh care and maintenance are attended to.

Um it's really important to the neighborhoods, and um it's especially important to downtown in terms of the welcoming atmosphere.

Um we have invested so much in the river walk and to ensure that we have a adequate maintenance plan for all of the areas, and people are made to feel welcome and safe in uh the full length of it is so important to me, and I know it's important to a lot of people, and I appreciate that.

And that's why I'm in favor of this.

Thank you.

Any other testimony in favor?

Seeing none, testimony in opposition.

Seeing none, once again testimony in favor.

Seeing none.

Once again, testimony in opposition.

Seeing none.

I'll now close the public hearing on resolution R2603 at 706 p.m.

And I'll open the resolution on the public hearing on resolution R26007 at 706 p.m.

R2607 amended authorizing the mayor and the city treasure to issue bonds not to exceed three million dollars for the public works division garage design.

Okay, is there anyone here uh all the yes uh director Cummings?

Yes, uh thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

For the record, Tim Cummings, Director of Administrative Services.

I believe the intention or plan this evening is uh gonna do a quick overview or presentation on the on the project and the and the specific uh regarding the specific legislation before you this evening.

Um and uh I am going to begin by introducing uh the director of public works, uh uh director photo.

But before I do that, I'd like to set the stage a little bit for for the room and and and for you all.

Um it's been a long time coming.

I feel like this legislation has taken a while, and so I'm really appreciative to to be here this evening to continue to advance this project.

And so just to reorientate folks, what what I'm asking for this evening is your favorable recommendation on R2607 because it is a project that is currently underway in the uh and it's overseen by the joint committee on infrastructure and the board of public works, and we presented a total project budget at a couple of occasions in that joint committee.

Uh just as a as a refresher, uh we're looking at, and though we're not fully designed, uh total project cost uh of uh just about 54 million dollars or or or tick over that, and that will get more refined as we as we go on.

Uh in that uh financing plan that I just uh uh alluded to in the joint committee, we had presented a couple times relative to the um uh total project total project cost, and we outlined uh uh a financing plan and a funding sources through a few different means, and I'm I'm pleased to report to you that this all the legislation before you stays true to what we had previously discussed in that in that joint committee.

Uh ultimately there's gonna be a need for uh about 48 million in in new debt to be to be authorized.

Um you may all recall that we repurposed about 2.2 million in in debt uh for this for this project.

Um we uh are gonna move around some some some of the existing appropriations that um uh are available to us, so we don't have to authorize any additional debt, you know, uh through various capital projects that are that are wrapping up to some some additional monies in the in the solid waste fund.

Um and we we believe from there we can cobble together that that 54-ish million dollars that that I referenced.

And the big takeaway that I want to make sure you all uh are cognizant of is that everything that we're talking about fits into the previously contemplated debt service plan, and this was a project that we prioritized during our capital planning, and we will and so we we are in good stead to be able to move forward based on that policy guidance.

Um couple other points that I'd like to make.

Um I had sent along a communication to you all back on March 2nd.

I'm not sure if you've seen that or have that, but that communication went into detail on how this $3 million is going to be used.

I'm not going to go into detail right now on that, but it's essentially being used to continue the design or what we call uh the pre-construction phase of the project.

And so I want to make sure you are aware of all that, and then I'm going to take this opportunity to highlight one particular issue that uh has come up as a concern for this body, rightfully so, um, and also uh try to address it this evening, and that's relative to how we as a community handle our long-term facilities in terms of deferred capital maintenance and just our general facilities planning.

I actually came before the um uh personal administration committee back in April of last year and presented on this topic, and I have the presentation I gave here with me this evening.

I'm happy to share this all with you again if for those of you who didn't see it, but it talked in detail about developing a comprehensive facilities management program here in the city and how we would do that.

And our plan, subject to your approval, is to uh continue moving that forward, and it's part of the FY27 budget.

This is something that we've been working on over the last couple years, and uh you know, I I submit to you that that we will continue to prioritize that because we recognize it's a need here in the here in the community.

Um, with that being said, uh uh Mr.

Chairman, I'd like to hand it over to Director Foto who will go into a little bit more detail than I just did, but I wanted to introduce this uh legislation this evening because of its vital importance.

Thank you.

You want to fix it towards the oh no?

Somewhere is that on full screen.

Yeah, I think so.

Yeah.

The keyboard if that doesn't work to keep it.

I know it's not gonna work.

Yeah, there's no warranty going on.

Is that just share screen now?

Sorry.

Okay, thank you.

Right here, it's the computer is ready to good evening.

There we go.

Okay.

Uh Lisa Photo, uh Director of Public Works.

Uh, first I'm really grateful it's not snowing this evening and that that we could get together because this is this has been really tough to uh to schedule.

And uh we appreciate the opportunity to present on the public works garage and maintenance facility tonight.

We will be providing you with a substantial amount of information, so I apologize in advance for that.

Uh, but we believe this will be helpful to you as you consider our request.

Joining me this evening, uh our presenters Joe Sullivan, who was the city's owner project manager from Left Field, Jeff L.

Bertie, president of Weston and Samson, Rob Prunier, executive vice president of Harvey Construction, and Scott LeClair, CEO of Fitzmeyer Thi.

Commissioners Shea Espedia and Lemon are also here.

Commissioner Greg had planned to present tonight, but unfortunately, due to our commitments, he's unable to join us.

The picture on the screen is more than half of the city's public work staff who build and maintain our city's infrastructure.

The DPW garage and maintenance facility that we are discussing tonight is not about building a nice garage for city employees.

It's about protecting equipment that the taxpayers in Ashawa already own and providing a healthy and safe work environment for our public works first responders.

Today the city maintains a public works fleet of 364 vehicles worth about 45 million dollars.

These are the vehicles and equipment we use to plow, sweep, maintain roads, sidewalks, traffic lights, and parks, fill potholes, pick up trash, respond to sewer backups, respond to emergencies, etc.

Right now, about 80% of that equipment sits outside year-round in snow, ice, rain, and extreme cold and heat.

Because our current streets garage was built nearly 50 years ago and no longer meets the needs of our division.

Someone may ask why we need a new facility now when we have operated this way for many years.

Well, in 1970, Nashua had 55,2820 residents.

In 2024, Nashville had 91,851 residents.

In addition, over the last several decades, our fleet size, value of equipment, regulatory standards, and knowledge of safety risks have changed significantly.

Our infrastructure has not kept pace.

The risk and cost exposure are materially different today than 50 years ago.

You were all sent a report completed by D-21 architects that documented structural deterioration, hazardous materials, and air quality concerns inside the current streets garage.

At the same time, outdoor storage is causing avoidable damage to vehicles.

Cold starts, corrosion, frozen hydraulic systems, and longer warm-up times all translate into more repairs, more downtime, and higher replacement costs.

A modern facility would allow more vehicles to be kept indoors, reduce breakdowns, extend vehicle life, and improve response time during storms and emergencies.

It also creates a safe, healthy working environment for the employees who are out plowing streets at two in the morning.

Just as homeowners protect their car in a garage to make it last longer.

This project protects a 45 million dollar public investment.

Over time, the avoided repair and replacement costs are expected to offset a significant significant portion of the project's cost.

Delaying the project does not avoid the expense, it increases it.

Construction inflation and ongoing repair costs continue to rise each year we wait.

