 We should give that to Liz, I think. OK. Hey, gentlemen. Can I start? OK, so we're underway. Pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12, 2020 order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law, General Law Chapter 30A, Section 18, this meeting of the Amherst Board of Assessors is being conducted via remote participation. Is everybody's video and audio working properly? Can everybody hear me OK? All right, this meeting is being recorded to the web and could be shown on Amherst Media and Broadcast. And now I call the meeting to order. So I think we go first to the February 11, 2021 meeting, gentlemen, have you all had a chance to review those minutes? Yes. Yeah, I just have a few maybe clarifications on that residential exemption paragraph. Certainly. OK, where we say 58 percent, maybe we add the words of the town's total housing units. So we know what that means. Are we going to say total housing units or total taxable housing units? I guess it's taxable. The figure is 10,258. If you want to throw that in there, 10,258. And then I would delete the nine residential properties above one million. That's nice. There's nothing to do with the exemption. And then the residential exception Lexington Mass Survey is a good resource. Just to say what that's about. You cut off there, Ken. I'm sorry. You said what? The residential exemption Lexington Mass Survey is a is a good resource. OK, just to say what that's in there for. OK, any other changes to the minutes or. Adjustments to the minutes. All right, I move that those minutes be approved for February 11th, 2021. Second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. OK. Now we go on to the motor vehicle abatement reports. Can everybody see the shared screen? Yes, yes. We've got three weeks of them right to do. Um, OK, that first set. Anybody want to say anything about that? It's five hundred and eighteen dollars and forty four cents. I recommend we approve those nine abatements for. February 18th to February 12th. What is it? Second of the 12th, second to the 12th, the upper left. Oh, OK, OK. On the agenda, it's a little it's been there's been a mistake on the agenda. I was reading it should be February 2nd to the February 12th. Yeah, OK, I should make a make a yeah, there's a document to the agenda. Yeah, there's a new miracle on the agenda. Because I thought I had covered everything. I moved to approve those that that set of abatements. Second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. OK. Second screen. If we approve it. We did. We need another screen, Liz. Oh, sorry, I'm coming here with me. There you go. This is our second group of abatements. OK, this is from February 22nd to February 26th. All right, 31 abatements totaling three thousand. One hundred and sixty two dollars. Is it one hundred and yep, you're right. One hundred and sixty two dollars and ninety four cents. I have moved to approve those abatements. Second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. OK, and one more. And one more to go. Can you see the next abatement? OK, this is a this is for March 4th. Five abatements totaling two hundred and thirty three dollars and eighty four cents. I moved to approve those five abatements. Second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. OK. Now we have to go to lean releases. Can we have to lean releases and our releases? Old releases that should have been filed on a land record for property from the salt family. OK, you're you're we're having trouble with your sound, Liz. This is a release that should have been issued back in 2011. OK, and the salt family transferred property to the town. And the attorney attorney Zomek contacted me and said that these releases were not we're not received. So here is the lean. And are there there are two of them? Is that right? This is the first lane. Yeah. And this is the release that will be filed to release that lean. OK. Tell me if I'm going to fast. No. This is the second lean. And this is the release that will be filed on behalf of the Board of Assessors to release that lean as well. And I thought perhaps considering our last conversation, it might be good to show you what property we're looking at. Can you see that map I'm putting up? Not yet. Hey, can you see the property? It's actually this property here. It's running along the river. Oh, OK. 3C 22. Highlighted 25 on it. All right. And at one time, this was chapter 61 A. Is that right? That's correct. And that's why we're giving the release of those. So they've been paying normal taxes since 2011 or whatever. No, they have not. Just that now they want to do something else. Oh, man. I had found these. Well, help me out as far as if we had done it according to one we should have done it, they would have been paying higher taxes since then, right? They were recategorized by the assessor's office. However, the lean releases that were on the land records were not filed in the Hampshire County file, the Hampshire County record. So these are notifying anybody that's doing a title search of these these properties formally owned by the scouts, that these properties have been transferred to the town and the lean against them has been released by the town. And are there there are two are there there two leans because there are two properties, is that right, two parcels? There are a couple of different parcels and they were parts out to parcel 22 and parcel 25. And if you look at this map, that's one of the reasons I'm doing it. OK, one and a half acres. That's. That's 25. Parcel above it is 3C 22, that borders the Cushman River or Cushman River. OK, OK, so those are the two that we're releasing. Help me, I'm slow this morning. OK, at one time, the own homeowner owned these and he put them in the chapter 61 at one time. That's right. It was a spelt spot. And then in 2011, you're saying December 21st of 2011, it was transferred to the town for a hundred and forty dollars. Oh, OK, so we we got it transferred to the town. And at