 Good evening everyone welcome to the joint meeting between the board of selectmen and board of assessors to discuss the appointment of The next member of the board of assessors. It is 7 p.m. On July 1st, and I do call this meeting to order Just a reminder to everyone that this is being filmed so speak loudly and smile when you're at the microphone. I Would like to note that our colleague. Mr. Kevin Greeley has recused himself from this process So he will not be joining us tonight And I will now turn this over to our town council Mr. Doug Heim to discuss the process Thank you, mr. Chairman. I just want to briefly go over the process for the joint bodies consideration of the applicants that it has before it As a general matter tonight on anything but the most minor procedural motions you'll proceed by roll call votes and in abundance of caution with the Relevant state statute in our past practice here in Arlington The process will be opened by each individual who submitted a timely Application for the joint bodies consideration be given an opportunity to make a brief statement in support of their candidacy Such statements are not required for a nomination. However may be made Following any and all applicant statements any member of the joint body may move to receive nominations formally upon a second the joint body shall take a roll call vote to Formally receive nominations Once the nominations are open each member may nominate any of the qualified applicants It's my understanding that all these applicants meet the minimum qualification for serving as the interim assessor Each nomination receive a second to be placed before the joint body for voting There's no limit on the number of nominees that may be placed before the joint body for consideration But an applicant is not entitled to receive nominations just because they submitted an application at that point in time It will depend on how many nominees have been Seconded by the board and will be before the board for their consideration If there are only two nominees before the board who proceed to is essentially a final roll call vote The quantum of votes needed to secure an appointment is a simple majority in this case. It will be for In the event of a tie We have some tie contingencies whereby Members of the joint body would be able to make statements in support of the person that they voted for and then take another vote Another roll call vote to try it and secure the majority if at that point There's still a tie We'll go back to the beginning and reopen the nomination process So that those candidates who were finalists and those candidates who may not have been nominated Previously can all be considered by the board to see if a different outcome would be reached If there are at least three nominees will basically engage in a rounded voting process The first round's purpose will be to identify two finalists who receive at least two votes from the board There are a couple of other contingencies that may come up depending on the votes the number of nominees, but we should be able to walk through all those things the keys that I want to and then finally Assuming that we have a simple majority for any one nominee Upon such simple majority vote a member of the joint body should move That a majority votes has been reached and that that nominee would serve the vacant position obtain a second And then have a simple roll call vote to reflect that that is an accurate statement of the voting It's just a precautionary measure to make sure everybody understands that they that they agree that a simple majority has been reached and at that point anyone may move to adjourn the meeting the Only piece that I want to have everybody keep in mind aside from the roll call voting is that if at any point in time a Simple majority is reached even in a preliminary round There are four votes in favor of one nominee that nominee will have reached a simple majority and someone may move the majority So just keep that in mind if we have three nominees and it's a rounded process if someone receives four votes There's no point in going forward and having a having a final round. Does anybody have any questions? I know that's a little bit Complex, but it's based again on the very minimal requirements of chapter 41 and Arlington's past practice in this area just had one question on dealing with the Majority of the vote. I think the question is what happens if the member of stains and then you Couldn't get the flow But you would still have a majority of the people So absent someone Essentially recusing themselves from the process and I don't mean a formal recusal in the way that Mr Greeley has done, but someone basically leaving the Room and the body no longer being consistent of the six members who are present You need to have a simple majority of the folks who are present and that that abstention will not in my view Constitute a simple majority of the board. You need to get in short you need to get four votes tonight Seeing no further questions. I would like to thank Doug for all of his work on this He's put in quite a few hours over the past few weeks and I'm very thankful for his guidance And before we get started. I meant to do this before I Hope that everyone will join me in a moment of silence for Jack Lanzalotti who's the nephew of Dominic Lanzalotti who? Works for the town who died tragically with his girlfriend in Boston last week. Thank you Thank you very much, and I pray is go out to the Lanzalotti family So I will now ask for all of the applicants to Make statements. I hope that you will keep them to three minutes or under and we will do this in Alphabetical order, so we'll start with Joseph Bastardi Please yeah, just come to the microphone Talk about yourself Why you believe you're fit to be 08 or 06 and I was a town meeting member One term and just wanted to participate further So I thought that you know I have some skills that could Great that. Thank you very much Mr. Robert Greeley first of all, I'm glad I was in assessing and not law I didn't understand any of that My name is Bobby Greeley. I'm a lifelong resident of Allington My undergraduate and graduate degrees are from Babson Excuse me I have been in the assessing profession for the last 30 years I originally was elected in 1985 to this board here in Allington in 1987 I then proceeded to Take over as director of assessments. I Also have served 15 years 1988 to 2003 on the board of assessors in the city of some of them During my tenure with the guidance of the board of assessors We were able to complete nine triennial certifications Most important of which was the fact that they were done on a timely basis to be honest All the last three decades here in Allington in a lot of ways our office Has become a model that the Department of Revenue and more than one occasion Recommends to people. I always have been a believer in doing in-house re-evaluations with minimal outside consultation in that period of time From 87 through 2011 when I retired I think if the truth is known the board and myself we saved this town roughly