Public works has been good stewards of tax dollars, saving millions over the years on such projects as the skate park, Main Street sidewalks, Atherton Park, and the landfill recycling buildings.

We don't ask for a lot, and when we do, we need it.

Now I'd like to show a timeline.

And I think this helps to show that the DPW facility has been in the discussion and planning phases for a very long time.

In September 2015, BOA approved resolution R 15172 allowing for the acquisition of 141-143 Burke Street.

I think we all know what happened there, so I won't get into that.

In April of 2019, Mayor Donchus appointed elected officials and DPW staff to develop a plan for the potential construction of a building at the landfill.

The group discussed creating a plan that would be inclusive of all stakeholders and to discuss possible solutions to provide an appropriate work environment for all DPW departments.

In May of 2019, the Board of Public Works decided to hire a third party to review our buildings and provide recommendation.

In July of 2019, Harvey Construction was chosen to do this work after interviewing three firms.

The scope of the work included reviewing all of our properties and report back to the committee the cost of rehabilitating our existing facilities versus building new.

In November of 2019, Harvey presented their findings to the Board of Public Works, and the board voted to move jointly with the Board of Alderman and Infrastructure Committee to pursue and build a new home for the Division of Public Works.

In December of 2019, the board gave a favorable recommendation on R 19187, which authorized the Treasurer to sell bonds for the new facility.

In March 20 of 2022, groundbreaking for the new facility happened.

In March 2023, DPW moved into the current administration building.

In May of 2025, HKT, Left Field, and Harvey were hired to design the garage facility.

In October of 2025, we received Conservation Commission approval.

In November of 2025, we received zoning board approval.

And in January of 2026, we received planning board approval.

So we we've been through a lot with this project, as you can see.

And with that, I'd like to turn it over to Jeff Alberti, who is president of Weston and Sampson.

Oh, good evening.

Again, my name is Jeff Alberti.

I'm the president of Weston Samson.

I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you all this evening.

Uh prior to my current role at Weston and Samson, I did run our facilities group, and uh that included a staff that was primarily focused on public works facilities.

In fact, uh it's been something I've dedicated my career to.

I've been involved in more than 150 public works facilities in Massachusetts and New Hampshire and New England.

And uh, I'm here this evening to provide an overview of the current conditions at the existing DPW facility located at Stadium Drive, but also to talk about the benefits that a new facility will bring to the division of public works and the community as a whole.

I wanted to kick things off with a high level overview of my observations of the existing conditions at Stadium Drive.

I ended up uh taking a tour of that facility to review some of the conditions and reviewed some of the independent studies.

And what was clear to me from that uh site visit was that the DPW operations have grown significantly, I was mentioned earlier, but the facilities really have not kept base.

And as mentioned, the DPW is maintaining a very large fleet, a very important investment that the city has made in that fleet.

And the DPW does a really great job of trying to protect that equipment by getting as much of that equipment indoors as possible.

However, that that facility is woefully undersized, resulting in equipment being packed in essentially like a can of sardines.

They try to get as much as they can undercover to protect that.

So that makes it difficult to navigate the building for the staff, but also unsafe and inefficient.

And if you look at the first photograph on the left hand side, you can see some of that equipment really stacked in there.

And that path that I've drawn in yellow there represents the path that we had to follow to actually get from one end of the building to the other after doing that tour.

So certainly it's uh inefficient, and to move that equipment out uh would take quite a bit of time.

Furthermore, if you look on the right hand side, there are some larger equipment, such as uh the plows with wing plows on the edge on the sides, and these large pieces of equipment end up cutting off egress pass through that facility, making it inefficient and unsafe.

Really, the only other option to storing the equipment in this manner would be to put it outside, and as we'll talk about in a bit, that has a significant impact.

One of the other things that we noted in this tour is that the facility itself does not contain a sprinkler system, and when you have all this equipment in there, if uh piece of equipment were to catch on fire, you could end up losing a very large portion of the city fleet.

And uh it happens that just last night in the town of Warren, New Hampshire, you may have seen on some of the headlines, they had a very similar circumstance where they had a vehicle that caught on fire and they lost a portion of their fleet.

So it certainly is a big risk, especially when you have upwards of 20 million dollars in assets that are stored undercover in this old and antiquated building.

On this next slide, this is a view of the break room.

And the break room is the only space available to support up to 45 staff on a regular basis.

And if you really look around and start counting the chairs that are in this space, you can see that this is also undersized to support the staff.

And what makes it worse is that during a storm event, this room needs to support upwards of 75 staff who could be here 24, 48 hours, depending on that storm event.

And so clear that this space is inadequately sized to handle the workforce that it needs to.

As a result, staff are forced to take their breaks out in the vehicle and equipment storage area, which, among other issues, has very poor in-to-air quality.

So it's really not appropriate for staff to be taking breaks in the vehicle and equipment storage areas.

That's also worth noting that some of those uh chairs that you see aligned along the window, uh, that room is partially funded with salvaged chairs from the landfill.

So they do the best they can to provide some amenities, but really uh not an appropriate space for the staff.

This is a view of the existing fleet maintenance area, and similar to the vehicle storage area, you can see that the space is undersized for today's equipment and fleet maintenance operations, and this negatively impacts the safety and efficiency for the fleet maintenance staff.

And as you can see from these photos, there's little to no room to move around this equipment and perform the regular emergency activities that are needed to maintain this multi-million dollar fleet.

I also had an opportunity to take a look at the mechanical systems, or I should say the lack thereof that exist in the existing stadium drive building.

The photo on the left uh shows the boiler system.

That's a very old and outdated boiler system.

I can only imagine what it's like to try to find parts for that system.

And on the right, you can see some of the heating components, and or I would say what's left of those heating components, because most of them are not functioning and uh really not providing the operational needs for the space.

And I also spent some time looking around the building for the ventilation system, which is really important when you have vehicles and equipment stored indoors, and the building does not have a ventilation system.

In fact, I guess it has the old school ventilation system, which is open up all the overhead doors and try to get some fresh air in.

So it certainly doesn't meet code and doesn't is not good from the energy efficiency standpoint.

And so because the facility is undersized, you find that more than 80% of that fleet of this 45 million dollar fleet is stored outdoors, exposing that multi-million dollar fleet to harsh winter conditions, which in turn that impacts the vehicle life expectancy, increases maintenance costs, it contributes to operational inefficiencies, and exposes employees to unnecessary safety issues.

And having conducted uh more than 150 of these types of uh site visits, I can say that the conditions that I observed are definitely some of the poorest conditions that I've seen for an existing facility, which definitely negatively impact both the efficiency and the safety for the staff working in those conditions.

So next few slides, I wanted to just summarize uh that the city was able to do a couple of uh independent uh evaluation reports.

They looked at the overall envelope of the stadium drive facility as well as the hazardous building materials and indoor air quality.

And I'll just summarize the findings of those reports.

The first one was done by D-21 architects back in November of 2025.

This determined that there's extensive deterioration and systematic degradation of the envelope throughout, widespread material failure.

The building uh the main systems on the building envelope have exceeded their performance life.

And they also observe structural and foundation cracks as well as some significant roof deterioration.

In fact, uh some of the major systems that have it have exceeded their functional service life include the masonry.

