Alderman At-Large Dan Moriarty Biography

About Alderman At-Large Dan Moriarty

You almost certainly know one famous person from my home town of Atchison, Kansas: Amelia Earhart. It's unlikely you know that she grew up on the same street as me although obviously not at the same time. I like to tell people that I grew up in the inner city - inner city Atchison, Kansas, population 13,000. Typical of most mid-western towns the streets are laid out in a grid and there's an alley between every street. My neighborhood is 1/4 acre zoning so the houses are surprisingly closely spaced for being in a state with so much open space.

Atchison looks very similar to Nashua's North End with all its Victorian homes. My mom's house was (still is) a medium sized Victorian with a big porch in front. Since Atchison was settled in the 1760's it is filled with many impressive homes made of stone and brick, one with a set of gargoyles on the roof keeping watch. The house I grew up in is still there, same phone number since before I was born. A symbol of stability and reliability that has contributed to my personality.

Atchison residents are mostly blue collar, with the largest employer being the steel foundry along the river, formerly owned by Rockwell. Their claim to fame is having the ability to make the largest (at least while I lived there) single-pour castings: tank turrets, railroad trucks, etc.The second largest employer is Midwest Grain Products. Allegedly they produced more alcohol than any other location in the country, used in low-cost beverages such as vodka and gin that comes in plastic jugs and the grain-mash would be used for livestock feed.

I went to Central School (public) from K-5 and walked to and from home since 1st grade. Imagine these days letting your 6 year old walk home from school, make a snack, and wait for you to return home from work. note: never in my life did I have a key to my house because we never locked our doors. We often toss our car keys on the floor when we get out to go shopping. I spent the weekends with my dad who travelled during the week as a sales rep in the casting industry. My mom worked full time to support us five kids first as a waitress then for most of her career keeping the books for payroll at Rockwell. There were days I was home sick from school watching educational TV on PBS. My mom would call from work to check up on me (which annoyed me to no end). Now days that would be frowned upon but the whole arrangement instilled a sense of personal responsibility.

My dad was a sports nut and as such I first started competing in swimming when I was 6 and "retired" when I was 11. After that it was baseball, football, basketball, and soccer. Eventually I managed to stop playing basketball which I was never any good at and wrestled instead. By the end of high school it was just cross-country in the fall and track in the spring. I ran every single day for three years and managed to get 11th at the state champs in the 2 mile (10:02) and 4th in the 4x800 relay (8:17). The next day I hung up my shoes and essentially didn't run again until the summer before my 30th birthday....because while at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology my main focus was academics. There were times during the latter parts of the semesters when there weren't enough hours in the week to get everything done. So, we would skip lectures in order to get the homework done. Quizzes were a treat because it meant there was no eight hour homework assignment due that week. I was in electrical engineering which was the largest department at the Institute. I remember one class being so oversubscribed, (MIT had a policy that you could go to any class you wanted without ever having to get on a wait list) that the professor decided to crank up the difficulty of the homework until the students began to drop out of the class. Eventually through attrition he got the class down to a manageable size. (6.013, fall junior year.)

Aside from the obvious technical training, probably the single biggest thing I learned from MIT was what I call their "No Excuses Policy." If there was an assignment due on Monday and a gigantic snow storm left two feet of snow on Saturday morning making it next to impossible to get to the lab, the assignment was still due. You were supposed to know the storm was coming and start early. If there was any conceivable way the work could get done it shall be done. At the same time the students could apply this policy on the administration. There better be benches and test equipment available. The electronics better be available, and same with the teaching staff. The 'Tute gave us infinite resources and flexibility to accomplish our work and expected nothing short of perfection.

After getting a doctorate in applied physics in the department of Nuclear Engineering, my first job was in Los Angeles at TRW, an aerospace and security company. After two years I returned to New England to join the MIT Lincoln Lab, then four years at a telecom startup. Most recently, 9 years at BAE Systems where I am now. This is a great place to work: almost no corporate politics, a meritocracy, plenty of resources, driven toward deliverables. It's a lot like MIT; but, without the competition between peers. In my role as Alderman I often resort to my experience at my current employer as a guide of how things should function. At the moment I envision myself retiring here at BAE Systems.

