 I will call the meeting of the Board of Batement to order at 6.56 p.m. I again apologize to everyone who was expecting the meeting to start earlier. Our technical difficulties got in the way of finishing our special council meeting as early as we hoped. As I've said at the beginning of previous meetings, most of the requests for abatement that we've been hearing have related to damaged property due to the flood in July and we've worked up a series of questions that I'll ask everybody. I will right now admit into evidence all the written submissions that people requesting abatements have filed with the clerk. And what we'll do is we'll go through the evidence you have to give us. We will hear that evidence and then at the end of the process which is going to be later this month, we will be entering into a deliberative session and discussing all the flood-related abatement requests at the same time. And the reason for that is so that we can be fair and consistent in applying the criteria for abatement. And so we won't be getting a decision tonight. We will be getting a decision before the end of the month is our intention. And I think that's everything. So, Edward Hagg, if you're up first, why don't you come on, step up here, step into the table so you can be on camera and you can be on microphone and everyone can hear what you're going to have to say. Hello. Hello, thanks for coming. This is, I have a seat. Yeah, have a seat right there. Wait, you can move, yeah. I want to make sure that you're facing the video to be understood. All right. This is sure complicated. So, what's the procedure? Do I get to talk for a few minutes about my... Why don't we go ahead and... And then we go through the questions. Okay. Yeah. Do you solidly affirm, subject to the pains and penalties of perjury, that the testimony you're about to give is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Oh, so help me God. I do. Yes, you're very good. Okay. All right. So, this has been a long process. It's been a long seven months and very, very difficult as you probably all know. I have spoken to many of you. Everyone said I should have a visual. And I went through many visuals in my mind of what I could tell you. So, I decided to take measure for my visual. That's the depth of my water, the water in my house. On the first floor. On the first floor. 59 inches. Okay. I would have been up to here. Everything in my house was turned upside down. It was the weirdest thing. Stuff from one end of the house ended up in the other end of the house. And stuff from there ended up in the other. So, everything was floating. Everything was covered with mud. And I mean mud. So, that's all I have for a visual. You know, what more can I say? I've said everything I can. I've worn my heart on my sleeve. I'm really getting worn down and tired. I appreciate what you've been through. We have a set of questions that we're going to go over with you. The answers may be obvious to some of them, but I'll try to make it as clean and fast as possible. And then I have pictures. We're doing tour. Was there a 50% or greater loss of value to the property? Yes, I think it was 65, according to Mike Miller's submission to make law substantially changed. And was there a loss of use by the property owner for 60 days or more? Yes, I was instructed by city officials to close my house up for the winter. And was there a loss of access to utilities for the primary structure on the property? I shut off the water. I think I didn't want it to freeze. And I do have electricity if I need it. Water's still shut off, is that right? So it's been shut up for more than 60 days? Yes. Was the property condemned? No. I think those are all the questions I need to ask you. From what you said, is yours one of the properties that's been designated as substantially damaged? Yes, sir. Okay. So I thought. Any other board members have any other questions? Maybe you said that you have electricity now, but I assume you didn't get electricity back right away. How quickly did it come back? Well, you asked me about my heat. So one of the things you need to establish is that you lost access to your utilities for more than 60 days back in... Well, as far as my heating system? Or just electricity for running anything? I have electricity, so if I have to go down. Like December 18th, we flooded again. I had to pump out my basement. Yes, I had electricity to run my sump pumps. But back in July, I assumed that you didn't get electricity back right away. No, I never lost electricity. I guess I wanted to add. Part of the reason you didn't lose electricity is because from the previous flood, you mitigated and moved your electrical box. Yes, I moved my electricity upstairs on the first floor, and I had an on-demand system for heat and hot water that I removed that from the house because I didn't want it to sit in the cold all winter. I just wanted people to know that. Thank you. You said you had 59 inches of water on the first floor, so that didn't affect the electricity on the first floor? Well, I mean, everyone has something to tell you, okay? Experts say you have to replace all the wiring if it got wet. Do you have to? I don't know. I haven't replaced it yet. Nor do I think I'm going to. His box is way up on the consistency when you showed it to me. It was two feet above the flood. Yeah. Any other board member have any other questions? One more. Yeah. When do you expect to occupy Neverhusk? Okay. Okay, and the reason