 Okay, well I will reopen our meeting which we had recessed and we have two report presentations tonight. Doug Zorzi, Perro Pinto and Alan Goldman and Ruben and Charlotte Sherman. And Doug since you have a written handout I'm going to call on you to come up first and distribute that. So we have the report and I assume everyone's had gotten that and had a chance to read it. I got copies now, you all need it. And I'm going to suggest we just take a couple of minutes to read this and then take it up. We have a seat, Doug. And when everyone has had a chance to review it I'll ask the committee to present their report. Bob and I have a caucus on this. And Rosie Kruger is the one who wrote it. Rosie is not feeling well and so is not here. So it's you or me, Bob. I was guessing that might be the case. So I hope everybody's had a chance to read the report that we submitted. I will try not to rehash it. But I think the high points of it are that the, I'll let Doug argue his case and I'll come down to what we looked at in particular. So the assessor suggested three comparable sales, which are discussed in here. One being to the left as you're facing, I'm sorry, I'm losing east and west actually. I think that's probably west. And then the other being a parcel on, so that's the 18 acre parcel on Berry Street and then there's across the river on Isabelle Circle, another parcel that's under contract. So we considered those two. There was a discussion of the fact that a portion of this property had been sold and so there was kind of a sales value that was established on that. The appellate made arguments about a concern about the expectation that the TIF district, you know, kind of influenced the purchase price. I think in the minds of the committee, we sat that one aside rather than having that as an argument about did it influence or didn't it influence. So we sat that as a comparable to the side. We did because there was also a discussion of the value of the country club road property, so known as the golf course of the Elks Club and considered that as a comparable and noted that the prior owners or current and prior owners of the property had agreed to $1.5 million valuation of the property that was in Doug talks about it in his response that was part of a process of trying to put a price on it. We felt that that was a compelling one in that the owners of the property based an easement purchase price based on that. So there was some acceptance of on the owners part of yes, that's what the value was. And we talked about that in here. So we thought the sale of the 18 acres was a good comparable. We thought the sale of the country club property was a good comparable. We listened to the argument, we listened to all of the arguments, of course, but another one was about kind of the restrictions on the use of the property. The appellants offered as part of their testimony when they were here last a portion of an easement that described the easement. But if you read the entire easement, you will you will see that in fact there was no restrictions and didn't preclude in any way a further negotiation about easements that could be obtained across there. We certainly heard the argument that the appellants were making about the cost of development. But honestly, we're not terribly swayed by that. And what I think Oh, and based on both the sale of a country club property, the 18 acre property and the fact that 1.5 had been an agreed upon price a number of years ago, we were really thinking, gosh, the assessed value of this property ought to be what it was originally, which was on the order of that 1.5 million. We then realized that the acreage was off. We thought it would have forgotten. I think it was originally thought to be on the order of about 100 acres. And in fact, in the discussions through the review, the informal process, the city realized, I think that it's 94. I'm sorry. Yeah. And so based on that, you know, backing in at a per acre price, we talked ourselves into saying, rather than it should be the original 1.5 that the city originally established that we felt it made sense to uphold the assessors original of the final decision of 1,099,500. And that's the report. I think those are the high points of it. Bob, do you Yeah, I just compelling for me was that the interest in the property that was sold for 765 and the 2015 appraisal that was made was compelling enough for me to say that at first we thought maybe it should be 1.5, but there were other issues that and the appraiser also was looking at 1,099,5 that we just said that we should recommend maintaining that valuation. Thanks. I'll I'll put it up to questions. I'm going to I want to follow up on this question a little bit. Whatever the number of acres is, it's the same size now as it was in at the time the easement was computed and the same time as it was in what it was a 2020, I think when the when it was set for the for that transaction. And as I said, whatever the number is, the parties agreed that the value was a million and a half or a million 530. And so did that does that make you think well, maybe that really is the value? Or is there some other we were we were three minds on it. One of us thought it should go to 1.5. One was thinking let's support the appraiser. And one was I can go either way. So so this is how you came out. Yeah, this is how we came out and and your points very well taken, regardless of the size, the value was what the value was. But we had a we couldn't talk ourselves into that once once we realized the change during the informal process of the acreage. We couldn't talk ourselves back to 1.5, essentially. And the change is about 6% in acreage from around 100 to around 94. What was it originally? And it was 100.2 something. Yeah, OK, 94 change. So about six acres. Yeah. And so then I raise the question in my mind is that reduction in six acres enough to come down a third? But that's that's just a question that people may want to discuss. There was also the discussion about recognizing additional wetlands on the property that again, that's I wasn't there at the at the informals. But that was my understanding. I guess of Marty's report to I think you stated that in your report. It's a