 Hey, hey, hey. All right, we're set. Yep. Pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 this meeting will be conducted by a remote means. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure the public and adequately access to proceedings in real time via technological means. We will, in the event that we are unable to do so for reasons of economic hardship and despite best efforts, we will post on the Amherst town website and YouTube and audio or video recording transcript or other comprehensive record of proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting. I call this meeting to order. And I need to look at the agenda. So we, we start. Do we have any members of the public with us today? I'm not seeing. Okay. All right. So now I want to turn the motor vehicle abatements reports over to the. Either the interim assessor or the principal assessor, whichever one is going to take this. The minutes. Yeah, the minutes. Oh, excuse me. Oh, the minutes weren't mentioned in the. These weren't mentioned in the agenda. They weren't. They aren't listed on the agenda. Uh-oh. I don't think we want to do that. I don't think we want to do that. That me. Can we. I'm fired. Stop it. We're not firing you would require a lengthy public process. I don't think we want to do that. Um, So, uh, gentlemen, have you had a chance to review last, uh, the meeting, the minutes of September 27th. 2021. Okay. I move to approve them. Okay. Second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Okay. Now we can, now we can move to the motor vehicle abatements. You want me to do it or do you want to do it? I want you to do it. Okay. Blow it up. Sorry, whichever one of the whichever whoever's it, whoever decided to do it. David, I think it's okay if you want to just because I wasn't there for any of these. All right. Lee, is that big enough? No. There you go. There you go. The wrong page. That's the agenda. That's the agenda. You need to scroll down. Oh, sorry. Right. Okay. Here we go. There they are. Hold that a set of order. Yeah. Okay. The first one we've got. It's just a simple motor vehicle access abatement and that's for 445 60. I think we're just the wrong way around on the agenda. So we'll figure that. And it's usual thing that's just. Transfer and rebuilds and so. That's pretty much standard. I moved to a, I moved to approve that set of abatements. Second. $145 and 60 cents. All those in favor, please say aye. Hi. And this is the second set of abatements for 1470 or 1554. 10. Sorry. It's the same thing. There's a lot of you massive or Hampshire college on there, a couple of you mass. So that's quite so high. I moved to approve that set of abatements. Second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. This is easy. Motor vehicle access. This is commitment number four for a calendar year 21. And it's for 73,174 dollars and 76 cents. And that's really it. We're just committing it now to the collector. How many of these do we usually do in a year? Really all depends, Kim. Sorry, Richard. When people get new cars or whatever they do, we could. Literally, we could get one right into next year because people will be buying cars through December. So could be nine, 10 or 11. Okay. So we, we need to, we need to approve our signatures on this, on this sheet. Correct. Correct. All right. I move that we approve this. What do we call it? What is this? This is a warrant. A warrant. Warrant to the collector. Thank you, Teresa. We approve this. Our signatures for this warrant. Second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. And the next page is just a commitment. That's just the same thing. So we'll take care of that. Okay. And we have to sign this too. Don't we? If we were, if we were alive, we together, we would assign this too, right? Correct. All right. I move to approve our signatures on this, on this commitment. Second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. That's just the same. That's great. Okay. All right. This is a chapter 61. Updates for very even death. The network of in debt. Briefly. All we need to do the, the forester has completed the form. And it's going to have said what they have staked out as chapter nine. So we will need the chair to come in. And we will need you to come in to do this because it's going to have to be notarized. That chair, that, that sounds like me. Yeah. Okay. And what you would like me to come into town hall. And say that one. Yeah. Okay. All right. And are the signal. So this is strictly me and not the rest of, do we vote on this? Oh yeah, you vote on it. Yes. It's an extension of a 10 years. The next set of 10 years for a forested land. Okay. Well, they can, they can go forever every 10 years. We know it. Yeah. As long as they meet the guidelines for the state's forester. So they have to ask the forester to come in every 10 years to look at the, they have the file a new plan. Yeah. Do you want to educate us now? Or do you want to wait until we're done? Let's finish. Okay. There's one more after this is a 61 B. So. Okay. So I guess I have moved to approve the, the chairs signature on this. On this document. Second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. All right. No. We're going to have to sign a release for chapter nine for 61 B. I don't have it, but I know Teresa sent you a separate copy. Of yesterday. I was probably getting at the work at home. So I didn't get it done until it's so hard to talk to Tracy yesterday. So can you share? Um, if you give me a second, I could see actually do I have, I don't have it on the computer. Actually, hold on one sec. Give me a minute. Okay. I will talk through it. And I'm in about the 61. This is a release of land of. Hickory for applied golf and Hickory road. This is the old golf course at the time is going to be taking over. We're going to be buying it from applied golf. And there's going to be a solar on part of it. I think about 25 acres. And so this is just getting the release ready for them for when they close in November. Having a hard time finding it. I have it right on my screen. If, if David wants to. I found the scan, but I don't know how to share on my computer. I don't know if David, if you stop sharing. I think we can. Teresa, do you see at the bottom, there's a green. Oh yeah. Okay. So hit shared screen. If you just click that, you just have to give it the authorization to be able to do that. Okay. I'm sorry, Richard. I didn't mean to cut you off. No, that's right. Kim is going to think I just crawled out from under a rock, but could you explain for tax purposes? David. Are you asking me? Well, or either one of you actually. And you're talking about the, the lean. Yeah. I can go ahead and, and explain. So. Can you guys see that? Yes. Okay. Yeah, keep clicking. Not yet. There you go. I've got, I've got eyesight. I've got eyeglass problems. So that's why my head is so close to the screen. Okay. There you go. Yeah, hit the plus button once. If you expand your screen so it covers your whole screen, it might help too. Yeah. There