that point, it came out of chapter 61, but officially it legally didn't because the town forgot to file. Did not release the lean part of the process. OK, so these to re-categorize the property, we did transfer the property to the town. So there wasn't continued tax bills. However, the situation was that the lean was still present on land records. And it wasn't an annoyance until this time when they wanted to do. So so currently these properties are in the title or owned by the town of Amherst. That's correct. OK. And then did these homeowners pay taxes for the last 10 years and they should know by clarified? No, no. They have not been paying taxes, even after even under chapter 61. I mean, it's purely a record keeping situation. Can OK, because you still pay some taxes under 61. They're not all the town is the town has been owning the land since 2011. I understand. I'm just under. I'm struggling to understand why this didn't come to anybody's notice. Like they haven't been paying taxes. And are the assessor's records show this is owned by the town. Right. Since 2011. And 61 is farmland, right? That's right. Also agricultural land. Yeah, farm farmland. So it wouldn't have been paying taxes anyway, right? If they were still owning the property, right, but the town would have been still paying taxes, what they transferred the property to the town, making that portion of the property exempt anyway. So no one would pay taxes on the property since 2011. Well, you know, under 61. Don't you pay reduced taxes still? Yes. Yeah, so they would have been paying some taxes. OK, that's fine. As long as the town owns the land and I understand, I'm just trying to. I'm just under I'm struggling to understand why this didn't come to anybody's attention before now, mostly because it was you're fading again, Liz. It did not get transferred to another individual. It's transferred to the town. But I thought when you did your tax, when you did your changes to the tax assessment base, I would have thought something would have rang a bell. Not you, but whoever did it. Normally, what happens is the the attorney will ask for that clearance, but it was transferred to the town. Yeah. So in some cases that falls through the crack when we're dealing with exempt property. OK, going from a taxable to an exempt status. OK. So are we approved to release the lease? I move that we approve both of those lean releases on those two on those two parcels. Thank you. All right. Do I have a second? Second. OK. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Discussion about the residential exemption. Unfortunately, we had scheduled in a meeting, but David and I am actually. OK, I really cannot hear you, Liz. I don't know what the problem is on the air at, but fading in and out. Yeah. Don't know how to increase the the microphone. I think if you look right at the microphone when you speak, you might be might not fade. If you turn your head at all, I think you fade. Yeah, it seems to be that every time I turn my head at any point to look at anything else, make it difficult for you to hear me. Sorry. Basically, the residential exemption committee, which is Ken, David and myself, we were supposed to reconvene, but David and I have been. So I apologize. We're not able to reconvene. However, better now. I am. Good. Good. How about David? David is. Boy, I don't know what's going on. Go into the doctor. Yeah. Because of HIPAA regulations, I think. Yeah, Liz, we're not here. We're not here at you, Liz. Basically, you know, he's nothing serious, I think. It's just that we are very cautious, as you can imagine. We're getting almost to that last lap to get those shots out. Gentlemen, did you get your shots? I got my schedule tomorrow for you. We're finished. Good. You're too young. No, we're too old. But I would like to share with you is the the latest draft of the survey. But one of the things that I found out through our. Investigation, if you will. The. Majority of the towns that have implemented this residential exemption did not do a survey of the community before they instituted. They used statistics from the census, which at the time were more current. And they use other demographic measures to determine whether or not they move forward with their residential exemption. So when I was asking them for surveys, they were looking at me like I had two heads. They just did not go that route, determine their population before they instituted such a major exemption that will impact quite a lot of people. But in light of that, I did draft the exemption. If you all would like to look at it, this was drafted. I can't take credit for this. Most of this was done by David and I just did a few things to kind of format it. And I was. Now, what will happen is before the survey goes out and I have looked at a couple of different ways of doing this. We can put it on the survey monkey. So folks can reply to their survey on the survey monkey. But I don't think we get around sending it. I think we have to send out the paper survey and give them that option to reply via paper or survey monkey if we want to do that. Liz question is are you sure this is the latest one? This is the latest one. OK, because this is the one I thought I did with. And I got when I printed out your latest one, there was a it's a different. Maybe it was something different. Now, I, you know, I had actually looked at one that was just simple. Yeah, that's the one I printed out. Yeah, I think this one's more comprehensive. Yeah, I can I can bring up the simple one. No, I just my thought right now is we need to stop on the survey thing until we get more feedback from the town manager and vice president, your boss and put a bigger group together. Now, my question is, should that be approached by you, Ken, or should that be approached by myself or David? Who should bring us to this? I'm happy to help in any way, but I think you need to lead it. OK. Approach last time I mentioned expanding this group for residential