big difference. And I personally felt golly if in 2015 1.5 was a good price, then eight years later. Why isn't that a good price given what the other properties are selling at? OK, but thanks. Anyone else have questions? Doug, do you have anything to add to what you've written? Just wanted to highlight the comments regarding the 1.5 when that was done in the 2015 era. It was done by the trust for public lands for a separate purchase where the city was looking at price to purchase with the bike path that changed that whole concept because of the loss of access to the 92 acres. That's a big thing. In my mind. It completely changes that 1.5 because of lack of access in regard to Elks Club with due respect as noted in here. When you do a direct acreage correlation, the value comes in a little over a million for the farm. But when you appreciate that there are a number of items listed in here that the farm doesn't have. I would hope that would have some bearing and regarding the warranty deed of easements for the bike path. Specifically, the attachment in the original submission. There is a fourth paragraph and fifth paragraph in that fourth paragraph pertains to basically the 92 acres. The fifth paragraph addresses the unrestricted access area unrestricted from railroad right away. Where if there is success in a future application for a curb cut. The following modifications could be made the city would participate in and allow those. Just be very clear on that. And that fifth paragraph right now because of the lack of access to the 92 acres really only pertains to the acreage on the west side of Blanchard Brook, which is whatever, two acres minus the slopes in the wetlands. It comes down to close to about half an acre plus without having the numbers in front of me. So please keep that in mind that does change value. Other comments when you consider the property to the adjoining property to the west. The 18 acre parcel. That has some observed concerns for development. Addressing. I'll leave it at that and to ensure use that say assess value as a correlation is not correct. I have one question for clarification that I think I know the answer. But in your paragraph number one here. You say the purchase of a one half interest in the subject property according to the purchaser was contingent upon the identified financial assistance for savings pastor is specified in the district application. When you say that you don't mean that there was a formal sale contingency. You're really just saying that that was an element in in valuing valuing it. Yes, you're correct. It's an element that what I'm told by the purchaser was considered. I was not involved in that had no knowledge of it specifically for obvious reasons. Sure. But so so there's not a sales contingency where he would be able to back out of the purchase or anything like that. I don't know the answer that I don't know what that. Gotcha. What that that's fair. Thanks. Anyone else have any questions for the taxpayer? Okay. Is there a motion on move that we accept the recommendation of the committee to maintain the value set by the assessor? Okay. Is there a second? Also. Okay. Is there a discussion? I assume I'm sitting out because I wasn't here for the presentation, right? Yeah, you don't get to put on this one. Yeah, right. Mary, were you looking to raise your hand? No, I I you know me. I can always talk and I don't think it's useful. But you don't have to go back and forth. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Any any other discussion? Okay. If no discussion, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Thanks for coming in. Thanks. Appreciate your consideration. All right. Mr. Sherman. Does anybody need copies of this report? Okay. Mary, did Rosie write this one too? No, I did. Okay. Yeah. So I guess I would you like to present a check? I'm happy to present it. I'm happy to have you. Yeah. So again, I hope that folks had an opportunity to read the report. We visited Mr. and Mrs. Sherman's property, which is all described in here. Essentially, Mr. the Sherman's argument for reduction and their value should be was based on it's the property's location, past assessments, the drainage issues on the property and the cost of repairs. In the report, we described what we observed and honestly, it's a very nice house in a in a hard neighborhood. But it's it's it's I I enjoyed walking through your property. And thank you for giving us the opportunity to do that. We described in here what we what we saw and acknowledge the difficulties of the neighborhood that that but it feels like it is similarly appraised to those houses in need, you know, that the neighborhood disadvantages belong to all of the houses on the street. Really can't comment on what the past assessment was. And really, our goal has to be is what is today's and is that appropriate note that it is a 41 plus degree of depreciation, which is quite substantial, particularly for such a nice solid building. But a good deal of depreciation was granted through the formal process. Just as it seems like everywhere in Montpelier these days can believe that it probably are drainage issues, but didn't see any, you know, really startling our striking issues associated with drainage and described that in here. And then we had a conversation about, you know, the comparable with properties. The Sherman's offered a couple, and we kind of struggled with the two that they suggested. One hadn't been sold. I don't know if it has been now sold, but by the time we were talking about it, it hadn't been sold. And it was also a duplex. So that always makes it harder. I mean, a duplex is so different than a single family home. And then the other one that they suggested was in pretty rough shape. We understood that it had rotten sills and basically was in an uninhabitable nature, which was clearly not the case with the Sherman's property. Considered some other comparables that the assessor offered, and they made sense to us. The one thing that we did talk about is in this fun home, there is a funny little bathroom that is in what I describe as the best tubule. And I just seemed to be really pushing it to call that a bathroom. And so we suggested taking that