being is when you're substantially damaged, you're required to raise, elevate the building two feet above, which hasn't been determined yet, the level of this current flood. Two feet. I would want four feet above, but they say two feet. Or you demolish your building. That's your choice. So in my case, it would cost me between $180,000 and $200,000 to elevate. Okay? I also got two quotes for repairing the house. One quote was for $333,000, and one quote was for $288,000. No way, in hell, am I going to put a half a million dollars in my property? I don't have it, number one. And even if I had it, I don't think I would. I mean, I don't have any, I mean, I don't know if I had to apply for buyout. I don't know how that's going to turn out. It's, we have no answers and nobody has, this is all new to people. People from Irene are all gone, and we have all new people who don't know what's going on. We have no answers. I spend the most frustrating thing is no answers. I know this is off the subject of the abatement, but I don't know what to say. And if you, if people had a, if you think insurance, flood insurance is going to pay you, they're not. They only pay for the wet. They don't pay for the whole reno. Okay? So you're going to get about a third of the money you need to repair from flood insurance companies. That's a fact. And we've heard that it takes years for FEMA to act on these applications. If you have flood insurance, FEMA's not even going to talk to you. No, but I mean on the, on the other part of it, on the, on the buyout part that it takes years. As I understand it from Bill, Bill Fraser's paper to Kitchell today, we don't want FEMA involved in the buyout process because you have to do a BCA or a ABC or DF. A cost analysis, okay? And if you don't meet, this is what happened in Waterbury. The, the buildings didn't meet the cost analysis and they were torn down. Or people just moved into them and moved into them and said, screw you, I'm moving in. Okay. Any board members have any other questions, Rosie? We don't have to ask the questions about outbuildings and other stuff that we normally, yes, last time. I would like that if it was asked. Okay. I'm looking at this and it says, the next question is, is it damaged to land only, to outbuildings only or both only? And I think it's clearly not the case. It's not applicable because. Well, there is damage. Damage to, you have an outbuilding also? Yes. Garage or something? There is a garage, but that's attached to the house, but I have another outbuilding, a pretty big outbuilding. And is that also damaged? Yes. But even though it was out, it still got flooded. And I mean, I haven't, I spent so much time this summer on the inside cleaning all the wet out. I didn't have help. It was me, my daughter and my son-in-law cleaning the whole damn thing out. I didn't have, I knew there was six, seven, eight inches of silt all in the backyard. My patio has, believe it or not, has a foot of silt, my little patio out in the back door. So I really haven't had the really chance to assess, how do I take care of that? How, you know, so yes. And the other one, none of your property is a commercial property. No. Okay. All right. Thank you for coming in. We will get a decision to you. Thank you. Hope you like it. The bill passed today, so the threshold actually has passed is 60%. So instead of 50. The bill is on the way for Governor Seitz. Next up, Amy Herrick. Do you hear anything from Amy Herrick? Amy Herrick? She wasn't on the revised. Oh, okay. Oh, we're doing good. Okay. Well, the revised one that we got. That's great. You got a revised one. It's just a substitution. Okay. So who's next? Paul, something. Paul, do you sell? Okay. I'm doing a visual, but I'm not Wi-Fi visual because there's no Wi-Fi. I don't have Wi-Fi here. Okay. Let's go with that. How do you introduce yourself? I'm Paul Bezair. I'm a licensed clinical social worker working for Washington County Mental Health, which means I make less than $30 an hour. I'm going to ask you again to raise your right hand. Do you solemnly affirm subject to the pains and penalties of perjury that the testimony you're about to give is truth to the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Could you spell your last name for us? B-E-Z-A-I-R-E-D-U-S-S-A-U-L-T. Okay. Thank you. Oh, okay. Passing those out. No. Yeah, I came in there. I came in there. Oh, okay. Nothing. It's okay. There you go. Okay. This isn't for this one. Yes, it is. Oh, I thought it was her. No. Sorry, we're getting our paper working. Oh, that's okay. It's up to you. Yes. Okay. Thanks. All right. So, why don't you... I'll go over the same questions that I asked in the previous person, but I'll also have you start by telling us what you've got going on. So, on July 10th, I was at work kind of stuck there and was receiving pictures of my house. And I live, as you know, I live on Deerfield. Deerfield is off of Terrace, off of Hubbard Park, not in a flood zone at all in theory. And I started receiving pictures from my neighbors of my house, which had become a peninsula, water everywhere. And so, the positive side is that the water that came in my house was off the runoff from Hubbard Park. So, it was clean water. The negative part was that it came rushing in my lower level. It's a split level, no basement. So, everything in my lower level was flooded. And, yeah, up to 8 to 12 inches, not 29 or 15 high, but enough to create enough damage to have to destroy all