When "Civic Engagement" Depends on Whether You Agree With the Board
The Nashua Personnel/Administrative Affairs Committee did something worth applauding this week: it voted to expand the first public comment period from three minutes to four, moving Ordinance O-26-021 one step closer to the full Board of Aldermen. It's a modest change. But it's a meaningful one. An extra sixty seconds for residents trying to make a point before a body that holds enormous sway over their daily lives.
It also almost didn't happen, and the reason why is worth sitting with.
During discussion, Alderman Thibeault made clear he preferred to leave the limit at three minutes. His reasoning wasn't about efficiency, meeting length, or agenda management. It was about who, in his view, tends to use the extra time:
"The only people that tend to use as much time as they can are the people that have got something against us."
He went on to contrast this unfavorably with a group of neighbors who once showed up to advocate for removing speed bumps on Main Dunstable Road. He called that "excellent" and "the type of civic engagement that I want." Speakers who instead show up angry or critical don't count, in his framing, as real civic engagement. He put it this way: telling the Board "I'm an F'in this and F'in that" isn't engagement, even if the speaker has every right to say it. "They have the right to do it," he said. "Let them do it. But that's not civic engagement."
That sentence is the whole problem in miniature. He affirms the right to speak. Then, in the same breath, he strips it of legitimacy. Residents get sorted into good civic participants and bad ones based on whether their message flatters the Board. A neighbor asking for speed bump removal is civic engagement. A resident furious about a vote is not. That's not a description of behavior. It's a judgment about content.
The facts don't back up the premise, either. Alderman Thibeault's underlying worry is that handing people more time means critical speakers will burn every second of it. That worry is testable. And the Board's own recent meetings test it.
At the July 14, 2026 BOA meeting, a large group turned out for second public comment on the homeless crisis. Many were critical of the Board. Sixteen people spoke for a combined 35 minutes. That's an average of just over two minutes each, well under the three-minute cap already in place.
At the April 22, 2026 Special BOA Meeting on the resolution to purchase Mulberry Street as a homeless resource center, there was no time limit at all. It was a public hearing where speakers could ask questions and get answers from the Board. Fifteen people spoke for a combined 36 minutes, or about 2.4 minutes per person. Many were opposed to the project. No clock forced restraint there. People simply said what they came to say and sat down.
Two meetings. Two contentious topics. Plenty of critical speakers. Zero evidence of anyone trying to filibuster the Board into submission. If residents were angling to seize the floor and never let go, the meeting with no time limit at all was the moment to do it. They didn't.
None of this is a legal argument about the ordinance itself. A uniform time limit applied equally to every speaker is a reasonable and common practice, and nothing about raising it to four minutes changes that. The ordinance is fine. It's Alderman Thibeault's stated rationale for resisting it that deserves scrutiny. He's an elected official explaining, on the record, that he sizes up how much time constituents deserve based on whether they're saying something he likes.
The committee outvoted that instinct and landed on four minutes. The full Board takes it up in a week. Residents showing up to speak, supportive or furious, aligned with the Board or not, might want to be there to see which version of "civic engagement" wins.