exemption. The town manager said he was not in favor of that. That's why I was wondering whether or not perhaps yourself would like to bring this to his attention. He was not in favor of it. He was not in favor of bringing in other citizens. Oh, OK. Well, that's his call. It's just there's just so much we can do. Right. The three of us. Right. And especially that's the hard thing about trying to institute something like this is that there's so many directions it can take. I guess I did. Did everybody get a copy of the draft of the one pager that turned out to be four pages? I did. Yeah. I mean, my thought would maybe we just send it like it is right now, Liz, to your boss. I mean, just going up the chain of command and ask him, OK, this is where we are. We need feedback from you, at least. And if you want to talk just so you have clarification, Sean was supposed to join us. I don't know if he's in the audience. Oh. Can anybody tell if he's in the audience? I can't know. There's just the four of us. OK. Well, he was trying to get to us today. But you know, everybody's doing a million things. So Sean Magnano is my boss. He's my supervisor. Yeah. So I would have to go to Sean and then Sean would have to deal with Paul. Yeah. Well, I'm not pushing for Paul. I'm just saying Sean needs to make a decision here, what we do. And if he needs input from Paul, then he needs to go seek input from Paul. But if he thinks he can make the call. Well, what I would do now that that Sean is in office, I would ask him then decide whether he can make that decision or whether he has to run it up the ladder. Liz, we miss what you were saying. I will give this information to Sean. Sean will make that determination as to whether he can expand the committee or leave it as is or run it up the the the line to Paul with his input. That is the four pager. I will send him the four page analysis and the application of the survey. Yeah, Ken, I would just like to if you could look it over and make any proofreading corrections you'd like to make. Well, I guess I'd put it out to you guys. Well, do you have any thoughts about how we should change this or not? Because this is just one cut. I'm not. You you have some uncertainty about some of your data, apparently. A lot of questions about that because I can't tie numbers together. We have different spreadsheets and. OK, I don't think it's I think it's in the ballpark, but it's not good enough to share with anybody beyond Sean or Paul. OK, all right. So let's leave it at that. So it's not going to the council, in other words. No, no, all right. So basically the survey will be sent to the analysis thus far. Yes, I just want to speaking as the chair, I would just like to be able to deliver on the promises that we've made to the council. And if this is as far as we need to go, that's fine. I'm I'm a little. I guess I'm a little. What do you want to call it? Pesitant. Unsure about the value of a survey. OK, I am too at this point. Yeah, I agree. So perhaps the survey should be next. Yeah, I wouldn't send that. I wouldn't send that on right now. We're primarily saying based on rough data, this is what we see. But to go any further beyond this rough data, we need more. We need more people involved. And it may very well be that from thirty five thousand feet, which is what essentially we have here, you can tell that an exemption would not work here in town, would create problems. Well, I'm not sure we want to jump to that conclusion. Well, I don't I'm just saying that maybe maybe Sean and Paul can tell that. OK, that's fair enough. Right. I think that's what you've done, Ken, and thank you. What the committee's done is a high level overview without specific conclusions. Right. Yeah. And and and that's good. It points us in a direction that says, hey, we need more detail. I agree. And I think, Lee, you're right. We can't come to conclusions unless we involve more people that dig deeper into a lot more information. Right. For example, I didn't really understand. Also, I want to echo what Leah said. I really appreciate the work you've done, Ken. I was a little uncertain about the the the conclusions you drew about rents. Well, there's no conclusions here. I was trying to just answer some questions that people have come up. OK. And the rents were from David. He looked at what rents would go have to go up to cover the increases for the apartments. Yeah, I actually ran math mathematical. What the rents would have to go up to cover the increases. Ken, Ken, it's that paragraph that talks about the rent. It says it is likely a competitive rental market to allow it. Maybe that sentence does go towards a conclusion and maybe somehow that can be softened. OK, as you say, you say landlords will likely try to pass the tax increase. Which I think is true. But if there's too many apartments and they can't rent their apartment, they're not going to they're going to reduce the rent to get more tenants. Yeah, I see where you're going. Yeah, that goes towards a conclusion that that would actually happen. OK, so this has not been shown to anybody else at Town Hall. Is that correct, Liz? My understanding, it's just this board and David and me. OK, so is there some is there some particular action that that the board needs to take at this time? Well, I think the board needs to determine what exactly you're going to have to speak up, Liz, we're not we're going to need some kind of guidance from the board. What exactly we're going to give that? So at this point, you've said no survey. You've been distributed the four page analysis that was done. You want me to distribute it in that way directly to John? Yes, I guess speaking for myself. No, I agree. I would like Sean to see it. And then and then perhaps Sean and the town manager can can then indicate what they what further information they want. How do you want me to represent the expansion of the committee? I'm it would have been really helpful if shot had been on this call with all of us. I