We had property stolen from us in Nashua. It was a property we paid for with our tax dollars, which belonged to us. It was public property, where the money going in and out of it was to be accountable to citizens.
We purchased the property in 2018 for just over $2 million. The Mayor said it would be a public facility owned by the citizens. The property would be paid for out of bond proceeds by taxpayers. The city never took the money out of the bond proceeds. They took the money from some other account that taxpayers funded.
The Mayor decided to fool us all, took unauthorized money from the Bond Proceeds to purchase the arts center’s furniture, fixtures, and equipment, and gave it to one of his shell companies. To add insult to injury, the Mayor decided we would pay rent for the equipment we had already paid for to give more money to this one man and this shell company that owned the private company. The Mayor has us insuring all these shell companies and their schemes and paying for their legal representation (already $550,000 and climbing).
Then, without telling us, the Mayor and top City Officials decided to give the property to a private company – a one-man company with no other employees. The company had no source of revenue other than taxpayer pockets. The company has a Board of Directors, picked by the Mayor and approved by the Board of Aldermen, but the board rarely met. They left the operations and decisions to one man. They started by holding public meetings, few and far between, but after a couple of years, they changed their meetings to private invitation-only events.
Why did the Mayor and City leaders give away our property? Greed and mismanagement. The Mayor wanted this project so badly that there were no state statutes, city legislation, or public outcry that would get in his way. The private company and the individual he was giving it to did not have the money to reimburse us and pay for it. When the Mayor gave away our property, the finance office recorded that we had been “reimbursed” for the property on our financial records. This was false documentation.
Nashua taxpayers bought this property fair and square in 2018 for $2 million. The property was at the former Alex shoe store, now the Nashua Center for the Arts. We demand our stolen property back. We want to know what it cost taxpayers to build this art center and what it costs us to operate and rent the facility.
We will need to replace the Mayor’s autocracy with democracy.