you go. That better. Stretch your screen, Teresa. It is. I'm just going to move, move it at this point. Yeah. Okay. That's good. Okay. So this is basically just someone is removing themselves. So they're no longer going to use the land for recreational purposes, or they just don't want to be involved with the chapter. Most likely they're probably removing it because they're not going to be using it for recreational purposes. So this is a release of the lean. So the tax lien that's applied when you join chapter 61, a chapter 61 or chapter 61 B. If you decide to go back to the property, you would pay the rollback tax and then you would remove your lien. So the town no longer has that first rate of refusal. And that first rate of refusal is just basically saying that if they're to sell the property, the town has the first right to purchase it at market value. Okay. And what is the rollback tax? So the rollback tax will be on the last five years, assuming that they've been enrolled for in, in chapter 61 B, I believe it's five years in chapter 61 A, they have to be enrolled for 10 years. But if they, if they take their, their property out of the chapter, then they would pay the last five years. And it's going to be the difference of what they should have been taxed. But if they take their property out of the chapter, then they would pay the last five years. And they should have been taxed versus what they were taxed because of the agricultural credit. Okay. Plus, plus interest as well. Okay. But in this case it doesn't apply because the city's buying it. Correct. In this case, the rollback tax does not apply. Correct. Okay. The city's buying it. Okay. Because it's fine. It's the buyer that would pay it. Right. The rollback tax. Whoever they've been normally agree between them, but yeah, it's usually the buyer. Okay. Okay. Is this another situation where the chair has to come in and sign? No, but we need you to vote on it. Okay. So should I stop sharing at this point so you can take over? Can you scroll down? I'm just curious what the bottom of the document looks like. Yeah. David, I don't know how, how do you notarize something up? Somebody doesn't come in and sign it. Okay. Oh, sorry. I forgot a bit. Yeah, Richard, we need you as well. So I can kill two birds with one stone by coming in. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. Does the chair have the authority assigned for three people there? Any one of you can sign for that. We only need one for the number. Okay. Good. David, you said something about 25 acres. What was that 25 acres? It was going to be used for solar. Okay. It's 149.8 seven acres of land by itself. But that's an entire parcel being released, right? Yeah. Yeah. So golf course. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Any questions? No. I move we vote. Okay. Okay. Did we vote on it? Not yet. You need. You've moved to approve it. Prove the. The board signature on this one. So. Yeah. Second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Okay. I heard three voices there. Okay. That's unanimous. Okay. I'm going to stop sharing now. Thank you. Yep. Thanks. Thank you. I'm so nostalgic about those days when we used to just shove documents across each other across. David. I'm hoping we get back to that with Kim at some point soon. Yeah, what's that date on that, David? As far as I know, it's still in the gen. It's still in the December. End of December. Before they review it again. So I think of December meeting are going to review it. Okay. Or one of the December meetings. Or maybe the new council. I'm not sure which it is. It's going to be, but. Either way. Yeah. That's true. I don't know. The new council starts in January. Yep. Okay. Now where are we on the agenda? Well, would this be a good time to discuss the 61. Yes. For Ken. No. Ken was asking about 61 values. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. The 61 a values are set by the state. Forest are not forster. Agricultural commission. Based on productivity from the land. So in effect that they will send us every year and updated valuation based on the different types of crops. And could range from zero dollars per acre. So that's what I think is in the 12 or $13,000 for cranberry drugs, which we don't have. So it's across the board and they evaluated every year and give us new figures. That we will put in 61 B is really just 25% of the market value of the property. So that's an easy one to work with. And the forestry, the forestry commission to set the values per acre. And there's a one value west of the Connecticut and one value east of the Connecticut. So it depends how they set it. And it's based on the per acre amount. And again, we assess it market value and then they take it away. Are we. We assess it market value, but we tax them on the forestry land value. What is it that Western Connecticut. Sorry. What is it? West of the Connecticut. I think it's one of them 79 to one of them 69. There's really very little for dollars per acre. There's very little nine dollars per acre. Yeah. They've got a good lobby. What can I say? But now the 61 and the 61 B require an annual filing. With us. By the 1st of October each year. The forestry required a filing every 10 years. As you just did. With the then death property there. Yes. What happens is the forestry will get the forms. To the new owner by September 1st of the 10th year. And they will get it tossed by October 1st. We can get it on for the next fiscal year. And that's basically the rules and regulations for it. There are. For. 61 A there has to be some production. It's $500 for the five first 500. And then $5 an acre over that. And I'm shooting from the top of my head. So I'm not quite sure. Okay. But I know the first 500. Five acres is 500. And it's supposed to meet that each year. They can hate it. They can crop it. They can lease it out. Mostly on our sweet lease. The 61 land. We've got other people. For crops. And here in the lesson. What about 61 B refresh my memory? What that's for. That's recreational. Usually golf courses are walking trails. I'm her college users. It's for walking trails and for allowing people to walk through the property. So they get a reduction on land that they own. Okay. So basically that's local town assessment office. That's nothing to do with this except for process what the state gives them. Correct. So that bird sanctuary land on the Amherst college. The Amherst college bird sanctuary that is taxed. Yes. 25% of market value. Okay. How does solar usually affect. At the minute that we're here, the solar land is going to have to be separate and classified as commercial land. When we go along. We're deep in the throes of negotiating for. The old landfill. At the moment the law has changed. So we're actually going to have to tax the land that we own and tax them to the people. So it will become commercial land. Yeah. So we'll look forward to making that transition. I don't know if I look forward. Sorry. Sorry. So that's going to create some new exciting documents