off the off the list and reducing by half a bath. And the number that we came up with, I called our email with Marty and said, what's the amount that we should deduct based on that? And it was $1,300, which probably also talks comments on the degree of depreciation of a half bath is only worth $1,300. Some analysis was already given to what its value was. So our recommendation is that the assessed value be reduced by $1,300 to $217,800. Thanks Mary. One other thing that I'll just throw into the mix because I observed is, you know, I think we're all familiar with that row of houses along River Street. And you know, the traffic is zooming by there and everything. And access to some of those houses, you know, I would not want to have to live in those houses and have to pull out of the driveway to get onto River Street. And as it happens, this property is right on the corner of Blackwell Street. So access to this property is not by a driveway onto River Street, but it's a driveway that comes, you drive up Blackwell and it's the first driveway there. So it's a little easier to get into than some of the others. But the bathroom is just kind of, they made it, they made it for good reasons. But it's hard to see that it would be a plus factor for potential purchaser. It's basically the loss of a closet. So you have an opportunity to comment. Okay. Just going over your report, you mentioned not seeing drainage or whatever. It's because it's buried. You didn't ask why you were there, but there's the PDC piping or the, you know, the rich plastic piping underground that comes down the hill and across in front of the hill and there's a swale. As for the wet basement, if you'd been there the week before Christmas with the little flood, you'd have seen water everywhere down there and just flowing into the corners. It's finally gotten down to 40% humidity again with the humidifier running, but it's taken it two weeks to do that. The comparables. I'm not sure when 191 River Street was last visited because he finished the renovations and has been showing it. This is Steve Verbalini owns the property and he has been showing it, hasn't rented it yet. I'm not sure if he's got all the city permits yet. Yeah. And I wanted to ask Mr. Heaney about the 171-173 River Street that basically was listed after the appraisal for a third off the appraisal. Yeah, we don't base our assessments on the appraisals. We do our independent assessment. But it must mean you should be questioning the appraisals if you're coming in a third off of the just completed appraisal. I mean, I did do that with someone else in our very office, so I'm not familiar with her process. And I don't know if it sold you out. It's under deposit. It will close before the end of the month. And did it sell for that price? It did. So I need to rest too. I mean, who knows. They could have to get out. I mean, there could be 100 reasons why it's listed so low. I don't know. Well, I mean, like they was, it's in better shape than ours. It's almost twice the square footage. It has a two-car garage. We're both situated right off River Street. So I see that as being a valid comparable. But also remember we're doing values as of April 1st of 2023. So we can consider that one for April 1 of 2024. The grand list is set April 1st of every year. So if it's not a reappraisal year, how do you challenge an appraisal? You have the right to come in every year. You can appeal every year. There's a limited period of time that you can appeal every year. Make sure you hit that period. And that's precisely why, because if one of your neighbors, same house, sells significantly less than yours, then there should be an adjustment. So both of these comparables might be usable for next year? Could very well be. Absolutely. We're hoping we don't have as many appeals this year as we did last year. Well, yes. Well, I'm wondering just how any of the budgets are going to do if the state's prediction of a 20% school tax increases goes through? Yeah. They predict that every year. I know. They'll come up with something somewhere. It'll show up in the income tax instead. Okay. Do any members of the board have any questions for the appellate? Okay. Is there a motion? We didn't talk about drainage. You're right. We didn't say, although we may have, I can't, when we were standing outside. I don't think you were with us outside. I was more remarking on, we didn't, it's not like my property where I have dug drainage lines this past December. I dug drainage. Did you do that? Did you bury yours? Yeah. It actually goes down. There's a swill that goes down. It goes down. They put a storm drain inside the sidewalk. So it didn't have to go over the sidewalk to get to the storm drains. Oh, that's good. But then the snow plows, sidewalk plows that come through and turn out so much of the lawn that the water now goes around that into the street anyway. We've also had, I think since she came out two more sinkholes on Blackwell Street, that's all undermined. It's going to be worse when they build below Isabel Circle. Okay. Entertain a motion. Any discussion? All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, the motion carries. Thanks for coming in. See you next year. Okay. That's what we're here for. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so that is all the hearings we have tonight. And John and I had talked about doing a little mini-training about abatements. I don't know if there's appetite for that tonight or not, but we're happy to do it. Wait a minute for ten minutes. See what happens. How long was the training? Short. Hours? No. Okay. Ten minutes? Is it good minutes? Yeah. Something like that. We adjourned. And you don't, actually maybe you should stay so that if anyone wants to... Watch it, yeah. Watch it, yeah. Well, this would just be a quickie. I didn't ask Kerry if I could use our tax bill for this. What? I need to use our tax bill. It's a public record. I also, for some reason, spelled the word break wrong. I hear that. It's real, but you'll see that when you get there. Go. This is my packet requesting abatement. Yes, that's great. Give us an abatement. Take them all away, please. Okay. Oops, sorry. I'll just get on this board. I will sit in