You can kind of see that pretty clearly in that center photograph, significant cracking and displacement of them of the exterior envelope.

On the left-hand side, you can see the metal framing showing significant uh rusting, which is impacting the overall structural integrity.

Sealants throughout this building have failed and exceeded their service life, as well as the roof membrane.

So that is beginning to delaminate and that creates a significant problem in the long run.

And certainly there are risks in performance issues as the facility continues to go as you move forward, and those risks include increased envelope instability.

So you saw all that cracking, and as that continues, you end up having pieces of that uh that envelope falling.

You have potential for concealed corrosion from the moisture migration.

That'll impact the structural integrity of the building because you'll begin to get corrosion behind the walls on the structural components and the reinforcement.

That continues to impact energy inefficiencies and will result in increased operational costs, and then there's the potential degradation of the indoor air quality.

So you can imagine as you get moisture migration, that'll impact the interior air quality.

There was another study done in October of 2025 by Universal Environmental Consultants, and they looked at both visual and physical testing for hazardous building materials as well as indoor air quality.

So they looked at asbestos, PCBs, lead paint, radon, uh total total volatile organic compounds as well as carbon monoxide.

And on the on the front of asbestos PCBs and lead paint, there is expectations that there is remediation that's required to deal with that based on the history of the building itself.

But interior, they also took a look and measured the indoor air quality.

And probably the most significant concern start with your CO levels.

They tested the carbon monoxide levels without the vehicles running, and were able to get hits above the reportable concentrations, measurable concentrations.

And as everyone knows, the CO has a significant health impact to employees working in those conditions.

And the same is true for the total volatile organic compounds, where they tested that and found that they are above target guidelines, similarly having impacts to staff that are working in those conditions.

And certainly there should be no surprises because that building does not have the necessary ventilation system that would meet today's code requirements.

So taking all that information, one of the next steps and one of the next few slides, I wanted to talk about one of the big questions that I think I've received on every project that I've done in my 30-year career, and that is why should the vehicles and equipment be placed undercover.

And because we've been asked that question so many times over the years, we've put together a list of the main topics because it could be I could go on all day about the importance of putting equipment indoors, but I wanted to boil them down to these five topics.

And the first being employee safety, and that's number one with all these facilities.

You want to create a safe environment for your staff.

And when you have large equipment, what you can see is an example of an employee safety issue is staff that are coming in during inclement weather, snow and ice buildup, they have to try to clear off that equipment.

You can see in this case, you have someone standing on the running board as well as a tire reaching over trying to clear off that vehicle.

So certainly putting this equipment outdoors exposes staff to these unnecessary conditions.

Second piece is public safety.

I think everyone knows that public works is a first responder.

They're responsible for getting on the roads, clearing the roads so that the other first responders can do their jobs as well.

So time means a lot to every department.

And if that equipment is stored outdoors, and as I'll show you some examples later in this presentation, you can have issues with getting that equipment started, getting it cleared off.

You can see equipment that's covered or equipment that's plowed in.

So if that equipment can't respond, that can result in public safety issues throughout the community.

The third piece is the protection of that equipment.

We talked about this being a 45 million dollar investment that the city has made.

And putting that equipment undercover will absolutely extend that life of that equipment and reduce corrosion as shown in some of these example photographs.

And that kind of ties into the cost effective, cost effectiveness of operations.

And the way that we've been able to put this together is to look at what is the cost to construct just a simple vehicle storage garage.

So your cost to construct, maintain, and operate that space, compared to putting all that equipment outdoors.

And that results in increased vehicle maintenance costs when it's stored outdoors, a decrease in the vehicle life expectancy, meaning you're going to be replacing it more often.

You're going to have increased non-productive labor when it's stored outdoors, trying to prep that equipment, as well as other operational impacts, employee safety impacts, and potential environmental impacts.

And through that analysis, and it's a detailed cost-benefit analysis that we've developed, we've determined that it'll cost anywhere from two to three times more if you store that equipment outside over the life of that building.

So clearly there's an economic value to housing that equipment undercover.

And as an example to back up those numbers, we've done case studies and interviews with numerous departments across New England.

And this is one of the case studies where a community purchased three large dump trucks, and that's the truck shown in the upper right, but they only had room to store that one in, sorry, the they purchased three, but they only had room to store one indoors, that's the one in the upper right.

The remaining two remained outdoors, that's the bottom right.

And those two vehicles that were stored outdoors were removed from service early due to significant equipment deterioration.

And they were in such poor condition that that community actually had to scrap it.

They couldn't even sell it at auction.

The remainder vehicle that was inside for its entire life, it remained in service for three more years, and it was in suitable condition when it reached its service life that they were actually able to sell it at auction.

So that was a really clear demonstration of the fact that storing that equipment undercover will extend its useful life.

And that brings us to the efficient operations piece.

So when you store equipment outdoors, there's a significant amount of impacts.

And I've outlined them in bullet form, and I'll show you a couple of quick videos in a minute.

I won't read each one of these, I'll just focus on a few.

The first being that the fuel, when it's stored outdoors, becomes more viscous.

This contributes to no star conditions.

So as I talked about earlier, trying to get that equipment out to respond to the needs of the community.

If you can't get it started, it could take 20 minutes, a half an hour to get someone out to help get that equipment started, impacting public safety.

Once it is started, there are some significant uh non-productive labor and waiting for that equipment to warm up so it can begin begin its operations.

And there are other pieces.

If you look closely at this equipment, it's got a lot of moving parts to it.

It has a lot of hydraulic pumps.

And when you have hydraulic oil that has been becomes viscous from sitting out in those cold temperatures, this damages the hydraulic pumps, results in replacement and then increased maintenance costs.

One of the other big factors is we've seen increase for potential vandalism or rodent damage from leaving that equipment outdoors.

That that uh rodent damage can cause quite a bit of damage.

Um, increase in response times due to those no-star conditions, as we mentioned.

And then we also find is the fuel becomes very viscous, and that creates an excessive amount of exhaust due to that incomplete combustion of the fuel source.

And I'll show you an example.

This is a very short video, and we had a vehicle that was being stored indoors in a minimally heated garage.

I'm standing at the back of the vehicle.

You can see in outlined in red is the exhaust stack.

We had the driver get in the truck and start it up, and this is what we got.

So you can see very quick to start, very quick burst of exhaust fumes, and that truck was ready to go.

We took that exact same vehicle, and again outlined in red is the exact same exhaust exhaust stack.

We left this vehicle out overnight, dropped into the 20s.

We came in the next morning, had the driver get in, he tried to start it, couldn't get it started.

Uh we had to actually go call a mechanic to help us get the vehicle started.

So it took about 20, 25 minutes.

Once we got it started, that exact same vehicle, this was what we got.

So you can imagine with the size of your fleet starting up every morning in cold conditions, what that would do to the environment, never mind the time it takes to get every one of those vehicles started.

But there's more.

There's other operations.

If all of that equipment were stored outdoors, this is an example of one community doing some storm prep.

So you have staff outside in cold conditions, uh, wind-driven snow, poor visibility, poor visibility, as well as staff that have to remove gloves to connect hydraulic hoses.

So really some significant impacts of operating outside in these conditions.

Whereas a minimally heated vehicle storage garage, one that's being proposed for your facility, this is an example of that same operation taking place.

It's well lit, it's minimally heated, it's safe.