for us to look at at some point. No, actually, because the manager's got the authority to deal with the silver land. So that was voted in 2015 by the old town meeting. And we just got confirmation that that's still still is the case. So the assessment office just sits by and waits until they get a figure from. The town manager. No, no. Sorry, Kim. Time managers, the authority to sign off. Kim and I have. Kim and I worked on the values for the land. And we have several different types, but I think we're leaning towards in the future. A flat rate on a yearly basis. For taxes. The ones we're working on now because there's also land. Rent involved. It's all, it's a bit more complicated. But we can handle it and get it done. Get the pilot and all done for it. So there's a lump sum payment of the same amount every year. Does a solar parcel have to have its own frontage or. Can you put a solar parcel inside a chapter 61 a. And have no access to roads. Yep. So if you even go up to you match, you'll find that they're the ones that are on top of the roofs of the buildings. Yeah. So they don't, they just, they can have just a common. Conservation access or forestry land access. Just a road to cut themselves. There's no requirements for zoning. Access wise. I'm aware of. So basically a parcel that was 61 a and they decide to do solar. They can stick that in the middle or wherever they want on that parcel and that will get the solar parcel will get. It's not a parcel or is it a separate parcel of solar. It gets a separate valuation. We're changing at the commercial land. Okay. Well, 61 land as commercial, but we're making a commercial value so we can value it at the full market value rather than 61 a. Okay. And the value is, it could still be a part of one big parcel. Just separate out that particular piece of land that it's setting on. I don't know if that's. Yeah. Yeah. And that, and then both. The chapter isn't valued except by the state every year, but the solar will be valued by you every year. The land. Yeah. The land. It's not like a 20 year. Agree tax. It's reviewed every year. No, the pilots and agreed 20 year period. For the amount of money they're going to pay us each year. And we'll split it up between the pilot, the land value. And. Yeah. On the rent, the lease. If they're leasing land from us, they'll be paying us as well for that. Okay. I'm not, I'm not. No, I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm more thinking of the private owner, not this town. No private owner. Then we'll just get the, we'll get the value of the land. That's on commercial land. And we'll get the value of the pilot as well. And so the pilot will be a fixed number for 20 years. Yeah. But the land value could change. Each year. You could change. Yes. Okay. And most likely will with the tax rate. So the assessment value. The assessment value from the public ever looks at this tape. Pilot needs payment and lieu of taxes. Correct. Correct. Right. So back to David. The assessment value, not just the tax rate, but the assessment value could change each year too. On that land. Right. Along with everybody. Yeah. Whenever we do any changes, the value of the chain. There's nothing unique about. Land gets taxed. It's like any other commercial property. Yeah, thank you. That's all I have to say on that matter. All right. The agenda indicates a discussion about the residential exemption. It's really not much of a discussion except from a point of view that. I need, we would need to know. Are you guys are thinking of attending on Monday night? And if you are, are you thinking of talking? Because if you are, we need to post the meeting. I'm in Boston away from a computer. Is it next week, David? Only night. Yes. Same time. Are we. We're divided, but I don't know what the time is. It's not a time specific. That's definitely. I don't know what time it's going to be. Okay. Is there any reason to start at six 30, but I'm not sure when they'll discuss. Yeah. Is there any reason to think they're not going to vote for it? Not in my mind. No. Yeah. I don't think so. I mean, it seems like the meeting that we attended. Two weeks ago or a week ago. They seem to be interested, but know that this was. Very short notice and that there needs to be some more research done. And you know, they wanted to learn more about it before they voted for it. So it seemed to me like they wanted to wait. I think we will have some more. Sorry, Rich. I was going to ask, have there been, I think this is something we're entitled to know. Have there been inquiries to either one of the two of you about the residential exemption since the meeting. From council members. Yeah. Andy Steinberg did, but it was on behalf of a council. Of a. Constituent. That would be. Okay. So I think we may get a couple of questions because. I know Nick is putting a blog out before the meeting. And there was a story in the Gazette last week about the new tax rate. So we may have a couple of store questions. I had a few calls, I think too. This, this week. Just asking sort of. To explain what's going on and what it is, but nothing. It was just, you know, just residents. Nothing really. More so just knowledge to what it is. And Kim, you've mastered explain the residential exemption over the phone for like less than three minutes. Have you got to put it this or. So in green field, this has been something that has been brought up a few times along with a split tax rate. So this is like, you know, A road that I've been down before. I'm not sure I could explain it in, let's say less than 180 seconds. Well, I guess David, are you going to be there? I mean, so it sounds like somebody needs to be there to answer questions, technically. Oh, sure. I know Sean and Kim and I are all kind of being there. Can't we just be there as. Residents or not. Yeah. Yeah. So we, we don't have to be there and be able to speak. No, but we can speak as a resident if we're going to, I guess. Right. You're not going to vote anything. Without a meeting or anything. Here's the problem. If you're there. If you're. Well, there's a problem. There's an open meeting law problem, I suppose, right? With two members attending. Only if you, if two of you intend to speak, if one of you is going to talk, then it's fine. But if the two of you decide to talk, then that's where the issue is. Well, I won't be there. So. I don't intend to talk. I don't intend to talk. I don't either. That doesn't mean I won't. Some wild thing comes up. The only thing I saw was kind of left open was. And Lynn sort of said, well, she'd check into it, but the council was a little concerned. Okay. How do we make sure. The town gets involved next year. So we're not under a gun here. That's the only thing I saw left open. I assume Lynn's going to address that some way with the rest of the council. Yeah. I see no room on their plate for this. Because it's an incredibly. It will essentially suck all the oxygen out of everything else. I mean, it's a public process with hearings and. I mean, I don't know