the hot seat. Thank you. Okay. All right. So, Mr. Odom, you're requesting an abatement of your taxes. I am. I'm going to start out by having you raise your right hand. You saw me affirm subject to the pains of penalty and perjury. The testimony you're about to give is the truth to the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I do. Okay. Why don't you tell us why you think you're entitled to an abatement? Okay. Well, I was a victim of the flood. It caused a lot of damage to my garage. As you can see there, I have a picture of the condition of my garage. You can see down at the bottom left that would be Kerry and I standing there in front. It was a sharp dresser. Right on. And the cost to get it fixed was an astonishingly low $6,000 but that's still $6,000 that I don't have and I feel like since I do have the right under the law to ask for an abatement based on taxes or charges upon real or personal property lost or destroyed during the tax year that I would come forward and that's I filled out this form that most people do for this process. And yes, the flood broke my garage. It cost a lot to have it fixed. I'd like a tax break. So you can see my tax bill is a total net over the year is $62,000, $39,502. I think I should have a $6,000 break because I spent $6,000 on my garage but that's what I think. I'm not sure how you all proceed or if you're, I guess I hear you're approaching this by quarter. But so if so, I think I should definitely get two quarters abated at least. But I would love a whole $6,000. So that's where I'm at with this. I don't know if there's any other information I can provide you. I'm not asking based on my ability to pay so I didn't bring any tax statements or any statements of my income, which I would do if I were asking under that criterion just the damage on my real estate tax year. So I've got a question. Other members of the board may have questions. When this flooding, as you put it, broke your garage, is the garage the only part of your property that was affected? My basement flooded but I didn't lose anything in there. Do you continue to be able to use the house as your homestead and your yard and that kind of thing? Yes. Okay. And do you happen to know how much of your total assessment or your total property value is accounted for by the garage? I don't actually. I'm sure it's, as you can see it's a very large garage. That was my first question. What's the assessment on the garage? I don't know. And I actually will say I intentionally don't know because I'm being one of those people who isn't going to know. Just to see what you all do with it. But no, I don't know. I would imagine it's probably about a big garage, about a quarter maybe. It's a big garage. And it only cost $6,000 to fix. Which conveniently is close to my entire tax bill. Anyone else have any questions? Do you have any questions about our garage? I don't have any questions for the fake appellant, but about the process. This is a good example because how much it costs to have it fixed is not actually relevant. Right. So what we care about is the amount of time it was unusable for. The loss. But then whether they chose to fix it in a timely fashion or not, does that affect it? So if they just left it unfixed for a year, could we abate it for a year because they didn't choose to get it fixed? Or if they got it fixed right away, then we'd use just one quarter abated. I think in this particular case, we're going to consider this garage unrepairable. Figure out what the assessment is on that garage. Break that down. Is it truly a quarter of the total bill? Then we're going to bait that quarter for only from July forward when the flood actually happened. Not for the entire year, but for the rest of the year. It's going to be for the rest of the year because there's no use to it. The tax year starts July first, so it's pretty much the year. Yeah, whatever the tax year is going to be. If it is repaired, then we have to figure out, like, Ravel Rouser was gone for two months. So when they come forward, I think we're going to have to figure out the two months that they were out. What was the tax bill monthly and then consider abating for that period of time? You're going to have some information available at the meeting that I'll have when this is real. I do think you're going to have a lot of people who come in like this not fully understanding the process. In fact, I think probably almost everybody will be like that. But one of the bits of information I will have is how much, not just how much the quarterly payments are, but how much the municipal portion of those quarterly payments are. So you all can choose, for example, maybe if I'm just not choosing to fix my garage for the year, then maybe you choose to abate just two quarters, but the municipal portion only, and leave the education portion intact. And that's just going to have to be a judgment call based on, like I say, you all have the power to base abatement on anything you want. And you can take into consideration if you wanted to the impact on the city. Why wouldn't we also look at the education portion? Well, it's just a question of what the city is going to be able to afford over the next year. I mean, you can, you don't have to. It's just another arrow in the quiver, I guess, to just look at the municipal portion. So the city is still on the hook for the education tax? Right. We still have to pay that. The city still has to pay it. Right. We have to actually come up with the money. It's not just money that we lose, but then we actually have to pull money out of our own pocket, ready to check to the state for the education. Unless this bill that's in there passes, which probably will, but we don't know for sure yet, and only under certain conditions. It's not everything. So we also might want to think about, because there are very specific conditions written into that bill, under which we will get reimbursed for it. So we might want to align our decisions with that. I put in the abatement books, I put a suggested general approach you could take to this. It should be near the beginning if Sarah did get it in there. And that's based on the conversations I had with Carol Dawes and Barry. They were