"There's something smelling here ladies and gents. We need an answer up front," said resident Geoff Daly, during last night's public comment at the Board of Aldermen meeting.

What is "smelling," according to Daly, is the way the city has been handling a parcel of land connected to the $200 million Pennichuck utility deal, which Daly has been voicing concern over.

As the city moves toward finalizing the deal with Pennichuck to purchase the utility company and its holdings, Daly is questioning in particular the sale by Pennichuck of a 33-acre parcel for $2.2 million to developer Hayden Green, which has applied for a permit to build elderly housing on the site.

Daly is among a group of residents who have asked the city to stop the project due to conflicting information over whether the land should be designated as prime wetlands.

A petition by residents asking aldermen to stop the project because of potential environmental risks has been submitted. One resident, Geoff Daly, has talked to city officials, outlining what he claims is proof that the development will harm the watershed.

Daly, who has an engineering background, has been appealing to the city to investigate the permit application process by Hayden Green and figure out how the land was made available for sale and development, when it should have clearly been protected by the DES, Daly said.

DES spokesman James Martin said this morning that DES issued the permit to Hayden Green in March, and that the city had 30 days to appeal.

"The Planning Board and Conservation Commission were notified of the application, but no comments were received on the application within the 30 days," Martin said.

Martin said if the DES were to get "credible information" that the application for development submitted was incomplete in some way, it would not be too late to take a step back and review the facts.

Questions have also been raised by Daly over why the city's Conservation Commission did not weigh in on the wetlands issue sooner.

Daly has introduced an alternative "land swap" proposal that would deter what he says is quickly becoming a legal nightmare for the city. He is still waiting for someone from the city to acknowledge his proposal and bring it into the discussion.

As a resident of the city, Daly has reminded the Board of Aldermen that they should be representing the interests of citizens and not making decisions independent of public imput.

So far, Daly said, his inquiries have gone unanswered.

"If the Mayor cannot talk to citizens of this city we're in deep trouble," said Daly last night.

When the 2003 Pennichuck documents came up during regular business at last night's meeting, Alderman-at-Large Barbara Pressly told the board that she was "shocked" to learn that some current city official, including Board President Brian McCarthy, were involved in past land purchase discussions, and yet the current board was uninformed of that history, until now.

"I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm just surprised and shocked to learn all this. I don't understand why we haven't known this, when it's clear some of the members knew this," Pressly said.

"I don't know what to make of it, but based on the attitude of this committee -- I know you don't like to investigate, but I will be contacting the police. I'd like to know how do things like this happen," Pressly said. "How come we can be told one thing and find out the same people are telling us one thing today when they knew good and well what happened in the past?"

Pressly said she felt misled.

"I don't like to use the word 'deceived,' but all this information was something we had a right to know, long before today," Pressly said.

Following her remarks, McCarthy stepped down from his seat as President to respond directly to Pressly, peer to peer. He implied that Pressly was grandstanding for the sake of reelection.

"I am going to ignore the innuendo and threats of criminal investigation and talk about the issue in front of us," said McCarthy, who went on to add that his recollection of an issue raised eight years ago might be fuzzy, but that there was no intention to mislead.

"All the minutes of those meetings are on the public record," McCarthy said.