where they have room on their plate for this. The way I explained it in Greenfield when I, when we gave our recommendation last year was. You know, of course you want to help your residents because you want people to stay. You want people to come in. You want young families to, to be in your community. But the way that this works is. With a fragile commercial base. You're actually hurting the commercial community. As well as the residential. Because like looking at Amherst downtown, we've got a lot of small businesses, a lot of mom and pops. We've already seen with the pandemic that. You know, some of them like Judy's, for example, hasn't been able to make it. So, so if you do this tax, the first year is probably going to be. Which taxi. Which talk. I'm sorry, the residential exemption. I'm not the split rate. I mean, we're all. Great. Split rate doesn't work. Okay. Nevermind. Going on the wrong path. Okay. But the residential exemption, the way I looked at it here in Greenfield, the way I explained that it's not the best idea is really. If you look at the towns on the Cape. Where people are buying houses because it's their second homes. They're paying, you know, an astronomical amount for these, these buildings. And you have your, your, your full-time residents. They maybe didn't pay that. Enormous price for their home. And they've been there for, you know, 50 years, but their values are incredibly high because of those vacation homes. You know, we have a similar situation you could compare to because we have all the residential. You know, people are renting these properties, but it's still a really fragile, you know, sort of like the commercial base where it's fragile. You, you don't want to, those people who have been here for 50, 60 years, you know, you want to help them, but you also don't want to scare away the people who want to come in and maybe they have the money to spend on a, on a, you know, larger house or the people who are renting. You know, maybe we have young families who are just starting out and can't now afford to come to Amherst because of the residential exemption is causing the rent to increase on these properties. So it's a tough one because you can see, you know, students don't care. They just pay whatever. But if you are looking at it on the side of, you know, a young family, someone who's trying to downsize, maybe they don't want to own a property anymore, it makes it tough for them. It's a, it's a very complex issue. I mean, we have 60% of our housing units rental now. And when that gets to be 80%, I think residents are going to be a little concerned. Yeah. Because investors keep buying, but it's very complex. I don't know. And I guess the question would be, if this gets kicked down for another year, and I think I can understand the council is being full. Yeah, I agree. I agree. Some of those council members are going to come back at saying, okay, this is the third year. We're faced with a jam in our face that nothing's been researched or nothing's been done. And. That's, that's Paul's call. In my mind. That's right. Yeah. I agree. I mean, I think we have. Done what we can do. I do too. And therefore I'd respond next year of the council. We told you last year, we did everything we've done and you decided not to go out to the community and that's fine. That was your call. There's also the issue of resources required to, to do the additional work and, and didn't sound like they were jumping up and down about. Allowing that to happen. So is it, I think David, I've gotten, I think makes. Well, mixed messages is what I want from David on this. In the sense that is it, is it, am I wrong to say that there's really. Implementing an exemption. It's impossible to do a high definition of view of what the consequences would be in every on every parcel in town without actually doing it. No, we could do an estimate of what the impact would be. We have done estimates of what the impact would be in each parcel. And we could do that for five, 10, 15, 20, all the way to 35% if we wanted to. All right. We could even on the apartment complexes. Break it down to the cost per apartment. We couldn't do it. Two, three or four bedroom apartments. We could per apartment. So you, you think we could actually get to a fairly high definition of view of what the impact would be? Well, we could for apartment. So you, you think we could actually get to a fairly accurate. Estimate of what the effect on rents would be in various buildings. He's already done it. He's done it. Yeah, we do have it. We did have it a couple of years ago. Yeah, but it doesn't make sense until you get the community input, you know, right. You know, if I was a council person, I would say, you know, if I was a council person, I would say, you know, if my neck out and decide to change based on just facts like this, they're facts, but they're not interpreted facts. Yes. And you're going to. Go ahead. You know, when I neglected to say the other night, and I talked along enough as it was. No, that's good. I would love to be able to walk through my neighborhood and say, Hey, I gave you all a tax break. I'm going to walk through and say that with Mr. Burgess and my two friends on the board of assessors, we gave you a tax break. That's not our role, Richard. Well, no, but I'm just saying, I'm just saying it's a track. That would be attractive to me, but I just don't, I just have real doubts about what this would do. To various renters in town. So. Yeah. No, I don't know that many renters. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't forget the renters, but just the whole idea of having the town broken into two buckets. It's not a great thought. Yes. Right now, everybody's in the same bucket. They all get taxed the same. Yes. And you can't argue against two one bucket. And there's, I mean, I know that the, that residents probably don't feel this, but there's a fairness in that. Yeah. Yeah. So. I don't know. I don't plan on talking Monday night, but. Well, if you start talking, I'll just tell you to shut up. That means, that means you can't talk. Whoever talks first. Okay. If we're not invited as a panel members, then we are listed as we would be just attendees. Is that right? Town attendees. Yeah. So we'd have to ask for permission to talk. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I believe he'd be limited to public comment. Exactly. Okay. I'm not, I'm not up for speaking. It's just that. You know, I assume David, you'll take care of her. If they're start, they start to go down the wrong road or something. So I'll do my best. And I'll do our best as well. Because we can't do so much. No way you can do it this year. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In the disc in the regular discussion. And then they have to be invited with the panelists. Yeah. Yes, but I'm, I'm, we're between the three of us. Do we think that one of us needs to be. Invited into the discussion. I don't know what David there and Kim. All right. Okay. Yeah. Okay. I agree. We did that last meeting. That's what. Yeah. I'm going to move the, but I'm going to move the bill to anything that I'm going to do. I'm going to move the bill to anything that I'm going to do. I'm going to move the bill to anything that I'm going to do. Okay. It's not my role. It's the council role. Yes. We're there to provide data. David can do that very well. All right. So as the chair, have we exhausted this topic? Yeah. Along the same lines. maybe sticking inserts into the final year tax bills about personal exemptions or the guidelines. You know, that came up that maybe we're not doing enough. Yes. Is that possible, David? Expand the guidelines a little more. I looked at them, they're online, but they're kind of not most commutative guidelines you could do. Maybe we can beef them up a little. Do you need me to come in and stuff envelopes? Because it can be done. I'm not sure it'll be done this year because I know there's already other stuffers that are going in. OK. We can do it. And personally, and coming jump in here or not, I would rather say when we do the preliminary bills because after the 1st of July, we'll be sending out the information to people as well. And so it'll be fresh in our mind and we can talk to their neighbors. So maybe the preliminary bills may be the time for us to do that instead of the actuals. All right. I think that's good too because then it's going to be fresh in their mind. And I think more likely than not, we would get a response. Whereas like if it's a whole year later, they might be like, what is this? I'm not going to deal with it right now and then forget. Yeah. And also they could highlight or focus somehow on the web town website so that folks can find it easily. They're kind of buried right now. You have to go through a couple of screens and know what you're looking for in order to get to it. Do I have a sense that some of our elderly people are, well, just relating to my own experience, not fully elderly yet. That's some elderly people who qualify for the exemptions may not be particularly nimble in getting on to the Amherst town website to look at this stuff. I think we're going to start with some people who are a good better older than the elderly have in front of you at the minute. But yes, there's some people who don't do it and some people don't want to do it. We have always tried to accommodate them either through the senior center or through Teresa and at the time, Laurie, they've always been available for them to come in and talk to. And now that the COVID's over, we're in the position. We can do that again. But I think we're getting a generalized sense that the exemptions are not well known, not well publicized. Is that our consensus on that? At the moment that we. I think it's worth another try. I know, David, you've gone over to the senior center and met with them. I mean, there have been things we've done. It's didn't you go to the senior center? Yep. Yep. I mean, it's not like you haven't tried. It's just let's try again. Teresa is waving her hand like I don't know whether she's swatting a fly or whether she wants to say something. No, I was just telling somebody to go away. Oh, OK. There you go. Help me. Help me out to understand why do we get the applications to review in January, February? When do they just send in? Well, because we haven't set the tax rate until then, can we? Don't know how much you're going to give them on the exemption. But one of the I mean, I struggle with sending them out with the July tax bill. They don't film out until January then they're going to sit on this stuff for six months. Well, we send them out. We send out the applications in July so that at that time it's in our mind and we're dealing with it. So sending out and asking for any new ones would be the time to deal with it. People can tell the application at any time after July 1st. OK. But we can't act on it until we set the tax rate. OK. But I sort of, most of them are signed like in December or January. Why do they sit on them so long? Teresa. I always ask myself that question. I mean, sometimes I get them back quickly and sometimes they say they don't receive them and I'll email them. I usually I'll send out reminder ones to them. You know, if I don't get anything by October or something, I'll send out a reminder and another form. These are people that have filed them in the past. Correct, correct. That's great. So you have to take them anyway. Yes. Yeah, what we could do is we could make it a two phase thing and have the council and the aging send something out on their bulletins at one time in the year and then we could send it in the tax roll at another time. OK. The double whammy. So do we have to revisit this topic and place it on an agenda at some point further down the line here about providing more information about exemptions? Yeah, it sounds like maybe the aging should send something out in December, David. Yeah, they could. Because, you know, the next time it's selling in December, they still have three months to act on it. Yeah, people are still with time to file. Yeah. So they would be a part. David, do you plan to comment back to the council about action to address the because it did come up in the last meeting to add at the last meeting? I did address it with the palm water name. Yeah, Miss Palma told her we did have exemptions available and that we could make more information available to people. OK. I'm just trying to think like I think that you guys do it slightly different in Amherst than in Greenfield. And because we send out our applications also in July, the very end of June, and people are like asking for them. We get them we get overloaded in the summer with them. But I'm thinking. So you send them out, Teresa, if I'm remembering correctly, you send them out in July to everyone that has applied the last year. Is that correct? Right. And past year is correct. But we don't get that. Then is is brainstorm like let's come back to this next week, maybe even or next meeting, I should say, or even the following and just sort of brainstorm some thoughts of of how else we could reach out. Because if we've done like a seminar at the senior center, if we've done mailings, how else can we get them to apply? That's a that's a good idea, Kim. So do we want to have this on the agenda for our next meeting? Yeah, let's do that. OK, I don't want to call this information on exemptions. Yeah, yeah, I'm personal exemptions here. OK. So anything else on this topic? I don't know anything I would suggest. Can you have a feedback on that topic about age counseling? Can they do something at your end still in their newsletter or something? You mean the senior center? Senior. Well, I don't know. Who are you talking about? I get a I get a new letter. Friends of the senior center. OK, I got that too. OK, yeah, we can ask them to put something in. Yeah, because I'm not sure what their lead time is on that. What about putting something in the newspaper? Just a thought. I mean, I don't know that would be a cost, of