I have one real hobby: racing triathlon. It's almost a profession since I train about 10 hours per week (150 miles on the bike, 25 miles running, 2 hours in the pool). My first race was in Hyannis, Mass in 1999. Since then I've competed in about 50 triathlons from sprint, to Olympic distance, to half-Ironman. I've raced three times for Team USA at the Age Group World Championships: Gold Coast, Australia; Budapest, Hungary; and Beijing, China. My best ranked performance was 10th in my age group at the Beijing World Champs.

My four kids keep me busy every other weekend and a few weeks a year. Amelia is now 13 and after a great first season of track is back to ballet. Rebecca, 11, is interested in gymnastics and saving money. Charlotte, 11, likes ballet and has a goofy sense of humor like her brother. Owen, 8, just finished his first season of T-ball. The girls, especially Amelia, are amazing artists.

Nashua suits me. It has everything I need and no traffic. But, I do miss the thunderstorms of Kansas' springs.

Monday, April 29, 2013

Update on four Police Union Contracts

Here's an update on the 4 policeman related union contracts which are up for a vote at the next Board of Aldermen meeting.

They are long but readable. The only items which the BoA have jurisdiction over are the cost items, i.e. parts of the contracts which deal with money coming from the city budget (salaries and benefits.) There are four contracts including the police supervisors (captains and liutenants), communications staff, UAW, and. The police patrolmen's union is the last remaining yet to come to an agreement with the police commissioners.

As background, all other city employee contracts (Fire, Teachers, Library staff, etc) have been approved. There are two main items of note: the employee's share of their health care premiums, and their annual pay increase. They made concessions to accept health care premiums of 20% or 30% depending on level of service beginning Oct 2011. They all accepted 0.5% pay increases for each of the past two years and the upcoming year. The net effect for most employees was a reduction in their takehome pay.

The four police union contracts are different but none of them have accepted both concessions: the 20%/30% beginning Oct 2011 and the 0.5% pay increase. By my calculations the net effect is a cost to the city of about $1000 per employee per year for the three years these contracts are applicable. 

There have been comments about fairness and comparisons to industry, etc. I am choosing to focus on uniformity amoung the city emplyees only. Fairness is a difficult thing to define and quantify. If we apply a uniform standard then I would have to vote against approving the four contracts. And I will have to hope that the unions agree with this logic and are able to come to agreeable terms without too much further delay.
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Wednesday, April 24, 2013

My Vote Against an Additional $300,000 grant to Cotton Mill LLC

At Tuesday's Board of Aldermen meeting I was one of three to vote against a resolution to steer another $300,000 in Federal block grant money to the Cotton Mill LLC project. In general I support the goals of the project. The current building is an eyesore on Nashua's downtown and it has collected substantial toxic wastes. After it is re-developed it will be very similar to the Clocktower Place apartments: 106 apartments of mixed income with about half of them being at less than market rate.

The building was purchased in 2006 by Mr. Stabile for about $1.75 million. This development project is funded by about $11 million in tax credit investors, about $10 million in a permanent loan from HUD, $700,000 from the previous two years of the City's HOME block grant from the federal government, and about $600,000 in brownfields funding (toxic cleanup). Mr Stabile is contributing about $2 million but will get that back as the project proceeds. 

The rent from the project will go (99.9%) to the tax credit investors, for the first 15 years. After 15 years full ownership and control of the entire project will go to Mr. Stabile. It is hard to project the value of the property in 15 years, so being conservative, essentially a $1.75 million investment will turn into $25-30 million after 15 years.

It is my opinion that Cotton Mill LLC does not need another $300,000 in HOME funds. It can proceed in very fine financial shape without this grant. 

As a member of the Human Affairs Committee, in the past 18 months, I have participated in a few meetings about these types of projects. As part of discussion of this particular $300,000 I have been told that there are no other agencies currently requesting these funds. Meanwhile there are many other properties around the city that need to be redeveloped. These funds can be spent anytime in the next two years. There are other agencies that manage Community Home Development projects around the state. It is my opinion that this $300,000 will be much better spent on a new project (or projects) around the city. 

I have tried to spread the word in the past year about available CDBG funding for non-profits yet this year we had surplus funds. Regarding these HOME funds, as a member of the Human Affairs Committee, possibly I could take some of the blame for not finding other appropriate agencies; however, I was under the impression that there is a group within the administrative branch which handles this.
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