understand that. And maybe we just need to set up another call. And we can have him up. It's going to have to be a public meeting call. But that's all right. We can still public now. Yeah. No, I mean, I wouldn't want to wait another month for a next meeting. OK, so you would like me to set up a meeting? Yes, I really want everybody to hear what Sean's saying. So we have some guidance all of us. Oh, I am going to bring Sean in. That's the nice thing about. OK, I can check to see if he's come free. OK, so that he can join. You know, like when I come in, I close my door. Another department head is in the meeting. I welcome him. Well, I don't know what's going on today, Liz, but we're not hearing it at all. You can just left the room. So can you hear me better? Oh, yeah. That's a lot. I'm sorry. I just don't want to be in the room with him. He was back and I have my mask. OK, well, that's a lot better now for me now. Fortunately, downside about having someone physically with me. I can have him work at his computer. So let's see if he's ready. OK, so Sean, Sean might be able to join us before we conclude. He's in a call right now. OK. But Stephen's just stepped out so I can. So maybe. Well, part of it is shot, unfortunately, Sean needs to read this and think about it before he can really react to us. Yes, I think that's. So he could adjust what we've come up with. Want me to share the Lexington study with. No, I wouldn't go there. All right, I move that we I move that we share this this draft with Mr. Mungano and if Mr. Mungano thinks it's appropriate, Mr. Backelman. OK. Seeking guidance on where we go from here. Correct. Seeking guidance on where we go from here include. Yes. So are we are we unanimous on that? I'm fine with that. OK, is there anything you want to do to this draft, Ken, before you send it off? That was my other question. Well, it's up to if you guys have inputs, you want me to change. It's well, it's your product. So well, I mean, we because of the open meeting law, we can't really be we couldn't really be involved in generating it. So. But you can't you can be a jet with open meeting now. I mean, I see questions. I see some question marks on the on the report. And I wonder about those. That's because I don't know what. I don't have good data. Yeah. So should we just instead of a question mark, but they did not available? Well, I think I had the question marks before I put that big thing at the top, where I the latest draft says the data is still being worked on to develop a single database. Yeah. Those question marks were before I put that. Right. So I can take the question marks out if we leave that data thing on the beginning. OK. Is that a right list? Fine with me. Yeah, as I ever makes this as clear and concise as possible. I can take the question marks out. I think in most cases, all right. And as I understand it, the break even point stays the same no matter what the percentage exemption is, correct? Correct. OK. Oh, yeah, that was my only other comment, Ken, that you state the break even in the second point. But it well, let me take that back. No, help me out list. I think it moves, but it moves very little. It's it's only, you know, be based on the percentage change. Yeah, it might move by a couple of thousand up and down. This break point is specifically for 20 percent. It's five hundred and seventy thousand. Is that right? Kind of was five to seventy four or something like that. Yeah. Hey, well, we have good news. So he's going to join us as Sean. It's going to join us as an audience member. Oh, OK. Don't have to sit up. But I want to bring up that report. I mean, I have that report ready to share since he's going to join. Yeah, it's he's going to have to read and think about it, though. I don't want a quick reaction from him. So you don't want me to put it up to share because when I put something up to share, it's going to be shared with the public. No, I'm not ready to do that. No, I don't think that's a good idea. So I think why don't we, you know, I don't think that's so there was a motion. Are we we're we're moving to it? Share Ken's draft with Sean. Is that? Yeah. OK. All those. Yeah, to get guidance. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed. OK, Sean is with us. OK, as an attendee. Welcome to the Board of Assessors, Sean. Can we give him a voice? No, I don't see him here. Yeah. Fendi, ah, here we go. Allow to talk. There you go. Ron, can you hear us? Yes. Can you guys hear me? We can hear you. Thank you all for letting me listen in today. Yeah, I looked at the agenda and it seemed like it would be a good meeting to participate in and I do have to leave it noon, but but it's nice to see all of you. I got to talk to all of you a little while ago. And so here, if there's any questions or otherwise, I'll just listen. Well, we've had a we've had a study of conducted by Ken. And Liz and David, the three of us. Yeah, on the residential exemption. And just a quick high overview shot is we are able to put some data together. It's not complete, but it's in the ballpark. The data. OK. And this is on the this is on the number of owner occupied or non-owner occupied properties. Right. OK. And we prepared a one pager that turned into four pagers. When I say we it's really me working with data from Liz and David to put together this draft. And I've shared it with the other two members of the board, but it's still primarily my draft using numbers. OK. And what we're seeking right now is guidance from you. After you look at the draft, where we go from here, because there's no conclusions drawn in this draft. It's just data that is very rough data, but in the ballpark of what we think might be found. But what we're saying is we can't really go beyond this data without bringing in some other people to work on it. OK. No, absolutely. I think I can take a look at it and, you know, a, you know, see what work you did and what the data looks like now. But I can also give some thought with Liz and I