 script to read. I have my script read. Thank you, Angela. Thank you. 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 Amherstown board of assessors is being conducted via remote participation. And now I have to check to make sure that everyone's video and audio is working properly. Ken Hargreaves, can you hear me? Yes. All right. Lee Hinds, can you hear me? Yes. Elizabeth Duffy, can you hear me? She's connected, but I don't think she's there right. Here she comes. Elizabeth Duffy, can you hear me? But she's not muted. This is Elizabeth Duffy. Can you hear me? No, we can't hear you. We can't hear you. Elizabeth Duffy. Can you hear me? All right. We cannot hear you at all. Am I am I the only one that can't hear? Can you hear me? I can hear you, David. Okay. Can you hear her, David? No, not yet. Can you all enjoy this lovely day? Oh, it's beautiful out there. I love your ceiling, David. Oh, I think you can. Is it new or has it been there a long time? Well, we had to be built the portrait five years ago. We had the deck collapse. We figured when we were going to do it and make a portrait of it. I always saw this in some other places and so we went up to WD and they had a bunch of redwoods we were able to use. Quite nice. Obviously, I can't really call the meeting to order without the assessor. Try your microphone, Liz. Try your microphone. No, try your earphones with your microphone. Oh, okay. There she is. Can you hear me now? Yeah. Hello? Yay. Okay, we're gonna go with this. The only thing I will say is if I'm gonna put my, I'm so sorry. I'm trying to squish Steven. I'm gonna put my phone on airplane plane mode and I'm going to, if I get a phone call on the stupid telephone, sometimes it will interrupt this thing. I just want to give you a good FYI and I can actually close the door because Steven's on his own computer. Okay, I like hopefully everything will go fine. I'd like to call the meeting to order. Remember, we are being recorded. This is being recorded to the web and it's going going on to the town of Amherst YouTube channel. Okay, so I now call the meeting to order. I would ask everyone to mute because it cuts down on background noise. Okay, I think that's all the introductory stuff I have to do. Hang on a minute. And now I ask for, I move that we approve the minutes of March 11th, 2021. And I've just lost, and I've just lost my, wait a minute, I've just lost my picture. There we go. Sorry. Has everyone had a chance to look at the minutes? So moved. I should point out that they didn't get emailed until, I didn't get mine until about 15 minutes before the meeting. So gentlemen, have you seen your minutes? Yes. Yes. Ken? Yes. All right. All those in favor, anybody want to make any changes or corrections, additions, corrections? No? No. Okay. All those in favor of approving the minutes of March 11th, 2021, please say aye. Aye. Aye. All those opposed? That's unanimous. Okay. We move on to motor vehicle abatement reports. Ms. Duffy. Hey, this is the first on the abatements between March 8th and March 12th for excise abatements in the amount of $5,417.15. Okay. We usually see a list. That is also here. Do you have any questions, gentlemen? No, because we're not seeing a list. You're not seeing the list. We still have the summary sheet up, Liz. There you go. There you go. Thank you. Okay. I'm looking at, this is the list for. This is the list for March 8th to March 12th. Okay. Vehicle abatements. Okay. I see 40 abatements and I don't know whether I'm seeing the bottom of the page or not. Is that the total at the bottom? It does look like 5,035 for this segment, though. Remember, it's in three segments. So if you add the 261 and the 120 above, there's subtotals. So these are all subtotals. The main total is on the first page. That's the 5417. So the 5035 is only for this grouping right here that were done in 2021. The 2020 abatements, there was two of them, Herbalit and Pakman, and they had $261.81 for abatements. And then the abatements for 2019, there were only two of them, and that was for $120.42. Is everybody still there? Yeah. I got a little scared there for a minute. So that's why it's 5417 as a summary. So you have 44 abatements and all. The largest bunch was that third group there that was done for 2021. So the total of the 120, 261, and 5,035? That's correct. That makes up the 5417.15. Okay. Did we lose Richard? Richard. I do not know. Let me stop sharing so I can see who's participating. I have Richard here. There he is. Hi, Richard. I don't know what's going on, but it's not good. Your signal unstable? I don't know what's going on. Okay. Did you have any questions about that particular abatement we just reviewed? No. That was the 5417.15 for the three years, 1920 and 21. Okay. Okay. You had a vote on that one? Okay. Did something happen while I was away? Not really. I mean, basically, we had the abatement up for the first on the agenda, and let me just bring that back up for you. Can everybody see that? No. Okay. So these are the three segments 2019, 2020, and 2021. The sum of the parts are 5417.15. It's separated by assessment year. And if there is no other comments, I guess I'm looking for a vote on that. Okay. I'm sorry. I have no idea what you just brought up. I thought we were looking at abatements for the week of March 8th to March 