the floors, two feet of walls. And seeing that I have three children living with me, we had to move everybody upstairs. One of my daughters was living in a shed for a while. It got a little chilly, eventually. My other daughter moved upstairs in her brother's room. My son was living with me, which is another story. So, we had no flood insurance. Obviously, applied for FEMA, got FEMA funds, which was great, but nowhere near repairing everything. We still don't have any floors downstairs, we're on concrete, and just can't get ahead, can't get to that. That's where we're at at this point. Great, thank you. Now, I will go over this list of questions. The space that you're talking about being flooded is that basement or is that ground floor living space? And is that basement space or ground floor living space? It's living space. It's two bedrooms, an office, a living room, a bathroom. But it's basement though, right? There's no basement, it's a slab, so it's where we were living. I'm not sure the question is kind of asked in a different way. It is the lowest level, but there's no basement, so it was all living space. Okay. Does that answer the question? I'm just looking at your record card here. It's below grade, it's below the surface. Yes. Okay, that's basically. Okay. And was there a 60% or greater loss in value of the primary structure? So, how do I do that? I mean, I know that my whole lower level was flooded. Does my house worth the same? Who gets to say that? I'm sorry, 50% did pass. I was misinformed. Excellent. Thanks, Gary. The question is 50%, not 60%, but still. Right. I can tell you that half of my house was not abittable. Does that, like, and that, you know, the whole garden was flooded. I couldn't mow my yard because it was a marsh for two, three months. Okay. Was there a use, loss of use of the primary structure for 60 days or more? Well, we couldn't live downstairs, yes, I guess so. But you continued to occupy. Yes, we did. I mean, technically FEMA gave us funds to move out, but where do we go? If we go to the previous meeting, clearly there's no rent in my payer in the middle of a flood to go move to. So you never vacated? We didn't. Gotcha. We just lived. There was mold. That was lovely. Yeah. Okay. And was there a loss of utilities to the home for any period of time? Technically no. We had to make sure that, you know, the furnace was in okay shape, which that was iffy. It's working, but the plumber was not sure that. And we did have electricity. I mean, we're so if we're one of few houses that got flooded up there, there were three in a row and that's probably from another meeting. Let's talk about culvert and the lip in the road. But so I'm forgetting where I was going. Right. So we still had electricity. Everything was okay. Okay. Yeah, my son's in that neighborhood. So he might know that I'm one of the lucky ones that got flooded. And the building was never condemned? No. And do you have any outbuildings on the property? I do. The chickens didn't like the flood, but I think it was fine. And I have a little shed, which I think the water went under. It didn't seem to. Well, my daughter lived in it after. And is any portion of your property in commercial use? No. Do any other members have any questions? I wondered if you had any cost numbers on your repairs? Let's see. I received $11,000 from FEMA, which is wow, super exciting, but goes really fast. So that was all gone. And I think we probably spent another $4,000 on top of that. And now I finally got more FEMA funds and other $4,200 to finish the floors. So I'm hoping to get ahead. Well, ahead is just to get even at that point. Well, I would say probably around to plate safe 15, let's just say 15 safely, but probably closer between 15 and 20,000. Just curious, since it was your whole first floor, where was your furnace? There. On the first floor? So it did get flooded between, you know, it did get flooded between what, 8 to 12 inches? I think 8 was, yeah. The lower part of it. But it was repaired and not replaced? It was repaired and not replaced. And it's part of that 15? No, I mean, meaning the plumber checked on it. I think he did a couple of things on it. Yeah, that's part of the 15 to 20. Okay. Sal and Bob. So I'm a little curious about the layout of the house. Is it, you described it as a split level. Is it a sort of a walk out basement? When you enter from the street and then it's not a walk out basement. No. It's literally a split level. So walk in and then you go down, right? And then you have the garage and stairs. And guess where the water came in. Okay, so it's a true split level? I think so. That's what it says on my tax bill. So I think... What's your garage destroyed at all? My garage was flooded. Not destroyed. So is it usable? Yeah. Yeah, it has everything that's not downstairs. It's not in the garage. Yeah. So the garage is a little higher up? The garage stairs to the basement. Okay. Well, basement's not a basement. The lower level is below the garage. The water all came in the garage. Then down the stairs. How many steps down is it from the garage to the lower level? Maybe six. Okay. That's a guess of it. Fair enough. I'm kind of curious about something. I'm looking at the picture here and I notice that there's a gutter going down the right side. Do you know if your perimeter drain, if it goes down to a perimeter drain around the house? I know that there was a French drain built. So when we pulled everything out, we figured out