Night Cap: A Failed Attempt at Urban Library Reform. – JP

If you care about library matters, whether you live in a town or a city,* this video is for you! Skip to 37:25 and tune in for the 19 minutes that follow because the lunacy is mind-blowing.

It’s helpful to point out something obvious to locals, but not so much outside of Nashua. “You can’t fight city hall” is a phrase often said, but you can’t even do that from within if you’re outnumbered by the enemy camp. Even with three hookey players and Alderman Jette, a lawyer who can be halfway decent sometimes, the roll call was 4-8.

Freshman Chris Thibodeau, Tyler Gouveia, and John Sullivan co-sponsored a “resolution” to the city charter(like a CACR in the legislature) that phases out the library trustees, one election cycle at a time (every two years), from being appointed by the mayor to being elected the ordinary way.  Tyler introduced it with a brief elevator speech in the same way a rep or senator would introduce a bill.  You, the reader, can surmise why this resolution is a good thing and come up with several plausible reasons, such as trustees being accountable to the voters, but The Swamp was having none of that!

To use gun-speak regarding hunting, the hunter first identifies the target and then shoots. None of the swampsters identified the target, but they definitely shot at the resolution. Psst, the target was Library Lewdness, a topic I’ve previously written articles about, as have Rep Arlene Quaratiello and Cindy Bennett, a library trustee in her town.

Needless to say, the resolution failed twice, actually, if you count both motions, but I want to point out a few Aldermen for the Wall of Shame.  Alderman Clemons, a sniveling snotty punk from a family of hostile lunatics, compared Nashua to “becoming like Florida, where they ban books.”  Yes, he did say that and it’s all in the video.  Alderman Kelly, who was Councilor Wheeler’s last opponent and is running again, presumably on the same platform of Planned Parenthood and commuter rail, was just as hostile in the discussion.  She spoke more than once and said stupid stuff.  You can’t make up some of the stuff said, so if you didn’t play the video, please do when you have a moment.  And as Columbo would say, “one more thing” with regard to Alderman Kelly being Wheeler’s opponent, she must first beat her primary opponent, who is none other than Ms Melanie Levesque!

I salivate over the amusement of two women unworthy of my vote who have been on my ballot multiple times at odds with one another.  I then think of…  Never mind, I don’t want to give any lunatic librarians any creative ideas, so let’s move on to my former opponent, Alderman Dowd.

You might remember that he’s the one who, as committee chair, lost track of $4.5M in ESSER funds and kept the missing money secret until after the election.  That was in addition to all the things I noted in my anthology of articles on him, but he said some things during the discussion that I will call attention to.  Keeping in mind that he’s a decaying old man who lost track of millions, he somehow decided that one reason to oppose the resolution is that a library trustee candidate’s campaign cost $5000.

Someone should ask him how he arrived at that number.

He also yammered about partisanship, but the comment that made me laugh was his desire to make sure Nashua stays a city.* At minute 54 in the video, he says, “Too many people are trying to make us turn into a town.”  Then, he claims that partisanship doesn’t belong in a library.  Ian Underwood’s assignment, should he choose to accept, is to ask Alderman Dowd for his blessing(written recommendation) that the Croydon Budget Battle be added to the Nashua Public Library inventory and circulation.  I’ll even pay for the book if he says yes, and it really does happen, not that he’s a library trustee himself.

I know that good literary form demands that an article finish with a conclusion. My conclusion, aside from bringing attention to more Nashua shenanigans, is to alert Councilor Wheeler’s constituents of Alderman Kelly’s local antics. Melanie already has statewide name recognition from her failed attempt to get Scanlan’s job. To the very rural voters of EC District 5, I ask, “Do you want an executive councilor who’s a city slicker?”