Nashua City Hall

NASHUA — When a brief discussion period Tuesday evening among the Board of Aldermen, Mayor Jim Donchess and city corporation counsel Steve Bolton concluded and it came time for the board to vote on whether to place the police commission-related petition question on the Nov. 2 ballot, alderman-at-large Ben Clemons had one more question to ask.

“Why does it take a vote of the board … if it’s something that’s going to happen anyway?” Clemons asked Bolton.

Clemons referred to the state statute that requires a governing body — in this case, the Board of Aldermen — to place on the ballot for the next municipal election a citizen petition, as long as it meets the minimum number of signatures as determined by the city clerk, and is written properly.

Ward 2 alderman Rick Dowd asked Bolton for clarification on comments made at last week’s public hearing on the petition by former alderman and retired police officer Mike Soucy.

Soucy, one of the attendees who spoke in opposition to amending the charter, claimed that the petitioners actually needed at least 6,725 signatures — thousands more than were collected — citing a charter provision that requires petitioners to collect signatures equal to 10% of the city’s 67,249 registered voters, which in this case comes to 6,725 signatures.

But the charter language to which Soucy referred, Bolton said, was superseded some time ago by the passage of legislation — RSA 49-B — that provides a way for cities to amend their charters.

The subsection 49-B:5, Bolton said, specifically addresses the percentages of signatures that are required.

“I don’t know where former alderman, former police officer, former firefighter Soucy got his legal education, but I don’t understand how he came up with that,” Bolton added.

So in what amounted to a symbolic gesture, aldermen voted, 10-1, to place the petition question on the ballot for the upcoming election.

It was Clemons who cast the single nay vote; there were no abstentions.

The matter was discussed and the vote taken in the final 15 or so minutes of Tuesday’s special meeting, the majority of which was devoted to a presentation on the New Hampshire Retirement System, conducted by executive director Jan Goodwin and Marty Karlon, director of communications and legislative affairs.

Barring an unexpected development in the petition question matter, local residents who believe bringing the police commission appointment process under local control would be a good thing for Nashua, and those who insist such a move would potentially open the door to political favoritism and even corruption, and weaken the reputation of a highly-regarded police department, will now take to the campaign trail to present their respective positions.

At issue is whether Nashua should discontinue the 130-year-old practice of having the governor appoint members of Nashua’s police commission, and the Executive Council confirm the nominees.

Instead, proponents of changing the process say, Nashua would fare far better if police commissioners are appointed and confirmed by city, rather than state, officials.

The proposal also calls for the police commission be expanded from 3 to 5 members.

At last week’s sometimes-emotional hearing, meanwhile, those who spoke in favor of amending the charter to change the way commissioners are appointed included Sonia Prince, an organizer of the petition drive.

She accused opponents of spreading “ridiculous rumors” and “fear” about “something that’s happened in every other city in New Hampshire,” a reference to the fact that Nashua is the only municipality whose police commissioners are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Executive Council.

“I prefer not to have people (from other places in the state) decide who our commissioners should be,” Prince added.

She was also critical of the Work Study Committee appointed recently to further explore the issue, calling it “a stacked, bogus, so-called study committee” that was “convened at the 11th hour, instead of in May.”

Several speakers who oppose the change took issue with Mayor Jim Donchess’s alleged involvement with the petition drive, one of whom, resident Matthew Gouthro, said Donchess “went out in haste to gather signatures” after the Board of Aldermen in early August voted, 8-6, to not put the question on the ballot.

Victoria Chesterly, the daughter of the late former police commissioner James Chesterly, said the current format “works well … and I’d like to see it stay.

“‘Local control,’ ‘transparency,’ and ‘diversity’ are buzz words” used by the proponents, Chesterly said, adding that “it makes no sense to change the way we do things just because other cities have done it.”

See additional details in Sunday’s print edition of The Telegraph.

Dean Shalhoup may be reached at 594-1256 or dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com.

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