that the house had been flooded before I was there. So probably during Irene a little bit. Probably... What's the other one? I don't remember, whatever. So I know that the house had had water problems in the past, and they had dug a French drain around the whole house. It didn't fix the perimeter drains properly, it sounds like. And there's a drain in my yard. So I don't know about the perimeter drain. Okay. I don't know what... Okay. You don't even have any other questions. So I'm just trying to figure out... ...loss of use and how... It sounds like you're still waiting to repair the floors in the basement. So you haven't been able to use the basement for the entire time since the flood? Or not the basement. The lower level, I'm sorry. We had to fix the... Sorry. Mold. So we couldn't really use it downstairs for probably two months. Eventually when it got cold I had to bring my daughter in. And so right now we were able to clean enough and close the walls in to have... Two of my children are in the basement. We were able to paint the cement at least so it's clean in quotes. And so they're in the basement. But the rest of the other floors are not finished. They're just cement old tiles that we can't remove. I have pictures of this. Anybody have any other questions? Okay. As I said before, we will be discussing all of these at the end of the process and we will get the decision out to you. Thanks for coming in. All right. Daniel Kelly. Let's see if he might be removed. I don't see Daniel Kelly. So let's skip over. And maybe the clerk can find out what happened. I don't want to deny and dismiss it without giving him a chance to. But let's know. Patrick Malone. Tim. Well, just think of Daniel Kelly though. This is just a request for personal personal facts. I'm certainly wiped out. Well, yeah, I think it should be wiped out. But you know, this is the kind of thing that, even if we weren't doing this. This is the kind of thing that would come to the board of civil, the board of the pavement and just say. Here's a list of people where the personal property. You know, the business is gone. And so it should be evaded. And so. If someone wants to make that motion to entertain that now. I would make the motion based on the letter. I think it's a second. Any discussion? All those. We had an issue ahead of that one. Never done. An accurate inventory from that. So my question to them was going to be to submit. Actual inventory. It's had to be, we've had to guess what they have for property because they've never been worth coming with their inventory. They didn't manage it. Yeah. Do you have any, you know, yeah, I think that's where we are. It's the total property tax whatever it is. All right. Ready to vote on that. Any other discussion? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed. Okay. The specific amount here of their tax bill. Yes. Okay. Okay, thank you. Yeah, it's okay. Six 18. Okay. Unfortunately, you can't make it tonight. Because he's in Florida. Relaxing. So my name is Mike foster. Right hand, I guess. Hey, well, speaking of right hands, you saw me affirm subject of the things that penalties of perjury, the best testimony you're about to give us the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. So do. Why don't you tell us what you're talking about? Just to start, I gave you a package of papers there with all the information that we're going to talk about and answered all the questions. But I came to last week's meeting and there was a lot less of you. It's only brought seven copies, so I apologize. I have all seven. Okay. Well, I'll send these around and I'll give one to the clerk. And the clerk can make copies and send copies out to the rest of the board. Can I get your name on what I'm saying? Lane Foster. Lane Foster. Thank you. And I'm not going to make you go over all the questions that you've answered in writing. But if you have any, do you have some general comments or anything to add? Yes. So the properties that we're talking about are 118 Main Street and seven schools street. Which is formerly the Hugo's Restaurant and VCLF that's located on seven schools street because the building is one. So that being said, you know, we're pretty much in the hub of the flood. We had roughly about 72 inches of water off Main Street. So the entire basement got flooded, which was a restaurant, a bar, two coolers down there, and a bunch of equipment. And then we had about 42 inches of water on the main floor, which is basically all dining room, kitchen area, ADA bathrooms. So we lost just about everything on that board, including all the kitchen equipment. There was four more coolers upstairs, freezers. The place had to be gutted to, you know, five feet above the floor. We took all the sheet rock insulation flooring, you know, all the tables built in Millward. The bar that was downstairs, which I'm sure most of you probably sat at one time or another. And then with VCLF, you know, there was probably just under two feet of water in that one building. So again, we cut the sheet rock up three feet, stripped all the insulation, all the doors were all, you know, maple doors. So they all worked and came apart. So they all had to be replaced. So can you remind me what building VCLF is? So it's all one building, but the entrance for VCLF is on 7th School Street. Just, you know, just before the bridge. You go in off the parking lot or is it? Oh, so, you know, the liquor store is, or TD Bank. Okay. So TD Banks on