12th, 2021. And that's what these are. These are from March 8th to March 12th, 2021. Okay. There was two of them for fiscal year 2019. So that's for that particular tax roll. Well, I see what you're saying. I'm sorry. Yeah. For $120 and 42 cents. We'll just follow that draw here. Okay. I see that. Yep. Okay. Two for fiscal year 2020. Yeah. And that was Mr. Hurlbut and Mr. Packlin for 126, I'm sorry, 261 in penny. Yeah. And then we had over 40 abatements for 2021 for $5,000. Oh gosh, this thing is blocking me. $35 and 72 cents. Okay. And so on the agenda, it says $5,417.15. That's correct because that's the sum total of all of those done in that period. Okay. I move that we approve those abatements. Second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Okay. Okay. Moving on. We're going to go to our next our next grouping, which is March 15th to March 19th. Is that apparent on the screen for you now, gentlemen? Yes. Okay. Yes. Okay. And we have a total of $1,002 and 83 cents for that period. And it was all for 2021 fiscal year. I'm sorry. One is for 2020 for $19 and 58 cents. And then the rest, the 12 others are for 2021 for $983.25 for a total of $1,002 and 83 cents. Okay. Now I'm just curious. We're seeing some from other years. And I never recall that happening before. So what's the reason? Oh, you have, you have done that in the past. It's just, I haven't really pointed that out. This is the fiscal year that you see in the far left side. And we are allowed to go back to previous tax rolls aside from the current 2021 tax roll. All right. I move that we approve those abatements for a total of $1,002 and 83 cents. Second. Excellent. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All those opposed. That's unanimous. Okay. This is your third group of abatements for March 22 to the 31st. It's for a total of $2,230 and 77 cents. You have two from 2020 for $87 and 38 cents. And then you have 28 from 2021 for $2,143 and 39 cents. Okay. I move that we approve that set of abatements for $2,230 and 77 cents. Second. Okay. This is the real estate for the vote. You didn't have the vote. Oh, I'm so sorry. All those in favor, please say, please say aye. Aye. All opposed. That's unanimous. Liz. Yes. On the first one, just to go back to for a minute for clarification. Certainly. Yeah. It didn't have the summary like these last two did. That's why we had the question about the different amounts. Was there another page that did have a summary on it? This particular one only had the one page. Oh. Yeah. The other two had summaries. This had a summary and the other one did. The reason why I asked that is because the signatures are not on that page. Yeah. Okay. Good question. I don't know why this one doesn't, because it has the signatures here. It says board of assessors. Yeah. And it comes after the summary. Yeah. So I don't know why it doesn't have a separate page for this one. I couldn't explain it. It doesn't change it. I mean, it doesn't have the designation, but you're right. It did change it. It's not consistent. Yeah. Yeah. I don't, I have no, no recall as to why that would be different. I think the one for the 5,417 you did have a summary sheet. Yeah. And so did I have the same with this one. This one has a summary. Well, the other one had a summary as well. It's just because there's too many lines on the first one. Yeah. I think so. I think so. That's about it. I think it's just the number of appeals, the number of abatements I should say. Is it okay to proceed to the March 24th real estate abatements? Yes. Okay. So we have the listing here. It's for a total of, it's two pages of it in total. So we do have 18 abatements. And we have a total of $3,978.94. And this deal, these abatements, I think they're dealing mostly with the tax relief. I believe that's when she's applying the personal exemptions. And it also adjusts the CPA when we adjust the assessment on the tax relief. Say that again, Liz. In other words, when someone gets tax relief, you adjust both the real estate assessment tax as well as the community preservation tax. So that's why you see two for each account. Okay. And the reason they got tax relief is for personal exemptions. In other words, they were either, they met the criteria for veteran or... Okay. These are all exemptions we have in town. Yes, sir. These are previously approved exemptions, right? Correct. So I'm sorry, the overvaluation, that term is used to refer to that? I believe so. I'm not sure why it says overvaluation, to be honest with you. I'm not certain why she chose that particular value instead of an exemption reference. I don't know if there is one. So I will check that listing to see if there's maybe a better reference than overvaluation because it makes it sound like we made a mistake and I don't believe that's the case. Actually, those are all over evaluations for the condominiums that we adjusted last month. Oh, that was for Evergreen. Okay. Now that makes sense because it's only a small amount that we're adjusting these. So that is for the abatements that we've received for the condominium increase this year. As you know, I believe I mentioned earlier meeting that we had an increase in condominiums. So the condominiums across the board and the community increased over 10%. So that it's compulsory that we increase the