Please support Tracy Pappas and Laurie Ortolano as DPW Commissioners

I believe citizens value elected officials who give careful attention to the spending of taxpayer money. As Commissioner Pappas has articulated in many meetings, it’s not easy come, easy go.

On December 23, 2019, the Board of Aldermen passed a $6 million dollar bond to construct a new DPW office facility. The total project cost was $10 million and the additional $4 million was to come from the sale of the 141 Burke St. property. The sale money is being used to fund the new facility rather than paying off the outstanding $3.7 million in bonds (as of June 2021).

The 141 Burke Street property was purchased in 2015 for $4.2 million with the intention of creating a DPW “one umbrella” facility. Commissioner Pappas did not vote for this purchase. It turns out no one walked through the building before the purchase and it was determined after the purchase that the building was not suitable for its intended purpose.

The City leadership rushed to bond the new 2019 facility without a commitment for the sale of Burke Street. This property was put on the market for $3.9 million in the summer of 2019 and there was no solid commitment that the building would sell in December or early 2020. Turns out the building did not sell until July 2021, almost two year later and at a price of $3.6 million. 

In 2019, there was a hand-picked “DPW building committee” selected by the Mayor with members of the Board of Aldermen included. The Mayor is the chair of the Board of Public Works. No meetings of this committee were ever posted nor was public attendance allowed. 

I spoke against this type of illegal meeting format, as did Commissioner Pappas, and requested that the business of constructing a new DPW facility be handled in public session. The Board complied with the request.

It was clear after waiting two years to sell Burke Street and the increase in construction costs due to COVID, this was no longer a $10 million facility. In late May 2021, a joint meeting of the Infrastructure Committee and DPW Board was held to resurrect the DPW facility project. At this meeting Commissioner Pappas made the following statement:

So I will say, I think I was the only person who voted against Burke Street because we didn’t have enough information, as it turned out that cost was prohibitive. 

And if we are going over budget, I really hope that we do, that each of these Boards and the Board of Aldermen get minutes after each of these meetings of this Joint Board so we kind of know what’s going on so it’s not right at the end we find out that it going to be way more that we had anticipated. I think that that may have been what was missing in the Burke Street project. 

A DPW/Infrastructure sub-committee was formed made up of 2 DPW members and 3 infrastructure members to develop the plans and bring forth the information and recommendations to the full board.

On August 3, 2021, the sub-committee met with the design architect and construction company. The companies provided a detailed presentation, with handouts,  and addressed the cost increase. Mr. Cummings stated:

A discussion commenced about how to handle the concern about what was a $10M project now becoming a $15M project. Mr. Cummings said that with ancillary costs it never really was a $10M project. Director Fauteux said that we were originally talking about $8M hard and $2M soft costs, but what wasn’t factored in were the contingencies. 

Why is the public and the entire DPW Board not informed about the “real” total costs in 2019?

On August 10, 2021, the full joint boards met to address this project. Apparently, it was the sneaky intention of the sub-committee to bring forth a motion to increase the funding to $15 million and have the full Board vote on this at the meeting. The handouts provided to two DPW Board commissioners were never given to the full board.

The Agenda omitted the motion to increase the project cost to $15 million. The commissioners not present in the subcommittee meeting had no idea a motion to increase the facility cost was being brought forward. The August 10, 2021 meeting meetings contained the following views of Commissioner Pappas:

I understand but we didn’t receive any of the (information), that should be part of the packet. 

I had found it to be a real problem with the last time we tried to do the facility on Burke Street. I was the one who voted against the purchase of it because we didn’t have enough information. I think it’s really difficult for us to be expected to spend this much money and kind of be left in the dark. 

Quite honestly, in November 2019, we did say the AFSCME employees wouldn’t be there initially, and I think it was sold differently to the community around the landfill. And I think we need to be as open as possible and be fair. 

When you have an agenda, one of the first things on it should be approving the meeting minutes from the time before.

I just think that would be the considerate thing to do and I think if the community is being asked to fund such a large project, I think the least we could do about it is to be as open as possible as we can. 

Yes, I’m curious as to why these items weren’t on the agenda. I know I don’t like surprises.. 

I don’t see money as easy come easy go and I really like to think about things. If you knew exactly what the motion was going to be, I would find it really helpful in the future to be as detailed as possible. I think we owe that to the citizens of Nashua. 

Commissioners Pappas and Schoneman voted “No”. Mayor Donchess voted “yes” with Commissioners Teas and Moriarty. 

Please re-elect Commissioner Pappas and elect Laurie Ortolano to the Board of Public Works.