the corner. Hugo's was on the other side of the liquor store and 7th School Street is on the other side of TD Banks was a big L shape building. That's where. Yes. So when we bought it, we separated it, rented part of it to Hugo's and the other part of it to VCLF. So all of the heating units for the building, which comprised of two big oil boilers. And we're also on the district heat for them from the city. So pretty much all of that equipment is lost. You know, so we can't repair it. So now we have to put it somewhere where it's going to be out of the floodplain. So, you know, we got to look at alternative sources of heat, which is either going to be, you know, heat pumps or trying to locate another boiler within the building somewhere without giving a ton of square footage. And, you know, in the electrical, you know, some of the electrical from the bill from the bill for the building was also located in the basement of Hugo's. So right now we, you know, we, we tore all that out of there. We haven't replaced it yet. So, again, that needs to be replaced to somewhere out of the floodplain. Which is all detailed on that. Okay. You know, the package that I gave you. Any questions? I'll see. Some electricity bills here. Can you tell us why you included those. So, again, the, the, the boilers and the heating for that basically the whole building on Hugo's side. It's not there. So, and a lot of the agreement from the district heat was ruined the meters, you know, vows, a bunch of that stuff. So, what we did at first is we put in some electrical mode, moding heaters. Okay, so the first bill is January, which is in the high $2,000 range. And in January and December, you know, our electric bill is over $5,000. So being in the business, you know, we tried to do something with the district heat without having the equipment. So me and my plumbers went down there and we got pre plumbed a few things so we could pull the heat off the heat exchangers and put in some more hot water modings to try to help with our electric. So, you know, and we're already paying, you know, the usage charge for the district heat and everything. So, not only are we paying, you know, those by electric bills, we're paying $1,800 to the district heat. For use just our use is short. And that only says they're looking for personal property. Is there, are you looking for an additional abatement or is it just the personal property? No, the payment is what, you know, is what I'm here for, but I was going to bring up the personal property. The only thing I have is that Pat was looking for an abatement of the $268 of personal property in the restaurant like forks and knives and spoons. I have been working with him for the last three days. And we have Lynn at the office send us what he's looking for because it all just looks like it was a $268 of being that's all I have. I just want to support the answer's wrong. No, this is very confusing because the request says, I would like to request a date of the $30,000 taxable value of the personal property, which was restaurant supplies and equipment that was destroyed in the July flood, and it's since all been discarded. And so it was. Yeah, deadline, I find this for payment for the flip so you can still request the rest of what you were just discussing, but we don't have that request. Yeah. Seems like 16 questions we can get to set. Yeah, they're in here. So we're all set. But I apologize. No, that's okay. It's not, not your fault. So you can do an abatement on the whole shebang if you want. I think what you should do is, is you and Patrick Malone should be in touch with the with the city clerk to get a written request in for an abatement for the real estate taxes on the So I'll come back and do this all over again. No, because we've already got the information. I just want to add that in the file so we know we're talking about. So what about the person. Because from here, we should do it. I mean, basically, it's the kitchen equipment. You've got it. You've got a motion. Is there a second? Is there any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. I miss for the entire bill. Any opposed. Yeah. Okay. So that's the abatement of the personal property tax, but that's only $268. That's obviously not what, what you're really here for. That wasn't one. So thanks for coming in. I understand when he's asking for this, we're looking at the first two of the goblins of this last year, right? Yeah. Right. So that'd be the maximum. You all my information. Okay. He'll be back on Monday. So I have to deal with. Yep. Okay. Thanks. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Well, they're all going to be emailed out and I'll bring some extras. Okay. But email is the best way. Okay. Oh, his stuff that was just handed out. Yeah, I've got that. Yeah. Tell us what you're here for. My name is Brian moody and I'm here basically representing my family on Miller Elmer. She was elderly and can't actually turn 89 today. So we, the house was built in 52. Believe my family bought it in 62. Has never seen water. Ever. And unfortunately, we, well, fortunately, it wasn't the river that got us. It was a culvert. I mean, that's there's an eight foot culvert that comes under both interstates. Goes through a brook across the metal, which got filled in during Irene to a 36 inch culvert that goes through under root two, which was half full of gravel. And it turned the brook and came down through and filled the, the basement had six feet of