The Tables have Turned in Nashua Politics

A friend sent me a recently discovered old Facebook post of Jim Donchess from 2013, just before he ran for Mayor. He called for Open Government in Nashua. Oh, how the times have changed! When you are trying to get elected, you’ll say anything to appeal to the masses, Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. Once elected, what was touted as transparency, has become pretty opaque.

Mayor Donchess gives a shout out to BPW Commissioner Tracy Pappas for fighting for open government in Nashua. She was calling upon officials to hold BPW meetings in the evenings when most citizen can participate. The then Board of Aldermen unanimously went on the record in support of Tracy’s positions.

In a 2013 article in the Telegraph.

“Earlier this month, Alderman-at-Large Jim Donchess introduced a resolution to amend the city charter to require that the BPW meet no earlier than 6 p.m., excluding “emergency circumstances.”

In short, Donchess maintains that an elected board overseeing such projects as the $68 million Broad Street Parkway and $2 million in downtown sidewalk improvements should be more accessible to the public. No doubt tweaking Mayor Donnalee Lozeau, his political nemesis who chairs the board, is just an added treat.

At a February 12, 2013 Aldermen Meeting, the public speaks in support of Ms. Pappas regarding the time of the BPW meetings. Here are the comments of Jeff Kleiner of 32 Courtland St. He is the husband of Kim Kleiner, the Mayor’s former Chief of Staff and now Director of Administrative Services.

I think that there’s an inherent conflict there when you’re asking the people that are there to decide what time they’re going to meet. When it’s convenient for them. When the meeting can be done quickly. It can be done without any interruption from the public and that’s really not the right thing. It should be done when the city can come and voice their opinion.

They’re handling a very, very large part of the city’s finances. Your money personally, the people sitting behind me, the people watching tonight. It’s their money and they have a right to go to a meeting at a normal time, that they don’t have to leave their job, not everybody has the luxury to be able to come and go as they want in their job.

They’re going to want to have their voices heard and they’re going to want to be able to see these meeting in this Chamber or in the lecture hall at seven o’clock.

Now that Mayor Donchess is chairing the BPW board, what times are the meetings being run?

Mayor Donchess, a hypocrite, is following a similar path as former Mayor Donnalee Lozeau. Accountability, transparency and open government are slipping away under this Mayor. Oh, how the times have changed!