course, to the town, but, you know, just thought. Anyway, I know a lot of elderly people actually still get the newspaper rather than reading it online. Just just a thought. Where's pursuing? Yeah, it's important to remember the Daly Hampton, because that circulation now is down below 8000. The whole whole reading area. So really? So maybe not worth it then. Well, 8000. Wow. Well, that's that's paper. There's also online, too. But yeah, yeah. So why do you brainstorm? You and David, Kim. Yeah, we can do that. What you think you want to do for the next meeting. We'll shake the marbles. I have another question. And we're I think I don't know how much Ken and Lee get asked questions about the tax system in town, but I do. And so we're supposed to nominally have some command of this stuff. I'm trying to understand what the reassessment trigger is and how that whole reassessment process go. What triggers it? How does it get in? How does it start? We we've had sales above 10% of assessed value. Correct. We've had a certain number of those, and that triggers a reassessment. Am I Kim? Are you not going to Richard for an individual house or for townwide? No, I'm talking about in general. I'm trying to understand the Merzbach article about the increase in taxes. I guess is tied up with the whole business of reassessing properties. And there's a trigger in terms of the sales. So I got a similar question actually yesterday from someone who was reading, I think, the same article. And they were concerned about the residential tax hike as they put it. So what I did explain, the first thing that I explained is it's not just residential. This year, it may be a little bit more so on residential in Amherst because of the way that, and I think in many communities, the way that COVID has impacted the commercial base, where specifically in Amherst, there have been some vacancies that have come about. There have been businesses that have closed. So we don't want to raise the commercial values. There haven't really been any sales. So we're not really, there's nothing fresh to look at to say, oh, well, commercial sales are increasing, so we should increase by X amount of dollars. Whereas the residential properties, whether it be single families, two families, three families, it doesn't really matter at this point. Everybody's just buying what they can get. So the increase has impacted the residential a little bit more so this year and maybe last year and maybe next year based on that. But as for the actual physical inspection of a property, the state gives us a 10-year range to look at each and every property. So each and every property has their own 10-year schedule. If we do an inspection of any sort, that resets that schedule to start, say for example, this year. So there's that, but there's also, if there is a sale that we find to be a little weird, maybe it's really, really, really high over their assessed value or really, really under. I know that here in Greenfield, we would probably try to take a peek at that and see what's going on. And, or if there have been building permits that have maybe caused that to fluctuate the value, the price, the sale price. Also, if there's been work that's been done that we can see on the MLS listing, that maybe there is no building permits for. I know here in Greenfield, we've had a lot of that happen. I don't know about Amherst because they just haven't gotten that far yet, but that would also trigger an inspection or at least a request to do an inspection, whether or not the people actually let us in is another story. But it would only be for that property, right? Not for a class of properties, right? It could be a class of properties depending on the circumstance. If we're doing our sales analysis and we see that colonial homes are really selling way higher than everything else, that might cause for inspections of those types of properties. If maybe it's a specific neighborhood, that could be a cause for an inspection in that neighborhood. Maybe there's something going on there that is causing the values to increase or decrease in that, for that matter, it could go either way. So when you do that, does that become a matter of public record that you went and looked at a particular class of homes? So what would be public record is that an inspection was done, the actual notes that we've written on the record card. If someone asks for those, sure, but we wouldn't necessarily put those out there. David, maybe you can touch on more to actual times versus me just sort of speculating on what we do here in Greenville versus how I would handle it going forward. Well, you know, you answered the question the one way that I think it's the right, we're going to inspect if we see things going up, but what will trigger this is every year we have to look at the sales report and see where we are. And we have to have at least 2% of the properties of the biggest class, which is residential selling, single families. We'll analyze those and see what percentage of market value we're at. And everybody says 100%, that's not real. We're going to be 90 to 110%. And if we go below the 90, we're going to want to push it back up. The reason we went up to this year is that if you look at the 2020 sales, it made us raise them by 8% for FY 22. And we're already, Kim and I are already looking at the 21s and even with our new values, our percentage is dropping below 90 again. So we're going to have to raise it again next year, at least in the residential class. And hopefully the commercial. Our percentage meaning our assessed value is below 90%. Right, on average. Okay. So we want, we look at that again, actually on the median, not the average median. And so we look at that. And we don't have to make changes, but every five years with the Department of Revenue, but if you don't, you could be looking at a 30% increase. So the last two years we raised, I think it was 5% last year and 8% this year and probably at least 10% next year. But this doesn't change the total amount of money that's actually taken in by the town of the two and a half plus new growth. So as I understand it, some people are going to get a tax cut, aren't they? Well, the commercials definitely are. And anybody that we've lowered the value on the residential wall, all the ways they'll see an increase. Because even though the tax rate is coming down 50 cents or 55 cents, the valuations are going to say 8% on the residential and not changing on the commercial. So there's going to be a larger percentage of the taxes are going to be residential. So they will go up because of that. Okay. I'm, oh man. It's complicated, right? So my sense of this is, if there's a cap of two and a half plus new growth on how much money can be collected, this tax increase is not that big a deal. I guess I just, this alleged tax increase, the rate's going to go down. Right. But it's capped by this, what I consider to be as a, you know, somewhat of a liberal as a two and a half percent plus new growth cap. It's a pretty