City employees will receive raise
Most city employees will be receiving 4 percent raises beginning on July 1, thanks to a decision by the Nashua City Council on Monday night.After much discussion, council members decided to give city employees a raise even though the treasurer’s report has not been finalized yet.That decision, though, was challenged by residents, including Terri Gibbs who said, “You don’t know where you are at so how can you give raises?”City Clerk Tabatha Caswell and Water Superintendent Jeff Smith will not be receiving a raise since they have recently earned an education raise.Council members also plan on talking about raises for themselves since it was agreed on in the past but never received.Also on Monday, the City Council denied a request from Thomas Mowbray to plant boulevard trees on his property on Brasher Street.“You might want to consider rescinding the ordinances to restore the appearance of the town,” Mowbray said.City ordinances state people can plant trees but it must be inside the property line. Mowbray wanted to restore the property to the way it was when he bought the property, “a nice shady street,” he said.Councilman Kyle Lane, though argued against the request.“We have enough sidewalk issue,” he said, “and we should not allow trees in the right away.”In other news from Monday night’s Council meeting:• VFW member Dan Bilharz addressed the Council about improvements for Veterans Memorial Park.Bilharz would like to take out the arborvitae and replace those with five big rocks, one for each branch of the military which are Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force and Coast Guard. Anyone who has any ideas for improving Veterans Memorial Park is asked to contact Bilharz since the VFW has control of the park.• Fire Chief Tom Johnson reported the Nashua Fire Department has received 20 calls and 11 of those calls are within city limits. The department has also assisted with two missing persons cases.• Librarian Heather Hackman was happy to report Dan Wardell of the popular IPTV KIDS Clubhouse will be at the library on Thursday.State Librarian Michael Scott will be attending Saturday’s Open House to celebrate Nashua Public Library’s Carnegie building turning 110 years old and the new addition turning 30.Bonnie Cleveland has been with the library for 25 years and Judy Bennor has been with the library for 10 years. The celebration will be held from 12 to 3 p.m. on Saturday afternoon and all are welcome.• The issue of making sure garbage is picked up and bathrooms are clean is very important for the area parks was discussed.“It’s a bigger job than people think,” Park Board member Darin Dietz said.• The council selected Unggoy Broadband as new website development vendor for the City website.• New garbage tote prices have been decided for the green garbage totes and blue recycling bins. The 35-pound green garbage totes and 65-gallon blue recycling tote will be $11, 65-pound green garbage tote and the recycling tote will be $15 and the 95-gallon green garbage tote and recycling tote will be $20.Each resident will have the option to pick the sizes for their garbage tote and receive both totes for these prices.• New “camp host” Brian Stillion will be receiving $2 per camping site starting June 20 plus the free camping site for the rest of the season. When Stillion took this position, he was told the pay would be a free camping site for the season but council members felt the extra pay was worth it because Stillon is doing much more than other camp hosts have done in the past.• Mary White had complaints about traffic around the baseball diamond. She said there are people who are speeding on Mill Street after games, cars going through yards and mailboxes smashed off their posts.
