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.

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.

Winter Operations of Nashua Public Works

This past Tuesday the Aldermen were invited to a presentation of "Winter Operations" by the Superintendant of Streets. A lot of information was presented about our city's snow removal process. Briefly: DPW has about 60 pieces of equipment (plows) and calls in about 80 staff for an all-night-all-day effort to prepare and clear the streets during and after a storm. The plan is quite detailed and in my opinion although it is not perfect it is at least very good.

If during a snow event you find a street was missed please forward that to me and I'll forward that to citizen services, etc. City staff do want to keep track of how they're doing and will continue to make all efforts to improve. Please keep in mind that there is a lot of inertia associated with this massive city-wide operation. By contrast weather is fickle. 

Regarding sidewalks, there is a list of sidewalks that get cleared such as those on school walk routes. Each year the list is updated depending on which students go to which schools versus busing. As with the roads, if you find there is a sidewalk that should be added to the list please let me know.

Delivering the Vote at the Pennichuck Corp Shareholders' Meeting

Who should deliver the vote of the Sole Shareholder?

If the purpose of holding the meeting is simply to vote on the two agenda items which are listed on the proxy card then the meeting itself is somewhat a trivial formality. This is because we, the Board of Aldermen, can vote on the items and mail in the proxy card. I already addressed this in a previous post. At tonight's BoA meeting I brought in Resolution 13-097 under rules suspension to do precisely this - and more importantly to get the public Aldermanic process going, get this on the agenda, have something listed for the public to address. At the end of tonight's meeting I mentioned that once we have voted it doesn't matter - for practical purposes - who delivers that vote to the Pennichuck Board of Directors. We can mail it in, both literally and figuratively.

In principle it matters a great deal, which leads me to my next point. The purpose of holding an Annual Shareholders' meeting is so that we can discuss at length issues of substance face to face. For example, if we are not satisfied with the way the Board of Directors is recording meeting minutes we can address the issue, make a request, and avoid having to make changes to the by-laws. We can ask about why they are planning to expand water sales into other states and advise whether we feel that is wise.

The shareholders' meeting should be considered to be at least as important as a regularly scheduled BoA meeting. The fifteen of us should plan on attending. If so, it must be publicly posted with an agenda. The public should be invited, same as with a regular BoA meeting. Prior to the meeting we, the BoA should consider topics of discussion beyond the two items listed on the proxy. Some topics may even originate from public comments in the Aldermanic Chamber. And, we should vote on them so that the Pennichuck Directors will know what statements are the opinions of individual aldermen and which are legally the will of the Sole Shareholder. 

Resolution R-13-097 is a description of a process for meeting our basic obligations. But the real answer is that the full Board of Aldermen should attend the Shareholders' meeting and deliver the vote in person.

Pennichuck Proxy Vote Shall be by the full Board of Aldermen

Twenty Six Words! Yes, only 26 words are needed to clearly and simply describe the process of who votes to represent the ratepayers of Pennichuck water. The By-Laws of the Pennichuck Corporation are 10 pages long. Most of the by-laws talk about selecting officers and their roles. Only one page - Article 1 - is relevant to the issues of meetings and how the citizens of Nashua are represented. Within Article 1 there is one paragraph - Section 6 Conduct and Requirements of Meetings - which details how the representation is to occur. 

And finally,within Article 1, Section 6, there are 26 words which unambiguously specify who will represent the city's share as the sole shareholder.

"The Sole Shareholder shall exercise all powers and rights of the Sole Shareholder pursuant to vote of the Board of Aldermen of the City of Nashua,...".

Prior to those 26 words is a sentence which clarifies how that vote shall occur. "All meetings of the Sole Shareholder shall comply with all provisions and requirements applicable to meetings of the Board of Aldermen of the City of Nashua, New Hampshire." That's it.

You can ask just about anyone familiar with city government what that means and they should say, "The issue gets its first reading at the Board of Aldermen. It gets referred to committee, is discussed and a recommendation is returned. It gets a second reading at the Board of Aldermen and a vote is taken." Done.