draconian cap. So the whole amount of money that's coming out of people's pockets is still capped by the two and a half percent. Yes. Right. But the problem is that the money is coming less out of the commercial this year and more out of the residential. So they have gone up more. So that is what causes the problem this year. That people are seeing more than they would have if we had to raise the commercial at the same time, everything would be hoggy, Dory. But it didn't. Okay. So we're essentially, so we are essentially, well, the greater amount of the tax burden is coming out of residential property owners. Right. Okay. Which is the same you expect next year too. Well definitely, especially considering the amount of new growth there is in the residential section. Yeah. So this is the product of a withering commercial sector. Is that right? Somewhat. Yeah. Well, yeah. It doesn't help. I've heard that currently houses residential transactions are selling 35 to 40 percent over assessed value. Is that reasonable? But then it really depends on when the last assessment was done, right? Right. Well, they'll be looking at an FY21 tax bowl, which was before the 8 percent that we put on this year. So that 35 percent is about high and it's only going to be individuals. The higher end properties are really selling for an awful lot of money. But the lower end properties are not. So it's not going to be a 35 percent when we go look at the median. And that's where we come into it. Kim was talking about more detail. We're going to look, we're going to stratify them based on the sales, the valuation or sales price and the style and the location. So, you know, we may look at this and say Lincoln Avenue, Sunset and all the rest of them need to get boosted up, whereas Glendale and Orchard Valley, not quite so much. So at that time, this year we didn't. If you want, we did a quick and dirty assessment this year. Next year, we'll do an in-depth assessment and it may actually be areas of town. We'll see bigger changes than all the areas of town. OK. I love it when a public official refers to something as quick and dirty. That's right in a public meeting. That's always great. I don't like. Good enough for government work, right? Another question that I've gotten here in Greenfield and in Amherst already actually is, so the market values are really high right now. People are paying absolutely absurd amounts of money for these properties, but this is like inflated. This is having to do with COVID. Why do we have to look at this? And basically it's really it's, although it seems crazy because maybe it does have to do with COVID. Maybe it doesn't. Whatever the case is, this is the real-time market. This is the DOR requires us to look at these, even if it's just a year that this happens in. And if you remember back, I think it was in 2010 where the market crashed and the banks were just giving people money for whatever they wanted, even if they couldn't afford it, we still had to look at that. So values had to come down. And then they went back up again. So I explained it yesterday as a roller coaster ride with the market. And unfortunately, even if it's frustrating because it's going either really high or really low, we have to look at it. And it will go in the other direction because when things start to come down, so sales will come down, so will values. Couple, I guess, unrelated or related. Where are we, David, with the state? When do they come in and look at us again? Next year, FY23. So what actual date is that then? Oh, there's no actual date yet. Ken, this will probably run all the way under this. Could run all the way to this time next year. So fill me in here. I'm not following what Ken's asking about. Ken's asking when the next mandate of recertification is. And it's an FY23. The last one was an FY18. Every year, we do have to, every fifth year, we have to do a revaluation. So was that round for that first one? That last one? Was I, I guess I came in at 17, I think. You were probably here then? Yeah. So give us a quick overview, David, what that involves for you guys. Well, Kevin's been through one more recently than I have. She's been through one night. I'm going to do it right now. Oh, that hurts. So basically what happens is the very first step is the state, your rep will contact you. In the case being we were right smack in the middle of COVID. They are rep here in Greenfield asked if I would send X amount of record cards. He gave me, he was looking for 150 single family homes, sales and two comparisons, X amount of commercial sales and two comparisons. So I sent that along. He did his research, he came to town, he looked at all of our records. Normally they'd come here and do it and we would just print it out for them here. But basically what they do is they take your records and they go on, they look at the properties, they sit in front of them, they look at what we have it listed as, what the condition is, so on and so forth. And just sort of look to see, they look at MLS to see, this year here in Greenfield, we got back some stuff that said, you're missing bathrooms in these houses, you're missing finished basements based on MLS listings. So they kind of go through and just verify that we're really doing what we're supposed to be doing. They look at ratios to see if our ratios match that 10% range that we can be in, whether it's 90 or 110. If we have a particular class that's on the low end or on the high end, they'll say, you gotta look at these for next year. They'll, you know, I haven't, this is the first one that I've been through. So what comes next? Maybe David could help with that, but I know that they'll give you a list of things to work for towards in the next reveal. What they want you to look at specifically, you know, once in Greenfield, they said, look at all your condos, because they're really low. They're all over the place. You know, so it's basically just to check some balances to make sure that you're really doing what you're supposed to be doing in that interim years. But again, you know, David, maybe you could touch on what's coming after the, you know, after the review of all the properties is done. Well, after they review them all and we're set, we're gonna have to send out notifications. You've been through this before. We let people know the valuations and we're gonna have hearings on them. We have to have at least a 10 day opens period. And Amherst, we've normally gone for a couple of months. So people want to talk about their values informally or how they were, how they were come to them. And then it's just a matter. Once that's, once you've signed off on that and the DWR has approved on it, we basically go through the same course that we're going through now to set the tax rate. So this is done about this time of year. So we'll be doing the tax rates for this this time next year. But David, what do you think Kim will get a call from the state? Oh, we're already talking to Kim. On this? Well, on various things, but yeah, it's