thinking of the same kind of thing. I don't have my own copy of the book with me. You can see how I found it. Yeah, there you go. It's like the fourth or fifth page in abatements related to 2023 flooding storm damage. That's just a potential guide you could use in general. There shouldn't be considered rules. There shouldn't be considered anything you want to use at all. But even if you did want to use it, it shouldn't be considered rules, because there are going to be any rules in there. As for VLCT, we can't lock you guys down on any kind of rules like us down. I'm on this one, too, and I'll probably be voting on these myself, because I'm not quite, well, I don't know yet, but anyway. Would it help to have a copy of the record card for each one of these appellants? For each one of those, yeah. I'll print them out. And you're probably going to need that break out. Yeah, that'll be there. As you know, the detail that'll tell you what the bar and the assessment on the barn is. That would be good, because I don't think many of them are going to bring that even if I nudge them, too. We'll get something like this in advance. Yes. The record card? Yeah, I will get the record cards. When's our next? Do we have a VCA next week? Next week. VCA, yeah. I still don't understand why we wouldn't be abating the education tax. To not put the city on the hook for paying that out of pocket, basically. Is that what you're supposed to do for the property owner? There's no supposed to. That's been a big point of conversation with us. And with Barry is how do you get enough abatements, fair abatements to people without breaking the back of the city, basically. So one approach was sort of theoretically, you know, a defensible way would be for the city to focus on the city's portion of the tax bill. Do they have an appeal right to the state on the education tax portion? Yeah, there's not abatements. But it's totally discretionary. And that's one of the things. This is the statute is in the binder, but it says. Section 1535 says the board may abate in whole or in part taxes, interests or collection fees. And then it goes down from there. But we could say. We feel bad for you, but the city's in such bad shape financially that we just can't afford to give you an abatement. Or we could say that same thing that we want to protect the city's funds and not abate the education portion or. But we might change our minds. We might go more if if this bill passes because there is language in the bill that says if if it passes, the town can go back. Oh, that's interesting. So I was about to ask that. So would they would we have another opportunity to go back to that? I'll have to. I think the bill says that but I add to the abatement amount. But the problem is that speculation. It does. It's not a law right now. And whatever it says today will be different tomorrow. One thing I want to be clear about just so there's not any question with the conversations that I've had with other folks. The conversations that they had in Barrie and the conversations I had with Carol Dawes. Nobody's going to argue that a place that's a 100% loss shouldn't be abated 100% of their tax bill. So that's I mean I don't think anybody's anybody's questioning that. Talking about there's also land value. Well, yeah. Our cards have land value. Right. You can split that up. Land value get abated at all if it's still there. Yeah, well that's that would be the board's call. That's a good question. It's a good question. Just say it's your house. That's a house that's that's been totally destroyed. You have no houses. You have no reasonable use of the house. What what good is the land value land doing you until. Until you've got got a new house on it. That's that's that's a debate to have right. It can be a liability because now you've got this big moldy building that you have to dispose of so it's an additional cost. You take the building down if you're in a flood zone. The development crew is going to be in there saying you got to go up seven feet. You got to do all that. It changes what someone can do. But when you said 100%. So we so there had been a discussion of abate municipal but maybe not to school. Again, that's our decision. This board's decision. When you said there's no question that 100% should be abated. Are you saying school and well the question could arise. But the people I've been speaking to there was no question that the entire thing would mean school. Once you get to that, then why don't you do both? I mean, how do you. Well, and that's where you have to get some sort of general hopefully a general standard and the first the first meeting there's fewer people on the docket. So that we can find our groove a little bit and hopefully by after hearing five of them if they take 10 minutes and bury, they're going to try to keep into five minutes. But you know, if we keep into 10 minutes or 10 or 15, we can do five of them and these will these will go a lot differently than the assessment hearing. So I think they're really fast. Yeah, because, you know, someone says my my building downtown was wiped out. It was vacant for three months and here they repair bells. Yeah, three of the first four are already back. So they were out for, you know, three or four months. We can figure out what the loss, you know, what their taxes are for those monthly. We did agree that we were going to do the hearings but not make a decision until the end. Well, see, that's an interesting question because the way we've always done them is we've never gone into a liberative session. We've just had the discussion and done it right then and there. But we could also go into a liberative session at the end and take care of all of them. I don't know. We agree that we were going to do because we're concerned about knowing all of the facts about everything. Okay, because there's so many similar. It's likely to be so many similar situations. We want to be fair to everybody who's in a similar circumstance. And the law may pop in and then we'd have a different result. Yeah, they don't move that fast. And then as you think about these buildings, like buildings downtown, well, yeah, exactly. The first floor could have been totally unusable but