That's the key is the safety for the staff in these conditions.

And if you take a step back, how will this function compared to how it functions now?

Essentially, a vehicle will be able to drive into the vehicle and equipment storage garage, pull into a spot, connect to a plow or other piece of equipment, back out and respond to the needs of the community in a matter of minutes.

And every piece of equipment in this scenario is accessible to respond because the needs change on a daily basis, and so it's important that that equipment is accessible.

So that that scenario I just showed you might take a few minutes in the proposed facility and the current facility, that could take an hour because you have to move out all of that equipment that I showed you earlier just to get to something that might be in the middle or the back of the building.

So this really will be an improvement to the overall operation.

So to just sum up some of these benefits based on the experience that I've had uh with doing this my entire career, based on what I've seen with your operations, uh, there's certainly a significant amount.

The first and foremost number one is that it would provide a code compliant and safe work environment for your city employers, one that doesn't exist today.

It would protect the city's multi-million dollar investment that you've made in this equipment for the long term.

It provides a modern fleet maintenance area.

That fleet maintenance department is responsible for maintaining this 45 million dollar fleet.

Uh new facility will provide them much more uh safe and efficient manner to do that.

Much more efficient workspace and response times to better serve the public.

It'll reduce your fleet maintenance costs and unscheduled maintenance activities over time.

It really will help to eliminate the need to invest in band-aids for the existing substandard facility or replace that that facility before it becomes a mandated emergency replacement.

So at this point, I'm gonna turn it over to I believe Rob, and then I'll be back to talk a little bit about some of the financial impacts of benefits of uh this type of facility.

Coming after the engineer is not an easy thing.

Uh, my name is Rob Prunier, and I'm with Harvey Construction.

And uh I want to thank you very much for taking this on.

Um, the due diligence that you're putting towards this project is important.

There's a I had there's a lot of moving parts that was not did not come, didn't think about that when I was thinking about how many wheels and trucks we're talking about.

Um, but we've been evaluating this building since 2019, and we've looked at um a lot of different things in terms of um modern standards, cost, schedule, long-term value.

And after reviewing the building and reviewing the independent engineering reports that you've all seen, which is kind of scary.

Um, we we really believe that our conclusion is pretty clear that the facility is not a viable candidate for renovation.

And it's an advanced, it's got systematic failure everywhere you look.

The envelope, the roofing, the installation insulation, the core systems have completely deteriorated.

Never mind the the operational side of things that Jeff mentioned.

Um, but resulting the the ongoing water intrusion and the poor it really creates a poor performance for the building.

Uh, equally important is that that the building just cannot meet um operational needs or code requirements of today's um expectations.

DPWs require buildings require greater ceiling heights, stronger slabs, they need more robust mechanical and ventilation systems.

The structure was just not designed to accommodate those needs, and retrofitting it, which I'm not sure you can do, quite honestly, um, will require extensive structural and foundational work as well.

The foundations are cracking and sinking in spots.

Uh the exterior skin is as you've seen in those uh pictures that Jeff shared with you was deteriorating.

Um it really makes the situation uh in terms of thinking about renovating kind of impractical and cost prohibitive.

In theory, if you start renovating this building, you're taking it all the way down to the bones.

So you you're talking about replacing the entire building as it is, and that's what kind of where we'll get to this in a second.

In addition, buildings that were built from 1972 to 1980 are falling apart across the country right now.

That was a time of of energy crisis, of high inflation.

There were so many factors that were going into poor construction during that period of time that we're seeing it everywhere we go.

It's become it's become a situation where it's far less, it's far more economical from a programmatic and a financial perspective to just build new than it is to really look at at these existing buildings that were built back then in the 70s.

A question has been raised about adding uh new ventilation to the existing building.

And we don't we do not think that's feasible, um, quite honestly.

Modern ventilation systems require larger ductwork, additional equipment, more space than older buildings like this one were designed to handle.

Um the existing structure and floor to ceiling heights of this building and the foundations do not just it just does not provide enough room to add new and modern ventilation to the to that building.

So there that's something that makes it looking at it from that perspective very difficult.

You'd need to cut through structure structural elements.

Um you'd have to reinforce the building to bring in this bigger equipment and more efficient equipment, lower, you'd have to lower ceilings, which does not make it um feasible for the operational side in terms of the cranes and the lifts that you need today for these big trucks.

Um really adding adding new ventilation is not a feasible option uh to the to this facility from a cost standpoint, and that's what that's what you see in front of you today.

And in 2021, we kind we kind of looked at it from a square foot basis in a blue sky.

If I could have everything perfect kind of scenario in terms of program, and that that was uh coming in at about 66 million dollars, 66 million dollars.

Now that's hard costs, it does not include soft costs, architectural engineering, equipment, furniture, fixtures.

Uh I I give the DPW team credit, they really hunkered down and said, okay, how do we how do we make this a feasible situation that can take care of Nashua?

And they got the square footage down to 136,000, give or take.

Um, and that price keep kept coming down a little bit as they kept tweaking it and working it to that 42 million um that you see here.

So that is a feasible option.

And you'll notice that 13 acres is an important part of that.

That's the kind the type of space that you need to build the program that you need for to take care of the city.

If you look at the existing stadium drive building, it's a 50,000 square foot building.

Like I said, there we do not see any value to the building.

When the steel is deteriorating, you're in trouble.

Never mind the rest of the skin of the building.

So we figured we we took a look at it and took a took it a little bit of an estimate and said, okay, not only do we have to pay for new construction, but we have to pay for abatement.

If you have not been in that building, it's a little scary walking in visually, you don't even have to do any testing.

You can see it.

You have to abate that building first, then you have to the cost of demolishing it.

And when you demolish this building, the foundations are useless, so you have to take all that away to build new.

So you're at about a 20 million dollar investment just to replace what's there today.

But that only gets you 50,000 of the 136,000 square feet that you need.

And this and the site just does is not accommodate for that.

You're you're you're four and a half acres on that stadium drive site.

So you'd have you'd need to find 80,000 square feet more just to just to satisfy the needs of today's DPW operations.

That's another 26 million.

So you're at about 46 million.

If you had the land to replace this facility in kind on the stadium drive site, you're it's going to be more expensive than it would to build to build at the landfill.

Another key part of that is if we took that building down, if we renovate it, um, you have to find a place for the operation for the for that part of the DPW operations to go, and that's a cost that I I don't even know how to quantify.

How to rent a how to rent uh the lifts and the and the cranes that you need to take care of those vehicles uh for 12 or 14 months.

Just that that goes on top of that 46 million.

Excuse me.

One other thing, I know there's a question about reducing the size of the building that is being proposed at the new landfill.

And I don't I'm here to tell you I don't think it provides meaningful savings by doing that.

Um you have major costs, um, such as site work, utilities, foundations, and certainly the core systems remain largely fixed no matter how big that building is.

So shrinking the footprint will sax sacrifice some functionality without really lowering costs significantly to make it worthwhile.

The best value comes from building to the right size for the program, make making sure that you build the pro build what you need and not start to to uh reduce that.

So for these reasons that you have a 70s building that is falling apart that is contaminated, um I think the landfill presents a real good option for you.

I think the landfill presents a real good option for you.

It's more practical.

It accommodates a full program that you need, not even the full program, a conceited program.