two million dollars Almost every three years if you want to bring in an outside firm To do all of your revaluation Residential income in commercial and industrial as well as personal property You're averaging about three hundred and fifty thousand dollars Historically what we did is when I say in-house all of the residential was handled by us We then may bring in on a on the third year or the triennial basis the outside firm who would help us With some of the commercial and industrial and with some of the personal property Currently as you know The director of assessments position has been vacant for the last ten weeks Board of Assessors position has been vacant for the past five weeks So based on all of the qualifications in the experience that I have in the assessing profession I do believe that I would be able to fill the current vacancy very well with my from all of my experience Until the next general election Thank You. Mr. Greeley Mr. Quinn I don't Patrick Quinn. I'm a business owner in Allenton resident of Allenton Hope of you I serve as a board member on the Allenton Chamber of Commerce. I'm a trustee at the insurance library in Boston I'm on the maitre steering committee for the Commonwealth auto reinsurers Capital Square business association member In insurance we do a lot our standard assessment model of buildings at homes is Marshall and Swift Which I believe is a standard for the assessors throughout the state We do quarterly reviews with Marshall and Swift and then yearly updates with them. I've been doing those since 1995 I'm very familiar with Marshall and Swift and how they value buildings As a small business owner Very familiar with managing multiple Facets of my business between human resources sales Sometimes I'm the plumber It all depends. I wanted to payroll the whole deal As I've been looking into the assessing department in Allenton There's a long history of stable professional department Department of Revenue again sites it as a exemplary department in it and they recommended to other departments I called some other towns that are but Allenton and their assessors office all spoke very highly of the other assessors office Brief history of the board I know the board's always had a diverse makeup and it's usually had a small someone from the business community or a town resident on the board for the Board of Assessors Board of Assessors is to ensure the equitable distribution of the tax levy Which provides confidence the electorate when considering overrides Why me? I'm familiar with the cost approach as the primary approach for single-family homes and also the commercial industrial tax basis I'd like to work with the Board of Assessors to select men are the state officials Precise exemptions for the elderly veterans widows, etc. In Allenton as I always been a leader in that throughout the state I'm a good listener and I collaborate well with other people Thank you Thank you, thank you Mr. Stephen Reynolds I Do not see that he is present Mr. Michael Stern, I thank you for the opportunity to Speak here tonight. I think you've gotten my resume and Introductory letter and some research that I've done I'll just repeat a little bit of that. I'm a 14-year resident of the town. I'm a town meeting member member of the fiscal resources task group I've been working with Ted fields as far as bringing a co-working space to the town I'm also the chair of the newly formed vision 2020 education task group My advocacy Really could be generally stated Bob really is unquestionably the most Qualified person for this position, however With that said I would love to see the boards go in a different direction I think this is a great opportunity to bring some new ideas bring in some new people The other elected boards of this town have had new folks new ideas or fluidity of of People it makes it more democratic So while Bob is clearly the most qualified person I think it's more democratic to bring in some new folks and allow some other people to share in this office Which as we all know in about 30 years has only seen about I think five or six people have gotten to see the inside of it So that's general advocacy for I hate to say anyone but Bob And I again Bob is is we just had a great conversation We we live in the household that the Greeley's grew up in a ten farmer road my daughter Had Anne Greeley as her kindergarten assistants were very fond of the Greeley's For myself if you've looked at some of the research that I've contributed to the fiscal resources task group And I've shown to Adam and a couple other folks Which shows that there are some interesting aspects to valuations of commercial property in town land value may be Not being it may not be assessed Quite so well as residential you see a lot of land assessed below $28 per square foot, which is rather odd And I know that the a lot of this is done by an outside group Patres properties if I have the opportunity to serve in this capacity I'd love the opportunity to apply some more due diligence to our vendor To make sure that they're doing an accurate job Because if you look at some of the data that I submitted to you to everyone There are properties that are substantially undervalued and if that if that's accurate the town is missing out on a lot of money So I would love to have your consideration and again no disrespect to the Greeley's I just see it as an opportunity to bring in some some new ideas and Create a little transparency for a somewhat opaque office. Thank you Thank you very much Before we move to receive nominations, I'd like to thank everyone who applied I know that putting your name out for you know the public scrutiny is not an easy task I think we can all agree on that So we all appreciate your willingness to serve. Thank you Yes, I'd like to nominate Second can we hold on second? Can we just can we move to formally accept nominations by roll call vote? Yes, of course To open nominations Sure Thank you, we have a motion a second Yes Yes Yes, thank you. We'll now open up nominations We have a motion in a second for mr. Greeley, well I can move mr. Stern Second We have a motion in a second for mr. Michael Stern. I am Seeing no further. Can we have a motion to close nominations? So moved? Please Yes, yes Yes, yes Yes now with With nominations close we'll now take a roll call vote where every member will see the name of their Preferred candidate and we'll see if we have a majority Mr. Greeley Do I go through the world? Yes. Yeah, please so I vote for mr. Greeley. Okay, mr. Curell mr. Stern mr. Greeley Mr. Greeley Mr. Greeley Mr. Greeley I move to accept a majority of the board in favor of mr. Greeley I Know it's formal if we can do one more. Yes, of course. So just to be clear we have a Majority vote for mr. Greeley's appointment To serve in the vacant position of the assessor It's been seconded and the record should reflect that mr. Greeley should finish the term of the assessor until the April town election Does the body accept this vote by a roll call? Yes Yes To adjourn Yes Thank you everyone and congratulations mr. Greeley