Mike Soucy
A New Leader for Nashua

The Nashua Imagine Master Plan from 2021 states the following. “As a reaction to the Covid-19 pandemic, temporary sidewalk expansion has been implemented with positive reactions from citizens and shop owners. The City of Nashua wishes to explore how this could become more permanent.”

I want to first challenge this statement. Although I am sure there were some positive reactions from our citizens, I am hearing a significant number of negative reactions regarding the barriers which far exceeds the positive reactions. Furthermore, I have spoken with twenty-two non-restaurant shop owners located on Main Street regarding their opinions on the barriers. Eighteen were opposed with some saying that they could potentially go out of business or would likely move out of Main Street. Three shops were okay with the barriers and one didn’t care either way. The recommendations are to expand the sidewalks into the parking areas and shrinking and/or removing existing lanes on Main Street itself. By shrinking the traffic lanes, it will cause a delayed public safety response time, it will cause increased traffic congestion on our primary thoroughfare connecting North and South Nashua across the Nashua River and unfortunately it will drive away many of our small business located in our historic downtown.

This is a costly endeavor that is unsafe, unfair to many of our local businesses and an unnecessary burden to the taxpayers in Nashua.

I have heard many arguments for and against the plant. My decision regarding the plant is not based on any science or any other factors other than one of my key campaign principles of constituent respect. The neighbors do not want it and the significant majority of our residents are against it. So hearing our constituents, their opinions and voices are to be respected.

There is no greater responsibility for government than providing a safe community for all our citizens. Having served Nashua for twenty-three years in the public safety arena, three as a Firefighter and twenty as a Police Officer, I fully understand the challenges our dedicated professional public safety members face each day. I also understand the challenges that the city of Nashua faces as we continue to grow. We are blessed to have in what I believe to be the finest Police Department and Fire Department in New Hampshire.

To onboard a fully functional police officer or firefighter it takes months of training and is quite expensive. There are no contracts that require police officers or firefighters to stay employed with Nashua after we invested thousands of dollars to equip and train them. Simply said, after they are certified they can seek employment in other communities that may offer better wages and benefits. We cannot afford to train & certify public safety members just to have them leave for other communities. We must find balance which is fair to the taxpayers and our public safety members. I would support contracts based on the market rates of similar communities within our region. Equitable pay and benefits keep our employees here in Nashua as well as opportunities for Nashua to hire public safety certified members from other communities which would save thousands of dollars. What we can’t do is to support contracts that are excessive beyond what the community market rates currently dictate.

Finding balance for the taxpayers and public safety members makes sense and should be the path forward as we strive to maintain the finest public safety departments at a reasonable cost acceptable to the taxpayers.

In today’s political worlds, we can compare our politics to a football field. We have friends on the far left on their five-yard line, and friends on the right on their five-yard line. We all hear them because they tend to be very vocal with their heels dug in shouting bumper sticker slogans at each other. But, we as Americans don’t live on the fringes. Most of us are between the forties, little left of center or a little right of center. So, I’m not concerned about whether you call yourself a Democrat, Republican, Libertarian or Undeclared. If you are a pragmatic moderate within the forties willing to listen and engage in discourse with respect, then we can always work together. Sure, there will be disagreements, but solutions can be found when reasonable people enter into negotiations and conversations with open minds and honorable intentions.

Current Nashua Tax rates per thousand:

City $ 7.56

County: $ 0.95

Local School $ 8.44

State School $ 1.12

Total Tax Rate: $18.07

The Board of Alderman during it’s June 27 meeting, voted unanimously to approve the city’s total budget of $412 million for fiscal year 2024. This represents a $ 5 million increase over last year. $317.5 million will be allocated to the General Fund, $37.1 million is allocated to the Enterprise Fund and $57.3 million to the Special Revenue Fund.

The total Board of Education approved budget stands at $125,430,149 excluding City-funding employees, which is a $3.01% increase over last year.

In 2019, the plan for the new Brian McCarthy Middle School and renovations of the two existing schools went to bond in the amount of $118 million. It now appears that the BoE could be looking for an additional 8-9 million to complete the construction.

Over the last decade enrollment has declined an average of 124 students per year. Our student population continues to decline at about 1.4% a year. We could potentially lose 451-826 students in the next five years and 800-1,835 students in the next ten years.

So I have to ask, why is our school budget continuously going up and why did we bond $118 million to build this monster size middle school while we are talking about closing schools due to declining student populations. This is worth further examination and scrutiny.

Nashua taxpayers have now reached their limit for what they can afford regarding the recent exploding tax hikes imposed upon our property values. It’s time for a new administration to come in and take a conservative fiscal approach to prioritize our spending. We can no longer afford the tax hikes of uncontrolled spending we have all experienced the last eight years. We spend far too much….Enough is enough.

Since many are talking about the school budget and possible school closures. Let’s examine this subject for a moment.

It is this current BOE under the current administration that is actively pursuing the closing of a school. Mount Pleasant is on the chopping block due to under enrollment (about half capacity) and in need of very expensive upgrades. It was given a two year reprieve. I do agree that this needs to happen as well. So, based on the presentation by an independent advisor by the Nashua School District to the Board of Education’s I think we may need to close this school.

But keep in mind when I say this, all of this is happening now under the current administration. For Mayor Jim Donchess to put out an email blast that I want to close schools while a school is actively being considered to close during his administration is hypocritical. I am only talking about it. The difference being he is actually doing it!

Because I agree with this recommendation, these are the cuts from the school budget that I have been speaking about. From what I am hearing from a member of the Board of Education, that the study recommends up to 6 schools that could potentially be cut. That recommendation was far too aggressive in my opinion. If the decline in public school enrollment does continue as the trend indicates, one more elementary may have to be cut. That final decision about the school location will be based on the data and of course the final word would come from the BOE, not from me.

Now, what I would have liked to see happen as an alternative to bonding $118 million for the new Brian McCarthy Middle School would be the following: We could have held on to Elm Street for 3-4 years whereas we would have lost about 300 more students. We then could have shut down Fairground Elementary and repurposed it as a middle school attached to the Fairgrounds Middle School across the Street. That would have given us the desired large Middle School footprint and replace Elm Street. All it would really require would be create a foot bridge going over Cleveland Street to blend the two schools. We now have a Fairgrounds Academy with 6th grade housed in lower school, 8th grade in upper and 7th could bounce between both. (Please note at one time Fairgrounds elementary used to house 6th grade.)

These are just some of my thoughts and outside the box ideas. It’s not about closing schools but the reallocation of resources without having to unnecessarily spend your tax dollars like the current administration has already demonstrated. I’m asking for your vote on September 12th to be your candidate for Mayor of Nashua. One who’s willing to roll up his sleeves and help fix problems not just throw your tax dollars at it!