The full program would be over 200,000 square feet.

You avoid the constraints of the existing site, which again you can replace the 50,000 square feet, but you're still short quite a bit in terms of program.

And it allows the city to build a modern, efficient, energy efficient facility.

So it's in our opinion, in Harvey's opinion, that the stadium drives streets building has reached the end of its useful life.

It probably did 20 years ago, to be honest with you.

And the renovation would be really too costly, risky, and ultimately inefficient, insufficient in terms of program.

So from an engineering and a construction and even a financial standpoint, we believe that new construction is probably the best pathway to go for the city.

And so I just want wanted to make share those thoughts with you.

We've been studying this for a long time.

We've taken it very seriously.

And we think at the end of the day, the best option is exactly what's put in front of you today.

So thank you very much for your time.

I don't know who it's going to next.

And I'm not clicking anything.

Okay.

All right.

Hello, I'm Scott LeClair from Fitzmeyer and Tauchi Engineering.

So we're with a mechanical electrical plumbing and fire protection engineers for the proposed new building.

And I'd like to talk to you a little bit today about sort of some of the benefits of the proposed new building, particularly with respect to sustainability and energy efficiency.

So we've talked about some of the shortfalls of the existing facility.

So some of the things that you would get with the new proposed building, we get a high performance building envelope, which is also gonna save a lot of energy.

We're making the building photovoltaic ready so that we could just plug in solar panels anytime if that becomes something the city wants to do.

We have very high efficiency lighting controls.

We did a lot of talking earlier about the ventilation system, so the new building will have uh high efficiency energy recovery type ventilation.

So the air that's brought into the building gets preconditioned by the air that's leaving the building to save a lot of energy.

We're putting in radiant heating uh solutions in the fleet building, um, which means that the kind of the floor of the maintenance area gets warmed.

Um that means you don't kind of have to heat the entire building and use a lot of energy.

You put the heat where the people are and where it needs to be.

Um the rest of the building where the office and brake and and work areas are, we're using a real high-efficiency refrigeration type system.

Um we are setting up for EV charging.

You know, there's obviously the city's moving forward with some of those vehicles, and we'll be ready.

Uh, we'll have some in place when we start, but we'll have plenty of infrastructure there to expand as necessary.

And then I want to talk a little bit about this really unique opportunity that you have here at the landfill site that um is really something that just needs to be taken advantage of, and that's the methane generator plant heat recovery.

Um I don't know if all you know it, but right now at the landfill, there's a building in the back, and there's there's methane that's being drawn off of the uh landfill itself, and it's being burned into uh generators there.

And we're you know, that electrical energy is going back on the grid, and the city is essentially uh making money on that and has been for many years.

Um that thing's been there for quite some time.

Well, at the same time that energy is being sent onto the grid, there's a bunch of heat that's going up the stack of the generators and is also being ejected in the radiators all the time, 24-7, 365.

That plant runs like all the time.

Um, there are very short maintenance down periods.

Um all that time you're just throwing heat away, essentially.

Um, so that building, the the methane recovery building is only like a hundred feet from the new new building.

So we're gonna take advantage of that heat energy, pull it out of the really it's the radiator energy that we're using, and we can heat the entire campus facility there with that heat, essentially for free.

So all that energy that's been going up, you know, into the atmosphere here for literally decades.

We're gonna use it to heat all the new building and even the existing building that's already there.

We can take care of all of it with that.

Um so it's a really it's a really unique opportunity for the this particular site, and it's really because you know the plant already exists, and it's something that we can really take advantage of.

So I want to highlight that.

Go to the next slide, Jeff.

So, what does that really mean in terms of like energy and emissions?

So, the amount of energy that we'll save in one year by using that waste heat is essentially what it is, is equal to about the same amount of energy of almost a hundred homes per year.

In terms of reducing emissions, CO CO2 emissions, that's the same as taking over a hundred vehicles off the road for a year.

So it's a lot of emissions that we're saving.

It's a lot of energy, and obviously a lot of dollars when we that we would have to pay if we were trying to heat it ourselves.

So big numbers there, great opportunity, very unique to the site that's being proposed for the facility.

One more.

So a few more things about it on the health and safety side.

Um, again, we already talked about the improved ventilation.

This building will have uh the code required ventilation, but it also has emergency systems if there's any kind of like CO build-up or anything like that, it can clear the building if need be.

Um, we pick up vehicle exhausts and fleet where they're being worked on.

Um, you know, so it's nothing's there's no point discharges in the building.

We don't have to leave the door open all the time when they're working on something.

Um, we're gonna filter the air that's coming in the building, so we have filtration.

We've talked about the energy recovery part of that ventilation system.

Um, you know, in the shops where they're doing the welding and things like that, we can we have point exhausts that we can pick those up and take it out of the building so nobody gets subjected to any kind of welding exhaust.

Uh we talked about the radiant heating.

So, what does this all mean for for the city and for the staff?

Um, much healthier work environment, um, much better you know, health and wellness for the staff and the employees that are working there, better morale, better retention.

You know, all of that comes with these types of systems.

So, I just wanted to talk about that a little bit.

I think you have a really unique opportunity with this proposed building site to take advantage of some things that you know normally a lot of cities don't get to take advantage of, but this is a good site for that.

Okay, I'll uh try to round things out here.

And earlier slides, we talked a lot about the impacts of the cold weather storage.

So I wanted to talk a little bit about the savings that the city can expect over the life of a new building.

And one of the greatest benefits of a new facility is that the city will be able to protect under this scenario an additional 103 vehicles, uh, which is significant considering the cost of your fleet.

Those assets that will now be protected, the additional assets are about 14.7 nearly 15 million dollars in assets that you'll be able to protect.

And as I will discuss in a few minutes, protection of these assets will generate 25 million to 45 million in cost savings and cost avoidances over the 50-year life of that building, and that's based on those detailed cost-benefit analyses that we've completed over the years.

So, let's recap our current situation.

Uh, as was mentioned earlier, the building was built in the 1970s, it's approaching 50 years old, it's riddled with OSHA compliance issues and challenges, as well as as demonstrated from the independent studies, it's really exceeded its useful life.

And due to that limited size of the building, the DPW is only capable of storing 67 vehicles.

That's about 20%, less than 20% of your fleet undercover.

The remaining 297 are stored outdoors, that's exposing 80% of that 45.2 million dollar fleet, or it's exposing 36 million dollars of those assets to the impacts of exterior storage.

And as we mentioned, and I'll repeat it a few times because it's important to understand what all those impacts are, but that includes reduced vehicle life expectancy for the equipment, increased maintenance cost, uh, increase in non-productive labor, as well as employee safety issues.

So, what is proposed as part of the new DPW garage and maintenance building, the DPW will be able to store 170 vehicles compared to that 67 that they're currently storing.

And mind you, in a much more efficient manner than they currently stored.

So that's an additional 103 vehicles that will move be moved from that outdoor storage to indoors, and this will protect that 14.7 million dollars in assets and result in increased operational efficiencies.

And this ultimately will provide a modern garage that is not only OSHA compliant and safe for staff, but also environmentally conscious, helping to protect the city's staff and the environment from many years to come.

So, as mentioned earlier, there's a significant benefit to locating that fleet indoors, and though those uh costs come in cost savings as well as cost avoidances, and that really consists of reduced vehicle maintenance cost, it's a significant one when you're store in this equipment outdoors.