offices and apartments upstairs still be paying rent the entire time. For that matter, I don't know. The businesses on the first floor could have been paying rent the entire time. And we've heard there's been one at least in the news that is absolutely paying rent is not occupying and they are asking for an abatement. And so one of the things, you know, I've wondered about how much can we tweak that? We'll give you an abatement but you have to split it with your tenants. I don't think we can do that. I mean, that's a little scary, but there is a fairness thing there. If they're getting rent, then they're not losing the use of the function of the building. So we need to make sure we ask about are you continuing to receive rent? Yeah, great point. Yeah. This is a very aggressive schedule we've set up here because we really want to try to squeeze it into four meetings and it may not work. We're already having to add a fifth one as it is. So some of these folks may need to be bumped. We've already got a fifth one with three on it. So these are going to be treated as like we have done as one meeting that we recess. But now that we've created a fifth date, that will be its own meeting. Why can't that be? Because we've already warned. Okay, gotcha. The one big one there. So we'll have to learn it separately. Still, I think it's good to try to push it because I think people are ready to be done. I think it will be really wise to explain to each person. And I don't know how to do this because it takes time. But people need a good explanation of how this works. We shouldn't assume they understand what in the world we're doing. And I don't know if you can do that because people wander in and out. It'd be lovely if you could do it once each meeting. Yeah. John, when does Barry start? I'm not sure. I thought they had already started, but apparently not. I'm not sure. Is there someone from VLCT that has an online training video? There's some online stuff. There is a guide to abatement. We can make sure that everybody gets it. I've heard that a few times. It's possible. Sarah has already been sending that out to people. But if not, I'll check with her and have her send them to everybody. That could be helpful for them. It's a little bit thick to read, but it does cover everything. If it's not 100% loss, do anything with the land portion? I think that's your all's call. We should be standard for everybody. I think it's however you want to approach it. I mean, if you still have the second and third floor or whatever, the first floor is gone, is there any effect on the land? Probably not. Probably not. It's the building that's affected by the damage. I would say probably not. I'm just saying we're probably looking at the building value and the percentage of that that's destroyed or not. We've had one of these, and this is a long time ago. I remember years ago, Bob, you may remember this too, where there was a property out by Three Mile Bridge Road that the house burned down, I think. And I don't remember what we decided to do about the land value or if we just wiped out the building value. That was two houses on one, I believe. Okay. Is that the value of the house? Five minutes. No, I'm serious. There's lots of math, particularly to get a complicated situation. And it's interesting because we've never thought about this in this much detail before when it's just been the one off here and there. It's been very informal and just sort of collaborative and what sounds fair and moved from there. Will we have recommendations from the assessor? I'm looking at the first four. I know the first one, that's an income issue. That's going to be pretty, I mean, that's pretty kind of dry. The second and third, I think we figure out how long those properties were not used because those were totally unusable during the flood period. Same with Paul LaFalle, his apartments. So the first floor of all those? The upper levels. The whole thing for Becherra's were unusable. Oh, really? Yeah. Well, you know, the movie theater and then I think sometimes, you know, the moisture, the one to the left of the movie theater there, he couldn't use the second floor either just because there was just so much moisture and then you've got workers in there. So you figure out what the monthly, you know, you take your annual tax bill, you can break it out monthly. He was out for four months. Let's talk about four months worth of abatement. So are we going to just do this retrospectively? So as of the date that we make a decision, are we also talking about doing it prospectively? There are some folks that are probably not back in. Lucky Boardman, I don't think he's fully back. So on a case-by-case basis, quite a few of these, I think Scott Cameron, he's already back in business. He is? I think so. Isn't he? Getting close. I'm trying to explain there. Some of Lucky Boardman's I don't believe are fully back up so that'll be a good question to ask him. That's also choices. Yeah, right. What projects you choose? Sometimes it is, but if his business, I mean, his business, the building is back, it's put back together, whether he has it rented out or not, that's not up to us. But as far as the repairs, if they're done, you know, then I think you stop it as when it becomes rentable. And so that's another one of the policy decisions we need to make. And so it's a question that we need to ask. Are you, is it rentable or effective when or to discover that? Like a case like that. Maybe we should meet two other cases in the front, but so if you've got a project up front that would start before the flood, after the flood you go back and keep doing that project, that's your choice and you don't do your stores in the first floor? Yeah. You know. What if your choice is not to do any repairs for six months or so? You don't have the value of the property. This case that we got here, if this person had decided not to fix their garage and came to us and said, well it's, it cost $6,000 fixed, but I'm not going to pay that. So it's unusable and it's going to be unusable forever, so I'm just lost by garage. So they come seeing me on April 1st and we adjust them. Or what if they say, okay, we have somebody who fixed their garage a month