HAVE NASHUA'S ALDERMEN FORGOTTEN
WHY THEY WERE ELECTED?Dear Customers and Shareholders,
To reach your Alderman,
call 603-589-3030
ALDERMEN-AT-LARGE
Brian McCarthy
James Tollner
Steven Bolton
David Deane
Paula Johnson
David Rootovich
WARD ALDERMEN
Ward 1 Kathryn Vitale
Ward 2 Richard LaRose
Ward 3 Kevin Gage
Ward 4 Marc Plamondon
Ward 5 David Lozeau
Ward 6 Robert Dion
Ward 7 Lori Cardin
Ward 8 David McLaughlin
Ward 9 Robert Shaw, Jr.The top priority of Nashua’s Mayor and Board of Aldermen is supposed to be ensuring that taxpayer money is spent wisely on important services – education, public safety, and the upkeep of public buildings, schools, and roads, to name but a few.
Instead, city leaders are gambling more than $1,000,000 to see if they can take over Pennichuck, New Hampshire’s oldest, continuously operating business.
They say the money spent on lawyers and consultants isn't lost because water customers will reimburse the city. They conveniently forget that most water customers are property taxpayers. Same people, different bill.
Of course, the city can make water customers pay that bill only if the city can prove to the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission that a hostile government takeover of Pennichuck’s water utilities, including systems outside city borders, is in the “public good.”
Then, of course, the city would have to be able to borrow enough money to pay for Pennichuck’s assets, estimated by the city’s own consultants to be as much as $170,000,000.Water customers would see their share of that hefty sum in their bills, too.
Nashua’s residents, taxpayers and water customers expect city government to have better things to do than spend millions on shutting down tax paying businesses, and creating huge debts that the people will have to pay.
We have stated the following facts before, but maybe city leaders need to be reminded that:
- Nearly three-fourths of the residents say they are opposed to the city’s costly attempt to take Pennichuck by eminent domain.
- Nearly two-thirds say they would vote against authorizing a municipal takeover of Pennichuck if a referendum were held today.
Elected officials are supposed to act according to what their constituents want. Anything else is just bad government.
Call city leaders and ask them to stop pouring your money down the drain.
Pennichuck Corporation
New Hampshire’s Oldest
Continuously Operating Business
November 14, 2004