assessment accordingly. When we took a look at the appeals from Evergreen, and we did have a few of them, the smaller units were recognized as not necessarily growing in the market as much as the larger units and we did adjust them accordingly. I did take David's advice to adjust these particular condominiums and I do agree with his recommendation and that's why you have them now. Okay. So these are not personal exemptions. They are not not personal exemptions. They are indeed overvaluations. Okay. All right. Okay. So these are the bills went out on a certain level and they're being abated for this fiscal year. Is that correct? That's correct. Okay. All right. They did receive an increase for fiscal year 2021. They challenged the assessment and we had a number of them as you can see. So it was evident that we needed to make some sort of adjustment and we did adjust 18 of them. Okay. So some of these happened without the person appealing. Is that correct? No. These people appealed. These particular people appealed. Okay. And actually it's only nine people because there's two for each one. Okay. So are there other units that need to be reassessed? They'll be adjusted accordingly for next year. All right. Okay. Any discussion from the rest of the board? No. Okay. I move that we approve these real estate abatements totaling $3,978.94. Excellent. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Okay. That's unanimous. Okay. I do not have anything for executive session. I don't see public here to participate. Well, I thought there were three exemption requests. Yeah, we're getting to those. Well, isn't that executive session? Well, you know, I've looked at that and I think the answer is no. But I'm looking, I'm seeing a look of surprise on David's face. Yeah, that's what we used to do. Maybe I'm wrong. I looked at the various situations for executive session in the open meeting law guide and I did not see anything that fell into this category. So the exemptions actually stay on the top of them. They're exempt under $59.5, I think. The reason is you're discussing people's income usually. Yes, I know. Well, the only exemption form itself, I do believe it says it's confidential. So do you gentlemen want us to go into confidential setting right now? This is what I want to do. When we go into executive session, I want to go into executive session and not come back. So I want to get all the public work done first before we go to the exemptions. Then why don't we go over the residential exemption according to the agenda? David, I believe you have something for the residential exemption. Well, just an update. I took the information that has been supplied from the rental information and I also took all the ones that we were not able to get in together and now I've got a full database of 6,317 accounts. Of those 6,000 plus, there are almost 4,300 that we know are owner occupied at the minute. Of the other 2,000, there's about 1,500. I think if you're going to send out a survey to you, we should do that to those 1,500. Those will be ones that have either changed hands or really are rental information. Now, this is mostly for Ken's information because he was the one that was dealing a lot with the rental information. What I did when I went through the rental stuff was I looked at all the two and three families that they had on there and only that I was able to determine had owner occupied. I'd left it as owner occupied and if it did not, I made it non owner occupied. So that's why you've come up so many and I had 1460. I believe that we have to send a service to if that's what you want to do. Have we heard anything back from Sean? Not so far now. Was Sean supposed to be with us today? I invited him. That was what in my mind the next step was to wait to hear back from Sean before we did any survey or anything. But Dave, that's great. Now we have a clearer picture of what we need to address. I intend to go ahead with these nine, but the impact of 10, 20, and 30 percent and have them in separate sheets going forward if you want for a presentation, if you want to make to the council. Okay. I guess, Liz, can you follow up with Sean and see I know they've been busy doing stuff, but what's his timing as far as getting some kind of feedback on that additional draft we sent him? Well, as you know, I sent him the summary draft, the four page summary, and he attended our last meeting. We all looked at the survey to send out. So that's all ready to go. I have IT ready to put that into Survey Monkey to launch. Basically, I'm waiting to hear back from the two of them, Sean and Paul, as to what they want us to do as far as proceeding forward. As far as expanding the group, they decided that they did not want to expand the group last I spoke to them, but I have not approached them on that subject again, although Sean was part of our meeting. He knows that that was something that we discussed. So you got feedback though from Sean that basically what we did is all they want to do. Is that right? Basically, that's what I am of the understanding aside from the survey itself. Because my concern is we send the survey and we get this information, but there's, I mean, we need to know from the council what they want. What's the objective of this study? Well, I thought, you know, if we don't know