mentioned. Okay. The Department of Revenue have come along a lot better and keeping in touch with us over the time being. And our person, Lauren Aldrich is very much on the ball. In fact, she sent us some stuff the other day and we've been looking at that. And she'll be coming in, I'd imagine in January or February and wanting to complete a thing called the LA-9, which is a plan for going forward for the revamp. They've recently extended the period, right? This recertification period used to be three years, right? Correct. And now it's five, yeah. So yes or no, is this a useful exercise? Does it turn out to be? I think so. Okay, yeah. Important because I think there could, not that this happens anywhere around here, but there could be situations that, a particular class of property goes under the wire and something goes, it either goes way low or goes way high. I mean, in the interim years, they're still monitoring these things. So you still have to meet these requirements, but I think the checks and balances is just a really refreshing thing. Make sure that you're really doing a good job at your job. It also helps, I think some of the, in the assessor's office, there's always a tad of negativity because these are people's pockets that we're talking about. This is their income. And so this is just a sort of to say, look, the state has said, this is okay. Well, I'm not just pulling this value out of the air. So it's sort of a bit of a pad on your shoulder to say, you're doing a good job and you're keeping your town where you're supposed to. You have self-added procedures too, right? Interim between the actual formal certifications? Yeah. Yeah, I would think so. Yeah, you still have to meet all the requirements of the DOR. You still have to have all your classes within that 10% range. You still have to complete the inspections and so on and so forth. But when they come in, they're just really on top of all of that, they're just verifying that you're doing it. So David, do you know how we stand with inspections right now? Because last year, I'm not sure many got done. I'm sure they're working. But again, that's one of our items that Kim and I and Sean have to talk about because we're looking at getting some money from the town to do the inspection to get some help with them. Okay. Going forward, at least on the residential and the exams. So we'll see where that is in the future. So are those noted on the card for each time you do one? Okay. We have what's called a visit history on the card and we complete that every time we go out. So is that a money issue or a principal assessor's time issue? In the word? It's probably going to be a money issue this time, but from my understanding, we've already been more than SQR and T to $100,000. So we're not worried about it. All right. So when you're looking at a card out there, you should see an inspection within the last 10 years on the card. Either an inspection or a note that says that you are not, I don't know about vision, but in Patriot, there's a note that you can put entry denied because homeowners have the right to enter. Somebody tried to do it. Yeah. Okay. I'm at 12.02 PM. I want to make sure that we, is there anything else you want to, gentlemen want to talk about? No, this has been very helpful. Yeah. Appreciate it. And I can now pose for at least another month that I actually know what I'm talking about. I'm going to re-firm all to you. No. I need to come in and sign a couple of things. When would you like me to do that, Teresa? Oh, she's... You're muted, Teresa. Yeah. What about next meeting? I'm going to get to that. I just want to make sure that I get my appointment with Teresa. You hear me? Yeah. Okay, there you go. I'm here pretty much all the time. So tell me when it's good. Seems like I'm here all the time. Okay. Are you around tomorrow afternoon? Yes. Are the documents all ready? Yep. Yes. All right. I'll be there too. So I'd love to say hello when you pop in. Just pop into me. Thank you. Not that many people want to see me. So that's good. I'm thinking tomorrow, if I get back from Boston early enough to come in in the afternoon. Okay. All right. So I'll call you first. Sounds good. Now I propose a next meeting of November 8th, Thursday, November 18th. Okay. Is that the normal Thursday? It's not because the 11th is a holiday. Oh, okay. Hold on. Kim? I have a board meeting for Greenfield as well. I believe, let me just check the calendar here in Greenfield. Well, Kim's doing that. Can I ask a question? Are you guys locked under the second Thursday with some other time work better? So Kim's going to be tied up through the end of the year. I'm not locked. At least on Greenfield on Thursday. He's not locked in. We could do another time. It would seem to me that Kim scheduled should control. Well, I know Ken's busy at this time. You're running up and down the mountains. Oh, I don't care. I do like a certain date every month. It's easier to plan. Well, just not Thursday, is what I'm saying. Okay, that's fine. All right. Yeah, Thursdays, I do have another, I have a meeting at one o'clock with the Greenfield Board of Assessments, but I could do Wednesdays or any other day, really. So Wednesday the 10th or Wednesday the 17th, is that? Well, I'm tied up to the 17th. The 10th would be fine for me. I can do the 10th. I'll close it at 10th at 11 a.m. Okay, that's good. So, Kim, when do you think you're gonna be able to join full-time? So the hope is, I mean, fingers crossed before the end of the year, but they have not yet filled the position. They actually haven't posted the chief assessor position here in Greenfields. They posted an assistant assessor's position. So I don't know what's happening with that, but what the plan is, is for me to get the tax bills into Munis, make sure that they're working and then once that's done, I'm done. So that could be, I mean, it could be as early as November, but I'm assuming probably early to mid-December. Okay, have you done your tax rate yet in Greenfield? Okay. Your classification hearing or vote? That doesn't usually happen. I was really surprised to hear that ours in the Amherst was so early, but usually that's about mid-November. Yeah, that's the same with us. We don't usually have this early. Okay. I think David wanted it, or people wanted to get it before the new council people took over. I might have been. David, you're gonna hang around? I'll be around, but I'll be around last. We're gonna talk about that. Okay. Just don't leave us alone. I think you're in safe hands, don't worry about that. It's really nice to see you, Kim. Thank you, you guys too. Hopefully soon we can actually be in person. That would be great. Yeah, gentlemen, anything else you wanna talk about? I'm sick. Okay. I move to adjourn to Wednesday, November 10th at 11 a.m. Second. All those in favor please say aye. Thank you, Therese. Thank you, Teresa. You're welcome. Thank you, David and Kim. Bye-bye. Thank you. Bye-bye. Have a nice day. Bye-bye. Have a good weekend. You too. David, I won't.