after the flood. And so when else who fixed their garage? Six months after the flood. Is there a, I chose to wait six months to fix my garage. Yeah. So do I then get these two before when I could have fixed it in that right way? There may not be a choice. Maybe you couldn't find someone to do the work. Right. Well, right. I don't think there's a choice in this. But there could be. But at some point we're also creating a disincentive to get work done because why in the world should I do it if I don't have to pay. Do we, what kind of proof do we need if someone says, well, I tried for, you know, six months and couldn't get somebody. They have the burden of proof. And so they have to make us believe that that's the case. Well, I think we have a commercial name over here that's got a lot of his properties fixed up pretty quick. So we can ask, you know. That's actually a really good point because there are huge differences. We've seen some landlords who fixed up right away and others who still haven't fixed it yet. And I don't know why that is. But do we give them the benefit of sitting? The benefit of the doubt. Yeah. Yeah. But for three months or six months or a year, I mean, that's the reason prospective or retrospective. Well, one thing that I know Barry's doing, and I think it may have it up to two quarters now if they're so late, is that we're going to look at a set amount of time. We're going to hear abatements on these two quarters because we're into the second quarter. And if you want to talk about abating, you know, later quarters, petition us again later in the year and come back. Again, a policy decision we make. We can do it prospectively. We have that authority. Right. Right. Yeah. That's the reason I'm asking. So is that something we're agreeing to that we're only going to do it for the first two quarters and you have to come back and see us? I'm inclined to say, yeah. I recommend that. Yeah. We want to get... We're going to be making our decisions in January. Right. Isn't that the... Is that considered the last quarter until you get to April? Well, the next one... We're talking about the fiscal quarters. Yeah, I was talking about the fiscal. Yeah, so we're... We just ended the second quarter. Right. The third quarter? Well, me or... At that point, I still think we're... Enough places are really back. Repair that if... I don't think we can have someone say in January, well, I'm sure I'm not going to be... I'm still going to be wiped out for the whole... This whole quarter. I'm doing this from a... I guess not a practical but an experienced thing because I have a property in Waterbury that's got it in July and then was hit again two weeks ago. Oh, Jesus. So it's hard getting people in there to do the work. Can we email for a homeowner? Maybe a big landlord has some line-up of people that have always been working for them. Individuals. Sorry. I want some tips with you. I think that's true. We do that. I'm thinking about people who haven't had heat until I hope you guys have heat, finally. But I mean, some people haven't had... It was heat when we got our furnace in. That has nothing to do with not trying to get it done. Right. Exactly. So a lot of this is going to just come down to hearing what the person has to say and do we feel like they're being forthright with us and does it seem reasonable? I think that we could decide that we're not going to be abating anything in the future. We're only going to be abating anything from the past. And if somebody wants a further abatement, they come back to us. We could say that's a policy that we're going to follow with everybody. And I like that idea. Makes sense. Yeah. And we can, when they come in, ask them, what is it you're looking for? Like I said, Lucky Boardman's very generic and I want tax relief. Like what are you looking for? How long have you been out? I don't think we're going to get any details from him just based on the conversations I've had. Yeah. But someone... You could certainly imagine, and I haven't read all these yet, but you can certainly imagine someone like this tax payer just said, I'd like a tax break. Yes. But... That's pretty typical. Yeah. Yeah. But you can imagine somebody coming in saying that the cost of the repairs to my building was $40,000. My tax bill for the year is $8,000. So I want my whole tax bill wiped out and I'm still not made whole. Right? Yeah. No, that's what we... Do you think we're going to hear that? Talk about Johnson. Example. Yeah. High house. So again, a policy decision, but it strikes me that we're not trying to make them good for the cost of repairs. No. We're trying to make them... Yeah. But that may be something we need to explain in advance. Yeah. It's not our job to help them recover or recoup their costs. And just another... On that same point, some people may not be able to get the repairs in the two months or the three months or two quarters because they don't have the cash and they didn't get money from FEMA yet or they didn't get money from their insurance. So there's a lot of reasons people can't get their place together. Or there's no heating. You can't get a heating person to come out. Right. I think it's going to be hard for a lot of people to understand and I think we're kind of stuck with that and that's part of why I went with this route on this is I think it's going to be fairly typical. Yeah. It's hard. Yeah. Because this is just a small part of everything they're dealing with. Right. But yeah, and people are going to say, well, you know, I haven't got... My insurance doesn't cover it or I think people who haven't had heat for six months, I think they're entitled to something. I don't know what it should be, but you're not getting the full... Right. They're not... If you're living in a house and you don't have heat, you're not getting the full value of your house. Yeah. Does that will cause your bottom to fall down? Yeah. The economy. We know exactly. We have an amount for the heating systems in there too. Yes. We have that on-card. It's, you know, the assessed value versus what is going to cost you to put one in. Yeah. Yeah, okay. Yeah, the interesting decisions are going to be the process and ethical ones. Like I think setting a