can also connect with the town manager about, you know, what are our next steps with sharing this information out, working with the council. You know, I know we talked about maybe bringing this to the council earlier to help them get an understanding of this before, you know, before the tax rate vote and all that thing later in the fall. So so yeah, absolutely. That'd be great. OK. Sean, is it this council that will vote on the tax rate or the next council? I believe it is out the double check. I believe it's this one, right, Liz? I think we've had that vote in December. So this one, it would be the December one. Does this council have a lame duck period after the November election? I'll have to double check. I thought the terms for, you know, if there's any change in the council membership that that they begin on January 1st, but I'll have to double. And so therefore, if the vote was if the vote on the tax rate was in December, then. Well, the vote would be the current rate is after I do my class vacation. Right. Do you remember when that was this year? That was November. It was November and December. OK, so I think it would be the current council, but that'll be when I get come back after reviewing this with some of my thoughts. I'll confirm all that about what council would vote on it and roughly when. And again, we may want to separate a decision on this from the tax rate decision, because, you know, this is going to take a while to implement if it is if it does move forward. So we almost want that to be its own discussion track with the council. Yes, I would assume, for example, that a even consideration of a residential exemption would involve public forums. Right. Yeah, I think that makes sense. And there would have to be some kind of a process of educating the public on what it involved. And there and I have to look and see if there are any subcommittees. You know, there may be some subcommittees of the council that would also have to get involved out that, you know, I'm thinking maybe potentially the finance committee and potentially like the town services outreach, the TSO committee. For something that sort of would be a sort of a big out to see what the data looks like, but could be a big change in sort of how the taxes are gathered. OK, so just so you understand what happened before you arrived. The three of us agreed unanimously to share this report with you. OK. All right. This draft. Yeah. And, Sean, I'd stress this draft is only for you and the town manager to look at it shouldn't go anywhere outside. No, yeah, it's not finalized. I'll understand. Although I don't know what the effect of talking about this in a public meeting is, Sean, but yeah, I mean, it's public now. But I think to your point to reiterate, it's very it's draft form. It's not finalized. So until it's a final report, you know, we should make this we should make decisions based on a draft. No, this is like the first inning of a nine inning game. I'm serious. This is just. Well, it's spring training. They're only they're only seven innings. So that's great. I've heard that talk used to talk about the virus. So that's because these are rough numbers with no conclusions and no thought process of what the effect might be of doing anything. OK. So yeah. So it seems like this is this is sort of send the baseline for us to then take, you know, think about what our decision decision tree is going to be on this. I mean, I don't know what other members think, but I believe that if you look at this, you may decide that this is the end of the fact finding process. In other words, you might decide, OK, we know enough now. And then and then you can make a recommendation or whatever to the council. But OK. But I think what we need is guidance. Do we do we continue? Is there going to be a continuing fact finding process and who does it? OK. How I didn't how long is the report as it is right now? Four pages. OK, that's not too bad. All right. Oh, it's very high level. And I well, I'm happy to answer any questions you have, Sean or Liz or anybody else about because I pretty much did ninety nine percent of this except for the numbers. Liz and David helped a lot in getting the numbers together. OK. The numbers are still they don't tie the we're using spreadsheets, different spreadsheets, and they don't add up right. So we know there's something lacking. OK, so it's a little more work to do on that. All right. Would you say they don't add up? Can that means they don't check? They don't check against other numbers? Is that what you're saying? That's correct. OK. And the the would it be fair to say that the the statement about rents is a bit of a stretch in terms of the basis for making drawing that conclusion or drawing that tentative suggestion? Well, rent, impact rent. Yeah, I didn't view it as a conclusion. That's where we differ. I just said if the rental markets don't allow the landlords to pass it on, they're not going to be able to pass it on. That's the only point I was trying to make. I was trying to conclude they would or would not pass it on. So is one thing one. I mean, that is one of the big questions that I've had in talking with Liz and in David, does your report look at the impact on apartment complexes? At a very high level, it takes what the taxes would have. It takes the increases the apartments would have. OK. And spreads them among their units. And therefore it says how much a unit would have to. What the potential increase in rents could be. OK, if the landlord could pass it on. So and again, I'm happy that part of the challenge on we've had is the rest of the three of us haven't been able to talk because of the public law opening. And so we can't work. The three of us can't work together. I just wanted to do some work and do it. But, you know, it's been tough. So Lee and I are like second and third wheels here. And Ken is doing all the work with Liz and Dave. So but as I understand the open meeting law, we're not allowed to. Deliberate on