that, we don't know what we're, I don't want to send anything under my hand at writing out anywhere. Because I don't know what was trying to study your answer. Okay, as you know, they have to do this at the classification hearing each year. I thought what we're supposed to be doing now is gathering the information and then having a consult with them to see if it's something they will want to go forward with later on. Really, I thought this was an exercise in putting the information together for them to give them a better understanding of the impact. Okay, then instead of waiting for one night in December, just trying to give as much information as we can. Okay, well, that's fine if that's what we want to do. And that's what the council wants. Okay, so that's what I thought. I mean, I, I mean, that's the normal process that we normally do. And if we want to just go through that, then let's just get the data correct and send the survey out realizing if they want any more data, we can't, we're going to have to send out another survey, because we can't do anything. I mean, it's just wrap the sun. We can clarify the data whether it's unoccupied or not with a survey, you're right. Yes. Okay, and that's the data. That's all we need. Okay. Okay, if that's all they want. David has the mailing list ready to go for me. I'll mail it and send it out as soon as you want. So the only question we're going to ask is, are you unoccupied or not? The initial survey that we had looked at last time, I can bring that up again if you like. I have it handy. I just like without some kind of feedback from the council. But if that's what the town council wants to do, town manager wants to do, that's fine. But I'm going to stand up in the meeting and say, that's what you told us to do. Well, they want more answers. Why didn't we get them more answers? We were told not to get them more answers. Yeah, well, I mean, as I remember it, and I mean, they go along, they wanted us to come forward with a clear understanding or a better understanding at least of what the residential exemption could mean to people. And the only thing we need to do for that is find out doing unoccupied and then we can go forward with it. I don't remember them asking for anything else. Okay. Okay, this is the survey that Ken actually drafted most of this. I'll be impacting it with the ID number, the property address, the owner's name. That's something that I'll merge into the form before it's dispatched. As far as where they're going to respond, they'll have the chance to respond either through SurveyMonkey and we'll put a link on it so that they can go to SurveyMonkey or they can respond by sending this back completed. Yeah, I don't think we need any of this Liz. I mean, what we just need is what David just said. Is it owner occupied or not? That's all we need. So do you just want this one question in the top? That's all we need now. So just this. Okay. We can edit it right now and you guys can give me the blessing. Okay. How's that? That's it. That would be the extent of your survey. I'll put a link below it for the SurveyMonkey. Get rid of no go that last part. Oh, sorry. It's always good to have another set of eyes. Thank you. Okay. Are they getting a cover letter of some kind? Well, that's up to you guys. If you want me to put it together, some kind of a cover letter. I think they need an explanation as to why we're doing this. Right. Okay. We're doing this because one person on the town council decided they wanted us to examine it. But I mean, how am I going to? I mean, I wouldn't put necessarily a separate cover letter. We only have one line on the survey. It would be more of an introduction to this particular letter. That's what I would do, yes. Yeah. So I can put a paragraph in here that, you know, to some extent that this is a survey to determine the resident population of the town of Amherst and leave it very, very open-ended. Well, or do you want me to say we're examining possible tax relief for the community? Oh, no. I didn't think you wanted me to do that. No, no. Okay. So we're trying to establish the resident population for the town of Amherst. Correct? Right. So perhaps, you know, just something that says, yeah, whatever you sign out off, make sure Sean is signed off on it. Almost definitely. I'll be sending it to Sean and I'll be sending it to you so you can have an opportunity. There's a cost associated with this too, right? Well, it's 57 cents a piece, I believe, for people for mail going out. I don't believe we get a bulk rate either. Because I'm lost what we're doing here, but that's fine. Well, so am I. So that makes two of us. So just make Sean, now we have a quorum. Make sure Sean is, this is what Sean wants to do. David, you were going to also prepare a percentage, an implication document, right? That says, okay, at certain percentage levels, it has an impact. Yes. Yeah, that was something we were going to put together. And when we go to talk to the council or something, I think someday it's put down September to talk to the council, to give them an overview from what I remember. And that's when I was going to have that already. I will have that ready within the next week and I'll send it to all of you if you'd like. Okay. Well, so I'm trying to figure out how to put this into language that