timeline like we are smart and then the kids are either key issues that we should define so when people come in, we can at least say this is what we're doing. We should have been tied those up. I mean, I think the question about are we going to owe the education taxes or just... So the length of that would be for people in their home or it's their home and they're out of there and can't live there, I'd give them the whole thing. But if that's not the situation and looking at the city situation maybe we would just talk about the city portion. Very. So I hear that. An element of what I'm thinking of is surely there will be some state relief on the education side and I'm a little bit worried that if we do something that that may prevent them from reimbursing us or treating us differently. So I'm wondering about saying right now we're just going to try to do the municipal side. We invite you to come back on the school side or is that just getting too... No. That's just taken... Complicated. Really complicated. I see what you're saying though. Makes a lot of sense. But I don't know. Does that make the state say oh well since this towns are innovating in the education tax maybe we don't need to reimburse the towns? Yeah. Well they wouldn't if we weren't activating them. Then yeah. And then people get less than they otherwise would have. So if... So we do a thing? We do a thing? Everything or just people who just residential, not commercial? The education tax is really over as a residential commercial. So there's very specific conditions in the bill if this is the way it passes, if it passes at all. And it's a 50% or greater loss in value to the primary structure. Loss of use by the property owner for 60 days or more. Loss of access for the primary structure for 60 days or more. Or if it's condemned. And that's when the state will reimburse the towns? That's when the state would reimburse the education taxes. So in this case, for the garage there would be no reimbursement from the state. If this bill were to pass in the form it's introduced in most of these commercial buildings because it's not going to be anywhere near the person. Is it AND? That's a list of AND? I thought that was a list of OR. I think it was ORs. That's an OR number. It's a 541. Oh it has a number now. Yeah. One or more of the following. So if you lost use of it or access to the utilities for 60 days or more. But yeah, if the first floor was unusable but the rest of it was then that's not 50% or more. So that's a working criteria. We could use that and then if it changes it changes. But for now we can use it and since we're going to decide things later by that time the bill may have passed. So we could decide we're only going to abate school taxes that are going to be eligible for reimbursement. Yes. It also occurs to me that if a lot of the applications are as sketchy as the one from Mr. Me. We need to take a lot of notes and hang on to them because it's going to be a month or five weeks from the time of testimony for some people to a decision. We might want to create a checklist. I was thinking the same thing. With the criteria that are in the bill say let's just see if you have a little card in front of you. Go through the list. You might want a checklist. It's in the bill but then it's also how many months? I mean we need time period. Checklist of the whole family. Use. Well I guess that's all of the bill. Yeah. What questions are we going to ask each person and just go check them off down the box and do it. We might be able to make it a little quicker again. I mean the process we're talking the way we're looking at it is going to drag this out a lot more than I would have thought but working from a checklist that we're just sort of going down and asking questions could have the effect of tightening that right back up. And in fact telling people that we're using a checklist and they could come in prepared which is hard in the next week but Yeah. Yeah I could give them what our questions are going to be. So do you feel you know enough to take a shot at the checklist and then circulate it? I probably want a double check with you so there's another set of years. Yeah. Maybe we can have a conversation sometime before next week or before next week's meeting rather. Sure. You don't want to leave it just in my ears. So also this bill that I was saying is only about education tax abatements I don't think it's the bill that Connor and Kate were talking about the other day which seemed to include a bunch of other things. I don't know what that bill is. But it sounds like it's the same. I don't know but so we don't so there's a question about which one might actually happen and Who's the sponsor for the one that you listen to? It's just a whole bunch of sponsors and it's in ways and ways including Emily But that makes sense it's just the end side but you know what we could ask Connor or Kate to talk with Ledge Council about what are some of the things they thought about and they could help us develop a list. We could try to find a backdoor getting Yeah. So we would have any information just in case. Yeah. It's a good idea. Because they're thinking about this Ledge Council. 50% are greater loss in value of the primary structure loss of use for 60 days or more. Loss of access for 60 days condemnation. Yeah that's vote. So it's the same thing so that's good. Is that the $84 million? Yeah. What's the bill number on that? It didn't have a bill as of yesterday. Yeah. I do like you Ledge Council we could figure out a way to take advantage of that. I think that's more limited than the bill. So how about I get in touch with Connor and ask him if he can get that Ledge Council to help us figure out a way to backdoor that. That would be great. Thank you. When did this start? Week after next. 18th Ben right? It's not next week? No next week we got two more of the assessment for one bunch one swarm of assessments and then another one. We got the Jacobs and Wilner. A few of them were like three or four of them. And they we passed something waiting the need for inspections. That's why we didn't need to inspect. Good. I think we're done. Yeah. So did we recess back at close at 7.15? We will recess now. Okay. 7.48