it. Yeah, well, don't worry, we'll have projects for you two to work on. Well, we got some other stuff we can give you. It's not the work. It's the lack of input. I mean, yeah, too much my input without other people's input, which. Yeah, I think one way we can. I mean, I'll have to double check and make sure it's OK. I mean, one way I think we can, you know, if Liz is sort of the hub and she solicits the input from people directly and on these. And then when you have your meeting, she can kind of bring it all together. You know, so as long as you're just communicating directly with Liz, you know, you share a document out at a meeting and then your feedback goes directly to Liz only that, you know, that's one way, at least you can kind of keep things moving in between meetings. And that's what we've done to this point. OK, good. Perfect. Because, Sean, I have a strong feeling that I'm not going to I'm not going to want to be tied with anything going to the council unless we get more input from other people. Because I don't know. Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, we'll we'll come back with next steps. You know, those next steps may be, you know, it'll be obviously refining this report and and then deciding, you know, is there going to be a recommendation made and who's making that recommendation, whether it be staff, the Board of Assessors, you know, both and and then working on, like you said, what's that next those next steps for outreach with the community and with different subcommittees. But but just getting the survey updated was a nice accomplishment in moving this forward, because we really needed that to get the updated numbers to drive, you know, how big of an impact this is. So so that's great. Having said that, though, maybe we should let him. What we confirm. We're losing you, Liz. You may wish to express to him what we've decided on the survey idea. Oh, Sean, you were talking about this report. You have the survey, right? So yeah, what I just said was in regards to the report and the numbers that were updated as a result of the survey. There is no survey. There's no survey. We haven't done the survey. OK, so how were the so so we so we haven't updated the sort of inventory of owner occupied properties yet? No. OK, so that would be potentially a next step if we wanted to get updated numbers would be to do that. OK. Yeah, to do a survey that would cover a lot of things. Right. To clean up the data more. OK. Yeah, the report does make reference to what can be said. OK. All right, no, this is but again, this is this is good. This is a big project. So I think if we just keep moving it forward, you know, keep making progress on it. You know, I don't think anyone's in a rush for this that I've heard of as long as we're making progress and keeping moving, you know, information, but I do feel there's some sort of accountability moment for us in at no when we get to November. Right, we have to come back with we we definitely have to come back this year with additional information from what was provided last year and what progress has been made on this issue. Yeah. So I agree with you on that. OK. All right. Just to be clear. Liz, you're cutting out again. Just to be clear, Ken did develop a plan that was established back there. That plan. You're cutting out, Liz. I don't know how. I did. I did get a plan in November that was shared amongst the committee. I can't. So can do. Can I share that with? Well, I view that as sort of that was, I guess, like an organizational at that time. Now, I think we need guidance from Sean saying, OK, what's the next step? And again, I think we need more people involved and that those people would put together the plan then. Well, I think the criticism of our of the residential exemption was are we do we have a plan in place? Are we are we proceeding in an organized fashion? And that was the criticism that I was getting. Oh, yeah. I mean, for my blind, I just I want to make sure we and this speaks a little bit to what Richard said earlier about when we go back to the council in the fall is I just want to know what milestones we may have over the summer and in the fall so that when we go back, we have something tangible. And it may be that it may not be complete. But if like if we could get the survey updated and if we could have, you know, an analysis of the impact on the apartments, which I think is a really big piece of this to inform the decision making of the council. And then we also need to hear from the council as to what they're trying to and maybe this is in the past when I before I was here, you know, what are their goals for something like this? Is the goal to lessen the burden on on lower valued properties? Is it to, you know, is that the soul at the expense of potentially raising rents on apartments and and then again, digging into that impact of, you know, people of lesser means potentially are we going to be creating a greater burden on them? And is that really what the council is looking for? OK, I'm going to just going to say since I think maybe I watched the council more than the other two members of the board that there are that there are probably no more than one or two council members for for whom this is not a settled issue. OK. So there are there are only one or two members of the board that the council I think are curious about that that really under that really have uncertainty, let me put it that way. OK. About the effect of a residential exemption. I think most members of the council from what I can tell don't really believe a residential exemption would work here. And there are one or two that are uncertain about it. OK. Right. Now, this is again, this is great. And I don't know. Do you guys meet once a month or twice a month once a month? OK. No, I think between now and your next meeting, I can definitely review it and work with Liz and the town manager to come back with an update on next steps and thoughts on the report. So that should be