goes into the minutes. Are we taking action here today? We're doing something as a result of a direction from the town council, right? We were given direction from council to determine whether or not the residential exemption was a good fit for the town of Amherst. And I believe what was discussed last November of 2020 was when we had that council meeting. It was determined that more information was needed to find out what our resident population was. And that's what's being provided, right? That's what we're examining at this time. So we think we're going to get an accurate count from this of owner occupied residents in the town from this survey. Out of the 6,000, David's weaned it down to 1,460 accounts. And of those 1,460 accounts, we'll send out this survey and say, are you a resident as of January? Okay. All right. Okay. But as far as the explanation as to why they're receiving this, we're just going to say we're trying to determine the resident base for the residents in the town of Amherst, I believe. Okay. So we're going to need this in the form of a motion of some kind. I don't know that we are because it's really just a discussion as to how we want to proceed. We're not voting on anything. There's no action to be taken other than to just determine what the verbiage should be and how you want it presented. Yeah. I'm still, I need, maybe Sean has told you Liz. As Sean told you, this is all he wants to go back to the council with. He hasn't given me a lot of guidance on this. Well, we're just waiting. They just want information from us. They haven't given me a whole lot of guidance as far as where they want me to go with it. Okay. So we do this. I'm, you know, I'm not in a, I guess I'm not feeling like I'm in a position to approve this. I don't really understand. Oh, I don't mind. I don't mind approving this. This is just data gathering. Right. This is just to get arrive at the number that we have to work with. Is that all they want? You know, they want to know how many people are owner-occupied and how many people are not. Is that, and then do the normal classification presentation that David's done over the years. They're happy with that. Right. They're happy with that. That's what we're, we can do. I mean, one of the things you should be aware of is when we do have the results back from the survey to determine who is a resident and who is not a resident, we can then examine the assessment and how any kind of tax relief program might affect it. Right. I got to say, I got to say, we have to stop using the phrase tax relief. We have to stop using that phrase because it doesn't exist in Massachusetts, in Amherst. It doesn't exist. We will always raise the level up two and a half percent plus new growth. There is no tax relief other than, other than the frequency with which we put override votes out. So we cannot use the phrase tax relief. There is none in Amherst. It's not, it's just not, other than overrides, there is no tax relief in town. And I think those of us who went to assessor's school and learned about prop two and a half know that that's the case. Yeah. This, if this, if anything was done with this, it would just be reallocation of taxes. That's right. That's right. That's right. And that's right. We have a council that I think somewhere around 11 or 12 of our council members get this, understand this. I think most of them understood it. That it is a reallocation of the tax burden. Could be. And the problem I have is the council has to tell us if they want to consider that, why do they want to consider and what information do they have or need to consider it? Because there's no way they can reallocate taxes without knowing how it's going to affect low income, renters, homeowners. Oh, and that's their choice. If they don't want to have that information, that's fine. Ken, I am proposing giving them that information as much as we can. But we don't know. Do you know the low income population? No, but we know what apartment complexes may be affected by it by most. So that's where you're going to have. I mean, we know that the hell you're still there rolling green or whatever it is. So they'll be able to see what the impact would be on rolling green. They'll be able to see what the plan and what's the new one list? Open North Amherst. The beacon properties. I thought I thought what I read was the formal housing projects are not affected by that's what other towns have told. No, they are affected. They're all affected. No, under state law, they're not. Yes, they don't. They get a pass through if there's an increase to the utilities and taxes that would be a pass through. Usually most leases are now triple net. For conventional apartments. Well, even for the housing is approved by the state, they're rents. That's true, but they want it to be so much percentage lower than the market rent. Well, whether they pass it through or not, the taxes would change because there will be a higher tax rate with the residential class. Yeah. So that will be up to the landlords. They have to start that right. Okay. I mean, I just think the average homeowner and the Amherst wants to know that they could save a lot of taxes if other people paid more. Yeah. And so the homeowner is being asked to do these override this override this year and stop. And they're not happy about taxes going up the people I talk about. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You mentioned override this year for the school. There is no override coming this year, Ken. There's no override. When's it coming? It's coming years away for the school. Yeah, but not this year for years. Okay. Yeah, no, not this year. We won't have good schools for another 10 years. Okay, I didn't realize schools were so far back on our list. I'm sorry. I watched the council. I am not aware of an upcoming override proposal. Okay. I didn't know it was years away to get our schools back in order. It's years away to it's years away for an override to build a new school. Okay. So what about the half of the Jordan's library? Is that coming underneath the cap? Yes, supposedly. Okay. That is that whole project is occurring without an override. So that's underneath the cap now? Okay. Well, let's just make sure Sean's on board, whatever you want to do. Okay. Okay. I'll send him the recording from this meeting so that he'll have it and verbatim. And that way he can see our concerns and I want to respond. When you're standing before the council next year that you've answered what they want to answer. That's all. Correct. Well, we did answer what they asked, but we gave it based on the current statistics that we had. And we couldn't... Because we said you weren't on board for a year. Well, you're going to be on board for a year now when you stand before them next year. But we did actually provide statistics based on the data that we had at the time. I felt that at that time that I was asked that our statistics were not current to give them an exact answer as to whether this impact was going to be positive or negative. What impact it would be? Because we've been 10 years out from the actual initial analysis. Okay. Well, that's what you're... You want to be in good shape when you stand before them this year. Yeah. And I think sending the survey to the 1400 is probably going to shape up our database. It's just a matter of do they want us to do that? Well, I think they want us to do that for sure. It's a matter of what they want us to do anymore. So as of today, I think that what I'm hearing from you all is send out the survey, give them a brief paragraph saying this is to determine the residents here in Amherst and just send it out. And we'll put the survey on SurveyMonkey and it's only that one line. That should do it. But I will also ask Sean to address your questions and concerns. Yeah. And just make sure Sean's on board with doing the survey thing. Yeah. Okay. So you want confirmation from Sean to send out the survey? I personally don't feel like it's the right time, but I'll go along with whatever you want to do with Sean. I am only one individual and all I can say is our database on residents is not current unless we do the survey. If they want us to update that so that we have that information, then it's up to them. So I think it's a matter of we table the survey until we hear more feedback from Sean. Is that correct? Yeah. No. John? No. What I'm hearing is go ahead. If you need more better data to stand before the council and Sean's on board with that, go ahead and do whatever you need to get better data for yourself. I think that's important to do. Yeah. To do the process. Because I can't say that we've done our due diligence to determine what the base is unless we do the survey. And so you'll take that completely off the table this year. You won't be able to tell we don't have good data. Right. We do have good data after we get our results. Okay. Is that about all I can say? Is there anything else on that topic, John? I'm good. Okay. So the next thing on the agenda is basically is there any public comment out there? And I don't know that I see any public. Do you, Richard? I don't. Okay. We have just our six participants. Yes. That's right. Yeah. So now it would be a good time to go into executive session. All right. I move that we go into executive session to discuss several elderly exemption applications. And given that this requires the discussion of personal finances and personal net worth, I believe this is appropriate for executive sessions. So I move that we go into executive session. Second. Okay. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Well, I will leave you all. All righty. Thank you, David. I appreciate your help. Thank you. Richard. Richard, a clarification, because I know you had a question about the confidentiality around this. I'm wondering, should the recording be stopped at this point? Yeah. Yes, it doesn't. It's not executive section unless we go to a different recording. Okay. So. Okay. So how do I have video settings? Because I don't want to lose any of you. Can you talk to our technical person about, I'm sure we're not. That would be Angela. Stephen, I believe you're on with us, Stephen. Yep. Do you know how to take this off public? Like put it in a waiting room for people to come to? Or is that something we have to do prior? I have no idea. Could you check with Angela, please tell her we'd like to enter an executive session if she could please give us some instruction? Okay, sure. Thank you. All right. Well, we do not have folks in attendance. And it does give me a chance here. It says pause or stop recording. I'm going to try it.