That's a significant one when you're storing this equipment outdoors.

The increased vehicle increased vehicle life expectancy will spread out your replacement costs over time.

It'll really help to reduce the non-productive labor associated with cold weather and storm events, improve efficiencies on a regular day-to-day basis, and not to mention the staff safety, which is critical to every part of this facility.

And based on that comprehensive cost-benefit analysis that we've developed over 20 years of field investigations and staff interviews, the estimated savings associated with protecting that additional 103 vehicles over the 50-year life of that building will range from that 25 million on the low end to 45 million on the upper end.

And this translates into about 500 to 900,000 in annual savings associated with this building.

I also understand from some of the discussions earlier that the city 20 years ago was looking to build a new public works garage, and having been designing these public works facilities for the last 30 years, I know that it would have been a fraction of today's costs.

And that's the premise for this next slide.

And that is that there is a cost to waiting.

And based on the slide that I'm showing you here, you can see that we've looked at it in if you wait five years, wait ten years, or wait fifteen years, what the cost impacts would be.

And for this analysis, the average cost uh across the national average for construction inflation was used, and you can see that the costs run from 55 to 67 million.

So you have 12 year, uh 12 million if you wait five years, you have 26 million if you wait 10 years and 15 million, uh 44 million if you wait 15 years.

But not only will there be cost escalation for construction, but the city will also lose out on the opportunity to recognize the operational maintenance savings that we've talked about through this presentation.

And while the cost escalation figures are based on national average, uh we've been tracking them for the last 10 years.

And coming out of COVID, we saw significant increases.

We saw spikes in the 30 to 33 percent range, and that was due to supply chain issues and labor shortages, and certainly in the current conditions with geopolitical uncertainty and tariff uncertainty, there could be additional increases that aren't calculated in these estimates, looking out five to ten years.

But one thing is for certain the size of the facility and the needs will not shrink over time, but there will be a significant cost to the that exact same facility if we wait.

Um some of the other things that are important to take into consideration is that I understand the city is in in favorable bonding conditions, so that also helps with the overall planning.

So for my in independent review of your existing conditions of your proposed plan and what the city is uh proposing to construct, I think that you have a great solution in front of you to address the problems that we have outlined in this presentation.

And that solution is protect an additional 14.7 million dollars in fleet assets, move 103 vehicles indoors, thereby extending the life of that equipment by 5 to 10 percent.

And quite frankly, I think it's going to be a lot more than that based on some of the studies that we've done over the years.

This will end up reducing your annual maintenance costs significantly.

It will actually allow your mechanics to focus on preventative maintenance instead of emergency repairs, which you find when you store that equipment outdoors.

It will prove storm and emergency response times as well as just general response times for the department.

And by the numbers, you have $54 million investment, you have the potential estimated annual savings of $500 to $900,000, as we just summarized.

And for a light lifecycle cost avoidances, that could be $25 million to $45 million.

And certainly, as I mentioned, any delays will result in additional costs associated with uh the uh cost escalation in the market.

So I thank you very much for the time to present to you this evening and be happy to answer any questions.

Okay, and before I open it up to uh clarifying questions from the board, um for a long time I've been hoping for a business case analysis and the cost-benefit analysis on our major projects.

I thought this presentation was outstanding.

So I want to thank you for putting that together.

It certainly tells the story correctly, and it certainly shows the cost-benefit analysis.

Amplifying questions from anyone on the board.

Yes, all the woman Kelly.

Uh, thank you, and thank you for the presentation.

I just wonder if maybe Director Foto could just focus in on what the public hearing is about.

It's that first initial what is it?

Uh design phase, just so they know what we're actually approving tonight.

I can probably address that.

Um what we're here this evening to to uh hopefully earn your favorable recommendation on is R26007.

Um so um what we're here this evening to to uh hopefully earn your favorable recommendation on is R26007, and uh communication was presented to you on March 2nd that detailed um what the three million dollars is is going to be used for in summary, it is for design and pre-construction type services to be able to keep uh advancing the project.

We would be coming before you again in the near future, uh once we have uh once we're further along in design to um seek uh an authorization for the construction.

Now, with that being said, um a bulk of the monies would go to um uh the architect, uh, but not all of it.

Some uh monies would go towards site prep work to to start to to get the site ready so we can keep the project on track, and then there would be some other miscellaneous soft costs uh that's necessary, uh such as uh inspections and testing and and um uh uh project management services.

So that's a high-level summary of uh of what's outlined in the March 2nd uh communication.

Thank you.

That's it.

Alderman Sullivan, then Alderman Lopez.

Thank you.

Uh the question I had was um I do plan on staying on for the budget portion of this meeting, but just uh two big questions.

What are we gonna do with the land on Stadium Drive if we move the garage?

What's the plan there?

Again, the work the gummings.

Uh yes, thank you.

Tim Cummings, Director of Administrative Services.

Um that is a great question, and that would be a great problem to have to solve.

And we don't have that answer yet this evening.

So I can tell you what you don't want to hear is legally the process would be uh the DPW would would essentially release control of it, it would fall to administrative services.

We would be the stewards of of the land and asset until uh you know this body and the mayor decided what you would want to do with it.

Thank you.

Does that answer your question, Alliman Sullivan?

Yes.

Um whoever wants to take this one, how does building this new building help the average national one?

I didn't hear say that question again.

How does building this building help the average national one?

How does it not?

How does building this building help this the national typical national residence?

The average and average.

This is not the director of public works.

I'm sort of surprised by that question because I feel like that our presentation uh did answer that.

Um but it's it's protecting a 45 million dollar asset um that the that the taxpayers have already paid for.

It's increasing the longevity of the equipment by by saving money, it's faster storm response, decreased maintenance costs, um, decreased equipment deterioration.

Uh I think there's a lot of benefits.

Having the ability to retain staff, you know, we when you many of you have have toured uh the street, it's garage with me.

It's deplorable conditions.

How do you how do you retain staff working in those types of conditions?

Um so I think I think the the uh the benefits are numerous.

We we're trying to run snow operations from two facilities right now.

Very difficult to coordinate those efforts when we're trying to do that.

During this winter, we uh the boiler uh broke down numerous times during snow during snow operations.

So not only were they trying to plow at 2 a.m.

But they're they have a building that doesn't even have heat.

I mean it's just it's it's just it's pretty it's pretty awful the conditions that they're working in.

It's been and it's been going on for a very long time.

So I think that I think that the benefits to the uh the taxpayers are numerous.

We we need a building to be able to operate out of so that so that we can be there when you need us.

So hopefully that also would improve the health of our employees and save on some of that health insurance that's costing a fortune.

All said, Alderman Sullivan.

Yes, all right.

Alman Lopez and Alderman Greg.

So I'm not sure who can answer this question.

Um, but uh I had a question about the heat the methane heat exchange system somehow in my 10 years in Alderman School and never bumbled into anything about methane and how long it's released.

So I was wondering about the longevity.

So I was wondering about the longevity how long is that how long will we be pulling enough methane to potentially heat this whole facility.

Is there any kind of fluctuation over time or is this basically like an indefinite heat source anybody?

Scott Scott inspiring talking yeah so we we've pulled some logs of um the operation of the plant it's it's very consistent.