no problem. OK. So I'm thinking along what Richard just said is you might want to consider some Paul or you or somebody just touching base with the council sometime this late spring like June or something. And just give them an update and say, OK, what are your goals? I mean, to get a better idea of what the goals are of the council. Yeah. And I think that's good. The town manager has a report where he provides updates on various topics. So I could definitely see, you know, once maybe one more month, once we come back and talk to you all, you know, maybe giving them an update on this and the town manager's report to the council. And then maybe, like you said, trying to get it on maybe a summer meeting. You know, I hate they never have any light agendas at the council level. But, you know, if there's an agenda where maybe we can get this topic on there just to do it, you know, sort of an update and kind of read, you know, refocus what are we, you know, we've got this data, we've got this report, we're going to do some outreach. What are what is what are we trying to answer for people? I think that's key. That's key. Yes, I mean, I I think the one thing that the three of us and our assessor cannot answer is the impact on rent and my sense is that that's kind of the knob of the issue. Yeah, you can't say for sure, right? That the rents will go up. But, you know, that may be some of the outreach that needs to be done is working with some of these larger complexes to say, you know, what when we do this outreach here from everybody, you know, and that they would be one of this obviously the stakeholders that we would want to hear from. Great. Thanks, Sean, for joining us. No problem. Is there any other topics? I've got another 10 minutes and the other topics I should hang around. Before, was this the big one? This was the big one. OK, exhausted. This topic, Liz and Ken, OK, well, so I'll keep an eye out for an email with the draft report. So Liz, I'll send you a new one today. Thank you. You send it on to Sean then. All right. Thank you. I'll have a good rest of your day. Thank you, Sean. Thanks for coming in. No problem. So what is our next? What is the next topic on our agenda? Topic is really is there any public comment? And there's no public to comment at this point. What about I see a here approve? Well, first of all, is there a budget discussion to have to? Well, the budget. We really haven't asked for much. We've asked for them to the biggest thing for our budget was to expand my part time personnel, which you see here. Even if you want to say hello, talk to him frequently when you call my office, he's been a wonderful addition. But I only have point four of it. I've asked that, you know, give him a full position in the assessor's office. Currently, I share him with the tax office. But, you know, I think sharing is a wonderful idea and that was only clerical. I think that would be great. But we were lagging as we've lost our professional appraiser. He was certified and she was experienced in the community. And we cut our appraisal staff in half and we did not replace her. And, well, Stephen needs training and appraisal, which I'm providing as best I can. And also through the Massachusetts Association of Assessing Officers and the International Association of Assessing Officers. To really absorb that information and focus on that profession, because it is indeed a profession, just like appraisal is a profession. Assessment is a profession and it really does take full time. So that's basically the major component of our assessor's budget, not the board of assessor's budget, but the assessor. Well, actually, I am part of your board, so I guess it's our budget. Well, you know, see, this is the thing. I've never we've never really discussed budget, the assessor's budget in the board of assessors before. I don't know that this is in our bailiwick. Well, you're a member of the board of assessors. I'm a member. As our budget, how we proceed. About it, other than that, there is some minor. You're cutting out again, Liz. Other than that, there's some minor adjustments to our operational budget that I've recommended. I've always looked at where we sort of relied on David to wave a yellow flag if he needed help, otherwise he never waved a yellow flag that I recall. I just wanted to give you an overview. OK, let's go. I think that, you know, being a member of any organization where where the money is coming from. Yeah, I don't know. Are you playing to ask or recommend the additional resource? I have recommended based on, you know, a thorough overview of the office and comparing myself to other communities of this size. We have over 40,000 people in our regular population. We expand to sixty one thousand on a daily basis. So so would it be a replacement? No, no, it would be an addition. What happened was the position of the other appraisal position, which was held by Lori Karate, when she retired in December, that position was cut. Period. End of sentence. So this would go back to what David had. Right. But we don't have Pellum. She worked on Pellum, too, right? Yeah, but Pellum actually did not have a large amount. OK. Of the work that was done. The other thing is that they want to expand our database to include the college information we're losing. We're getting all we need from the reimbursement for state on property. So in order to do that, I'm going to have to have more man hours and work into that process. So can that additional work actually pay for the person? Oh, absolutely. Then what? Absolutely. I don't know. Confidence. I don't know what the mechanism is for the board of assessors to express a concern about the principal assessor's budget. Well, let me ask you, are you doing some kind of justification memo for the additional person? Yes, I did. Well, can you share that with us so we can sort of maybe sign on with it? I don't know. Richard, while she's pulling that up, I want to, before we end this meeting, make visible the