Yesterday I received my usual weekly packet from City Hall. Included this time was the Pennichuck Corporation Proxy Statement, similar to the bizillions of proxys sent to shareholders from corporations for decades. I expect to vote on this proxy along with my fourteen colleagues. Once that vote is made it is irrelevant who carries the piece of paper with the results of that vote to the Pennichuck Board of Directors. 

What IS important, and what is mandated by law, is that the requirements applicable to meetings of the Board of Aldermen be met. Those requirements shall provide the ratepayers an opportunity to contribute their opinion.

Increase Emphasis of Maintenance in School Budget

A few weeks ago the Capital Improvements Committee listened to presentations from many city departments (all of them actually): Police, Fire, Schools, Public Works x 3, Library, etc. One item to note is the request from the School Dept which was on the order of $6 Million per year for the next four years to catch up with deferred maintenance. Our High Schools are in pretty good shape but several middle and elementary schools are in dire need of repairs - major repairs evidently. 

The question is how do we increase our emphasis on building maintenance without increasing the overall city budget? Without negatively affecting other department budgets this is equivalent to asking "how do we increase the emphasis on building maintenance without increasing the School Budget?"

Nashua's Purchased its 2nd Downtown Location Suitable for Commuter Rail

In case you missed it, at this past Tuesday's Board of Aldermen meeting we voted 14-2 (I voted against) to purchase our 2nd piece of property in downtown suitable for a future commuter rail station. Tuesday's vote was to purchase land at 25 Crown St. for $1.4 Million.

About a quarter mile to the north of the Crown St. property is a city owned lot at 40 Bridge St which abuts a nearly straight 800foot long section of the same railroad tracks. Last spring when I asked about using this as a future commuter rail station I was given a short list of reasons why it is not ideal. For example, since the track is not as straight as the Crown St location it would cost an additional several $100,000 (I wish I could remember the exact number) to configure the platform.

There is a railroad consultant (currently wintering in Florida) who feels that the 40 Bridge St property is admittedly non-ideal but insists its quite usable.

I don't know of any documented analysis comparing the two properties. Even though this consideration is no longer relevant now that we have made our choice, If I learn anything further I'll pass it along.

R-12-031 Purchase and Lease of 25 Crown St.

Committee on Infrastructure, Wednesday, January 23rd. The final vote for R-12-031, to purchase and lease-back the Crown St. property, was 5-0 to recommend final passage. But, not without substantial discussion. Here's my view of the meeting.

The staff of our City's executive branch doesn't know the fair market value of the property yet it was insisted that we pay $1,425,000 for a property which is assessed at $1,403,000. Compare this to the purchases on West Hollis St. which we paid below assessed value. Compare this to many properties citywide which are selling for below market value in this tough economy.

I made a motion to amend the resolution to purchase the property at $1.2M. It failed 3-1.

The Director of Economic Development estimated the maximum rental rates for the property to be about $330,000 per year. Yet, we are asking only $30,000 for 2013. The principle and interest of a $1.4 M loan (at 4.5% for 30 years) is about $86,000. Just to cover the cost-of-money we should ask for that amount. I made a motion to amend the resolution to increase the rent to $60,000. It failed 3-1.

The funds for this purchase are Federal Funds, not from the city's taxes so this purchase will not affect the City Budget.

some notes:
-The consensus is that at best we will have a rail station in 7 years. 
-There is substantial empty commercial rental space in Nashua.
-We are purchasing the property "as is" and the purchase and sale, section 7, clearly recognizes that the property and buildings are deteriorating and that the buyer (City of Nashua) is responsible.
-This property is in the 2005 East Hollis St. Master Plan as an ideal location for a downtown rail station (which I agree). Therefore I content we would have a strong case to force a sale to the city via eminent domain in the future.
-An exit 2 location may be more suited as a commuter rail location for all of Nashua and southern NH.

I am for commuter rail but I am finding it increasingly more difficult to justify my position to those who I represent.

There was much more discussion and I encourage you to watch it online.

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