It's it's like I said it runs almost at sort of an average of about 90% of the full output um over the whole year.

So and it's been doing that for a long time well since it's been built.

The only time it's ever been down is when they're replacing the generators which they're actually doing one right now so we'll have another new generator there pretty soon in terms of going forward it's it's really um is as long as the landfill um is in operation and and then well beyond so you know it's gonna be the life of this building yeah that it's gonna keep going because that just keeps you know every that stuff just keeps generating over time.

So you have a really solid source that operates at a very um high output rate um and it's um so it's very consistent yeah I appreciate that I'm sure you consider that I just ignorant of methane use yeah unfortunately there's just more going in the landfill all the time and it just keeps on generating yeah the public is yes I reach the answer and by the way when we design the um existing office building we took into account that we were going to add this at the some date so all the hookups and hookup capabilities are already built into that building Alderman Greg and then Alderman Johnson.

Well in the spirit of the Statehouse I'm gonna do it would you believe but I think that uh DPW has a very interesting role in our community where they literally touch every single person in this community.

So whatever's happening at DPW is affecting every single resident in Nashua and so that's a huge thing.

And I'm a firm believer that how you treat your employees especially when they do services like this is how they go out into the world.

So this is a huge effect on you know our entire community by how we're dealing with this.

Alan Johnson thank you very much I don't know who can answer this but um it was said that um in the break room it can support 45 of our employees but um there could be up to 75 in one time can someone elaborate on that because I'm kind of confused if can a half 75 but if you're out plowing you're not gonna have 75 people in there one time are you we could you could sure absolutely so the 75 would include of course not only the street department but uh solid waste some people from wastewater maybe some people from parks from different departments but when we have when they come in for we we try to give provide them some nourishment because obviously sometimes they can be plowing for uh somebody mentioned 48 hours sometimes it can be 72.

I mean it's it's all hands on deck we don't have we don't have numerous shifts so when they come in um to take breaks that yes that can be several people when they're when they're being assigned um there there are many times when there could be um upwards of 75 people the need for that and someone talked about testing as part of this so is that going to be the area behind the administration building for the PFOS because that's where the the new garage is going to be kind of so is that going to be soil testing in that area where the state said that ad had to be tested should have been done five six hours ago that testing that testing has been done where the old fire training ground was yeah so we we found uh results that would be that you would expect to see with a fire training ground uh that operated um there so uh that is not where the actual building will be though it'll be that'll be more of a parking area and so we're working through those issues uh with the state there they weren't surprised to see uh what we found um so we're confident that we can we can easily work through those so that's gonna be may I continue follow on if that's going to be the more the parking area but you still have to do some type of cleanup in that area or you're not gonna have to no I don't I don't think that we're going to need to do any uh any cleanup if if we do it's gonna be very minimal it could be just recovering the landfill or or something something of that nature.

I don't know exactly uh what what will take place at this point we're still working through that with the with the state uh Alderman Johnson but I I'm confident that uh they're they're uh very willing to work with us and and again are not surprised with what with what we found would be expected.

And you'll keep this point abreast of what the outcome is because I think it's very important that we know as we go along if there's toxicity.

I also would like to ask um if I can get a copy of the presentation from everybody.

I got the we all got the uh information on the building that you're in now, and which I've said to many people, I mean that building was definitely neglected over the years.

I'm not on board on this 100% for my own reasons.

Um I feel um that um I guess the city has enough money for everything else and they couldn't supply adequate chairs um for our employees.

I think shame on the city that um some of us donated so that they had proper seating um during the storms.

I think that's sad.

We're asking for 45 million dollars to replace the building, and we can't put anything in the break room for our employees that we're taking old chairs that were in the landfill to to put in the break room.

I mean, that's what they were saying.

I mean, regardless, regardless, you know.

I know this building, whether I vote for it or not, the building is going to be built.

But I hope, you know, when you talk about morale, I hope we're gonna put something better out there for our employees.

So when they're plowing for 48 hours, they have something to come in on their break time and they can relax and they can feel comfortable and that they're treated and they're respected that you know, being out there, you know, because I haven't gone through the building with you.

But when I dropped off the chair, I was able to see some of the areas.

And uh, you know, I was a little shocked.

Um, but it shouldn't be like that.

You know, if we do it for one department, we should be doing for another department, and these guys, if we're gonna call them out first responders out there, then we have to treat them so they because they're the ones out there that are plowing 48 hours and they're not going home to their families and they're not sleeping, and for them to have old furniture.

I was really appalled by it as a taxpayer.

So when you talk about how is this affecting our taxpayers in the city, this affects the morale, definitely.

Okay, thank you very much.

May I respond to that?

Yes quickly, thank you.

Um Alderman Johnson, we can't we could afford uh new chairs.

They that break room is is despicable, and I'd be happy to take you for a tour any time.

The the bathrooms are horrible.

The whole facility is horrible.

It's become we we greatly appreciate the the chairs uh that that you did donated and and so did uh Alder Woman Smith very much.

So but it has become it became a sort of a fun game for them.

They would find chairs and look what I found.

So that's how the chairs, that's how the chairs ended up that way.

Okay, they were trying to make the best out of a bad situation.

We did we have provided chairs, and they didn't like them.

They wanted to they wanted to do this because they were trying to make the best out of a bad situation.

So I want you to know that the city could have afforded chairs.

I think I mentioned that to Alder Women Smith as well.

And um, but that's why the chairs look so bad.

They it it it became sort of a game, and they each have their own chair, and and that's just that you know that's how they that's how they they sort of uh made you know that situation a little bit better.

Okay.

So I just want to make sure that I would not deny I would not deny them.

Okay, Alderman T bow.

Yeah, thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Can we just be reminded that we're just should be doing clarifying questions, not debating or talking about the issue because I got a lot of things I could say, but I want to wait till the we're gonna have a meeting afterwards.

Yeah, so whatever's covered in this aspect of the public hearing, we probably don't need to hear again during the budget meeting.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

All right.

I'll now open the public hearing and testimony in favor of our 26007.

Testimony in favor of commissioners.

Commissioner speaker.

Um Public Works Commissioner, 15 Hanover Street, Nashville, New Hampshire.

Um I'm here in support of the new public works garage.

We desperately need it.

Um I was um when I was elected to the uh to the Board of Public Works was tour that was the existing facility, and it was rough.

And you know, I think if we want to invest in our city, it's we you know, investing is not having part of the wing of our you know, of a snow plow not being able to fit and hitting the existing structure.

Like that's not that's not how we're gonna make sure that we salvage parts here.

Um so you know, I I just I worry that by there is by not acting, by not doing something we are we are acting.

We are we are making it so that we're pushing this down the road.

Uh it's gonna cost even more money to do it down the road.

So I'm you know, I want to make sure that this happens.

It's an investment for our city.

You know, when people talk about the cleanliness of our city, when people talk about making sure that our roads are plowed so that you know, first responders and and anyone can just get people can make it to work, things like that.

And when people talk about just making sure that um saving people money, um we need to talk about making sure that we protect the investments that we're making.

These vehicles are not getting any cheaper.

Um, and if we leave them out, just like I'm sure all the folks here, like you know, if you cared about something, like if I cared if I I just bought a new book, if I really cared about it, I wouldn't just leave it out in my front doorstep.