end of my term. Yeah. The I believe this is for the town manager to handle the vacant, essentially, your seat. There's a vacancy at the end of your term. Right. Right. When does that happen? In June. Oh, yeah. And is it correctly to assume you're willing to stay on? Well, that's one thing I might want to discuss. Oh, OK, OK. Well, I mean, right now I'm thinking for a limited term. Maybe not for another four, three years. OK. Well, I'm feeling like, especially, you know, just what we're doing. What can is done to this point with regard to the. What should happen with the study? I'd like to see that through. So I can't seem to put my hand on. Or so I really all I can do is send it to you or I can bring it up at our next meeting. Well, look. Didn't seem like there was any objection on the part of the part of who didn't seem like there was any objection. I guess some way next time, Liz, you got to figure out whether you have to have a microphone to speak into. The only thing is, is if I have a microphone, then Stephen can't hear you. OK. Well, I don't know. We're not doing well. This is not working out well. Sorry about that. I will try to do it differently next time going forward. I'll have him at his computer. All right. If you could share with us between now and the next meeting. Any budgetary concern you have, and I'll have to figure out whether the board of assessors, I think there's probably a state statute that governs what we do as to whether we have any say about your budget, because I really don't know whether we do. So well, I figured that that was a primary issue at this time. So I figured I'd bring it to you. No, I don't mind you bringing it up. I just I'm trying to figure out whether we have a mechanism as three of the three of us to express anything about your budget. And I don't know whether we do or not. So that's probably something I need to figure out. So if you can just send out the memo individually, we can get back to you individually, Liz. OK, we'll be glad to do so. All right. Now, as I look at the the agenda, I see approved and I real estate personal property abatement applications. Is there any is there are there any today for that? Now, what you've received is what we have. OK, all right, because I'm looking at it on the agenda. So I just wondered about that. So do you have any do you have any feel, Liz? Are you going to get a bunch of abatements coming in? Well, we have abatements that we have received from the. Mostly from the condominiums because the condominiums had an interim adjustment when something goes over 10 percent, then the assessor is compelled to raise the assessment. That's the law. So we are getting, you know, a number of real estate appeals. I'm trying to bring them up so I can give you a count. Well, that's all right. But I don't think it'll take more than a couple of days. It's nothing, nothing more than we had from the previous previous year. OK, I didn't stand with commercial owners. Well, our commercial owners are. Yeah, five of them that have come in. OK, you know, next time, Liz, maybe have and do an invite to Stephen to join us on Zoom. That's what we were discussing. So he could be in another room or something. Understood. OK, being that this is his first meeting to join you. No, I thought that it was for him to be with me today. We're glad to meet you, Stephen. Yeah, I'm likewise. Thanks for the I think you should probably make a call to the town manager and indicate what you would like to do. After June at the end of June's so that we could have maybe a if either if you are going to be stepping off or if there is going to be some kind of a nationwide search for your replacement or whatever. Yeah, so that that can happen seamlessly between June and July of next this summer. All right. So if you if you have a if you want to express to the manager what you'd like to do, that would probably help. Yeah, and I want to do it in the time. Sure. Lay personally, I'd love to have you stay on as long as you can. I would like to express that too. But you know, I appreciate that. Yeah, I have a feeling that neither can nor I count. No, I don't want you to misconstrue. We don't want to move on to somebody new quick. You can't but but there is I know that the council has had some conversation with the manager about vacancies and essentially what happens is your term ends and there's a vacancy either you fill it or somebody else fills it. I don't know how that works. It's going to work out. OK. Yeah, I appreciate it. All right. Anything else? No, let's talk about the next meeting date. April 8th, I propose. Second Thursday in April. April 8th at 11 p.m. Yes. I'm sorry. A.M. A.M. 11 p.m. would be kind of exotic. Hey, you know, come on. That's fine. It's Amherst, we're we're we're we're breaking them all, right? Sure. One suggestion, Liz, can you get that agenda topic changed so it doesn't read residential exemption and means test senior tax relief study? Would you like it to stay just residential exemption? Yeah, like that. Well, I don't know what I don't even know what the means test senior is. Yeah, I don't know. Basically, that is just whether or not we're addressing the folks that are in need. OK, well, I'm sure not addressing them. OK, so not in this study anyway. All right. You are, in a sense, because you're determining what the impact of this exemption is going to be on the on the folks that are. No, I'm certainly affected. It's everybody, runners. It's not just seniors. That's right. So but just call it residential exemption study. That's fine. Thank you. OK, I move to adjourn. Second. All right. All those in favor. I thank you, Liz, for your service to the town. Oh, thank you, gentlemen. I appreciate it. And it is 12 05. Thank you very much. Bye. Remember, all these all these videos are available for you to review. Should you want to go over something? OK, all right. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Have a good day, gentlemen. OK, good weekend. Right to you.