I would probably put it on a shelf in my house.

Um but what we're doing right now is we're just leaving it out on the doorstep for the elements, and you know, we should not be surprised when things end up ruined.

Um so I support this uh legislation and hope that y'all support as well.

Thank you.

Any other testimony in favor?

Seeing none testimony in opposition.

Laurie Ortolano, 41 Berkeley Street.

Um, I'm opposed to this project really based on cost, long-term cost, but also because as a board, I don't think you track large projects well.

You know, the River Walk project went on for five years, and I think we had two or three public presentations of how the money was spent.

And I know after two years, I asked Lori Wilshire if she would um talk about where we stood in spending.

And I could not get her to acknowledge me.

I filed a right to know to see if I could see where the spending was.

It took months, and I got a pish posh of data that was really hard to read.

You know, I'm tired of seeing this city and this board of aldermen ask for large sums of money and then never track a project.

I even asked board members to create an ordinance or a policy where you want quarterly accounting.

A quarterly business report comes to you on spending, and we would be able to see it, and no one would acknowledge that.

And if quarterly is too much, how about every six months?

How about twice a year?

You know, a project could take up to five years to do.

Project could take three years.

And when you get one or two reports in that amount of time, you really wonder as a member of the public, where does it stand?

And what I do know is that as projects delay, costs typically escalate.

And so for that reason, I just don't see the accounting here.

And citizens like me are forced to file right to know's very ineffectively, no real dialogue with anyone, and no one who moves anything.

And the other issue is just general transparency.

This city has not been transparent.

Every bit of every record or information you want is an all-out battle.

You know, I filed an ethics complaint September 14th.

It was three pages long.

No need to go into the details.

I'm speaking to that regarding transparency.

It's been six months and it's your ordinance, and it was supposed to be heard in 30 days.

There's no transparency.

I heard Ms.

Gregg say, you know, a good way to keep people employed and keep people around is to give them what they need.

Have you taken a look at your community development department?

The turnover is like 38 people in three years out of a department with 18 people.

What's going on over there that results in that kind of turnover?

Why are we unable to keep people over there?

And you know, nobody.

Stay on track.

It's relevant to spending money and spending money for projects.

But you're going to talk about why we're investing in this project.

We're investing in this project to keep people here.

Why are we not able to keep people in other departments?

And I think you should look at that.

Okay, that's happening right now.

That's here and now.

There's just no transparency.

And so I'm opposed to projects that spend money.

Because the board as a whole, Laurie Wilshire, vice presidents, ward people, do not respond to the public.

And I'm the only one really here from the public to speak about it.

You got 90,000 people.

You don't have a lot of people here standing up to speak about it.

You may not appreciate my position, but it's you're not being inundated with people who are participating.

So, you know, for that reason, I know when this project starts, I won't get accounting.

It'll be a fight for right to nose.

There won't be reports given to the board.

It'll be the river walk all over again, and any other project we do, and I'm just not up for it.

Thank you.

Anyone else in opposition?

Seeing no additional, once again, testimony in favor.

Commissioner Shea.

Thank you very much.

Um Paul Shea.

I'm the uh one of the Board of Public Works Commissioners.

I live at 42 Hills Ferry Road.

Um I have come to speak in favor of this.

For me, one of the most important questions that we can ask about the business that we conduct as a city is is what is it that we would prefer?

We spend some time and uh there seems to be some energy that goes into what we would not prefer, but but the most important thing is what we would prefer.

And we have city workers that are out there uh 24-7 clearing the roads, they're out there every day clearing the trash, they're out cleaning up the parks.

Uh there are a lot of benefits to this project.

For me, I would prefer most of all that we care for our employees.

When I began on the Board of Public Works, I also got a tour of the facility.

Uh Commissioner Speedia got a tour two years later when he first came around.

And that facility is certainly not what we should prefer.

It's certainly not what's good for our employees.

Um there were birds in there at the time.

The garage doors needed to be replaced.

And we've mended, uh, but but it's not enough.

It's not enough to show respect to the people that care uh for the hard work that it takes to keep this place together.

And so that's why I've come tonight.

Um that's why I've spoken about uh my favor for this project because it's important that we see the city employees and they feel seen and appreciated, and we don't just express that through words, we express it through action and the things that we choose to prefer to ensure that things are are good and we're doing right by people.

And that's all.

Uh I I hate to take such a somber tone on on such an important thing that there's uh a lot to appreciate, and uh we went over a lot of that tonight, but for me and and I hope for you, um I I would prefer that we do the best to take care of the employees of the city.

Thank you.

Anyone else testimony in favor?

Commissioner Lemon.

Yeah, my name is June Lemon, I'm a commissioner of public works.

I live at 31 Ashland Street.

Um, just like Manny, just like Paul, one of my first tours was at the garage where I had a bird fly right into my face, um, which caused a little screeching, but um one of the things that impressed me so much though was when we toured these facilities, and and you know, like before they built the BPW building, if you had ever been in the trailer next to the landfill on a lovely hot July day, you would be amazed at how hot it was in there.

And I never heard not one employee complain ever, even in a like an aside about the conditions of working at the BPW.

They are professional, and when Lisa made her presentation at the beginning, she said we don't ask for a lot, and it's true, they don't ask for a lot.

And what they are asking for now is a way to protect the extremely valuable investment that this city has in its vehicles and its employees, and we are all charged with spending the city's money well.

And I don't take it kindly when I'm told that there's no transparency, and there is transparency, and there is also all of us take that responsibility very highly.

I'm just like everyone else.

I don't like it when the tax bill arrives, but I know that it directly affects the quality of the lives of every single person who is a taxpayer in the city.

And the Board of Public Works, you don't have to be a taxpayer in the city.

You're affected by how well the board runs.

Your streets are plowed.

Your garbage is picked up.

You can walk safely through a crosswalk because it's marked well with bollards.

So I would just like to say I am in support of this project because I think we have a huge investment here that we need to protect in both vehicles, equipment, and employees.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Additional testimony in favor.

Seeing none.

And once again, testimony in opposition.

Seeing none.

I will now close the public hearing on resolution R26007 as amended at 825 p.m.

Alderman O'Brien, do you have a motion for us?

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

I have a motion that the March 23rd, 2026, special meeting.

By roll call.

Please call rule.

Alderman Clay.

Here.

Alderman Clay Present.

No.

It's our mind went yay.

Honestly, I wasn't sleeping, I promise.

Excuse me.

All of the women smith.

Yes.

Yes.

Got your confusion.

Yes.

Yay and yay.

Sorry about that.

Alderman Tebow?

Yes.

Albert O'Brien votes yes.

Alderman Gregg?

Yes.

Alderman Dow?

Yes.

Aldwyn Sullivan.

Yes.

Alderman Senate?

Yes.

Alderman Johansson.

Johnson Johnson.

Johnson.

J O H S O N.

Johnson.

Yes.

She's on.

Alder Woman Kelly.

Yes.

Yes.

Alderman Lopez.

Yes.

I'll say yes louder.

Yes.

And Alderman will shire.

Yes.

Also, for the record, Mr.

Chairman, we were joined by Alderman Smith at 704 and Lopez of 706.

Thank you.

So well so the motion passes and we're adjourned at 8.27 p.m.

It'll take five minutes and we'll start right in the budget.

I was pretty important.