water in a finished basement. I didn't bring pictures. I figured you all have seen the huge piles of debris piled and that's what we had. We lost a full finished basement with furnace pellet stove, freezer, water heater, electric panel, you know, couches, the whole nine yards all gone. I didn't lose a lot of time there only because I didn't have a choice, but to get it up and running because where am I going to put my 89 year old mom. There's just no choice. I got to use hot water heater and I dried the electric panel out probably not the greatest thing to do. But again, I didn't have a choice, which has since been moved up into the garage. It's the current from the book came in the bulkhead so hard that it broke the wooden stairs. And so I guess, I mean I don't want to be here like I'm bashing public works or anybody but I've been trying since this happened to get somebody to talk to me about this culvert. And I basically got told well that will be a FEMA's thing there's nothing we're going to do about it. Well to me, a culvert can be fixed. The river is a much bigger problem. The culvert can be fixed and I honestly feel one of my big things being here is it needs to be fixed. Because this this last one, I have pictures on my phone. It created a big pond, and I believe that I was within an hour of rain of getting the same thing again for for culvert. I know you you raised last year's appraisal. We went up $96,900. It went up. And to me we've lost half of our square footage and they're paying more. It's just it's unsustainable we can't do this again with the amount of taxes we're paying and the amount of I mean FEMA basically did nothing for us. You didn't get any money. Nothing. Nothing. I mean, frankly, maybe right or wrong. I didn't like their wording where I was obligated to buy something through them for the rest of my owning the property and whoever I decided to sell it to. Yeah. Yeah, I just didn't like being told I had to buy through them. So what what's their price going to be? What's it going to cover? And it just for pennies on the dollar, it made no sense to go that route. But financially, emotionally, physically, we just can't do this again. It's just, it's just horrendous. I had, you know what a bag of pellets is? I had 79 bags of pellets still stored in the basement. You know what those do when they get like 150 pounds per bag to get out of the basement. It's just, but like I say, fortunately, it wasn't the river. So we didn't have the huge amount of silk. Oh, yeah, that's about my my story. One thing I can tell you and I don't know whether the culvert is on that list, but the city has submitted a list of. Repairs or damages to city owned property that has been submitted to FEMA, and there's something like 95 items on that list is valued about $11 million. So, well, I can also tell you. I'm hoping to be pumping the basement out. I could hear water spraying. What I did is it floated my hot water heater and broke the pipe. So I've got a half inch pipe spraying water still into the basement. I call public works because obviously I'm not waiting through water this deep in a basement full of clutter to come shut it off to curb stop. Two days later, I waited through the water and shut it off myself. It's just pumping in pumping in pumping in more water. I couldn't even get them to come shut it off to curb stop. Two days. And they wouldn't do any, they said about the water bill. Because it wasn't something like 85% more than the last year bill, they wouldn't do anything about that. I'm looking at you that we had another property owner who came in requesting an abatement for this very thing. The water charges during the time. The pipe water pipes were broken in his basement and they were spraying water into his house. And we had someone else who came in requesting an abatement for that. And you have the ability to request that abatement too. Thank you. We don't have the figures with us. No, right. I don't have repair figures or anything like that with me. But if you want to pursue that with us, you can come in and file another request for abatement. Now, I've got a set of questions. I'm going over with all the property owners. So we get the information we need to have to make a decision on these cases. And so I'll just go over them. Was there a 50% for greater loss of value to the primary structure on the property? I believe you would say yes. Yes. Do you have any information evidence that other other than your estimate of how much it has cost? Not with me. Other than saying that we lost half our square footage plus all the appliances in the basement. Was there a loss of use of the primary structure for 60 days or more? Okay. Was there a loss of access to utilities for 60 days or more? No. Was the property condemned? No, no. Any outbuildings suffered damage and any commercial use for any portion of the property? No. Okay. Rosie. So you're maintaining that you had a 50% loss. Are you able to use the basement again? Or are you not able to use it? I'm able to use it as in it's bare, now, bare concrete. And you're just worried to use it again or there's something preventing? I'm not putting anything down there. It makes sense. So like I say, I feel we lost half of our square footage. Was that at least based before it was finished? Yes. Got it. First, your cost. Do you have some cost information you could send us? Absolutely. That would be helpful. I will tell you got out of a rather cheaper, probably a lot cheaper than most because I did it myself. It just, it helped. I think it would help me anyway. Sure. Absolutely. This is a list of them. Absolutely. Sure. The city clerk. Yeah. Okay. I don't hear you also. Well, Brian, I talked to you on the phone. Okay. About the culvert. Okay. I actually did call DPW. Yeah. I got information about the 1st of December. And they said there was some obstruction, which they cleared, but that the beaver dams, they don't have control over. I would like your email because I can send you the, that information direct if you don't have. Okay. Maybe I can see you after some just more detail that maybe you don't. Sure. Good. Any other questions? Was that a finished area in the basement? Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So you've had furniture and walls. Walls pellets stole. Yeah. Insulation. She rock. And all that's repaired or gone. No, it's gone. There. There was part of it was the glue down. Squares. I didn't, I haven't peeled those up. I just left them. The rest is bare concrete. Was it only 50% of it was finished. The only half of the reason. Yes. Okay. Any other questions? Well, 50% of it was finished as in living space. Yeah. But then there was the utility room. Yeah. Okay. It wasn't like you would be sitting in there, but it was, it was functional. Was there mold? Yes, there was mold. Is that, is there a cell mold? No, I took care of it myself. Actually, if you want to recommend anything to anybody, you can go to the website. There's this stuff called shock wave concentrate comes by the gallon. It is fantastic. Non toxic. And it works. Spray it with a vegetables with a. And it really did it. Good to know. Yeah. It's called shock wave. Yeah. Like I said, I had to do it myself. We couldn't afford to just buy it all. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. Tax fares. We'll be discussing your case and all the others at the end. And then we'll get a decision to you. Thanks. Thank you for your time. Thank you. If I could just maybe just give me your number. Okay. At the end of the process, not the end of the meeting. Right. Yeah. Lisa is in that view. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. Okay. That with people come, we'll see council meeting. Because they're interested in one particular thing. They sit and listen to the other items on the agenda. And very often. They're interested in that stuff. You're an example of that. So as you raise your right hand. You saw me affirm subject to the pains and penalties of perjury. If a testimony you're about to give us the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Okay. Okay. So I'm going to stop this. I'm going to stop this. Okay. I'm going to stop this. Stop it again. Because this is. A separate meeting. And, and tell us. What your story is. I'm Lisa. It's a new, I live next door to Ed. On State Street. I always sort of start Montpelier with saying that I'm a printer Edson. And not a pharmacy. We've been here since about the dawn of time. We have more relatives in the Great. And the cemetery down the street than there are people This whole thing has been awful. I purchased my house in 2017. I bought homeowners insurance. I bought flood insurance. I did all the things I was supposed to do. We flooded in July and our first floor on State Street had never been hit since 1927. It was not hit during Irene. The basement was hit six months before Irene, which was way before I owned the house, and they remediated. They lifted the utilities. They lifted the power. They did the things they were supposed to do. So unlike a lot of my neighbors, even though the floodwater came to my countertops, well, I stood there. We retained power. We retained heat until they all had to rip it out when they had to rip out when we, I don't know who they is, when we had to rip everything out of the house. We ripped out seven layers of floor that had been put down since 1870. We ended up having to rip the walls all the way to the ceiling. We ripped to the four foot mark, just like we were told by the insurance company, and the walls seeped. And the insulation dropped out in big wet clumps and we watched the mold. Over months, we ripped everything out. Actually, over weeks, we ripped everything out. Over months, we tried to dry it out. Unlike others, our electric bills were in the 500s running the dehumidifiers because this summer, as you all know, it was so humid, we had to close the windows to remove the humidity from the house. Unlike the others, my children and I, we live in the house. We have the whole time. We haven't had a choice. We pay almost $2,000 a month in mortgage and flood insurance and taxes. Less than half of that is our mortgage. It's the flood insurance and the taxes. We have not received help from FEMA. In theory, in theory, we're gonna receive a little more than half of what we paid for in insurance. They haven't paid us yet. We don't have the money. We're living there with no walls, no kitchen, no first floor bathroom, no ceilings in half the house. We did the work ourselves. We ended up putting in $40,000. And like, I mean, I'm so conservative on this stuff, I actually had, I'm a single income household. We had emergency funds and we drained every single one of them to nothing to make the house so that it wasn't toxic because we had nowhere else to go. FEMA didn't help us. The city didn't help us. The trailers didn't come. Nothing happened. So unlike others, we've lived in the house the whole time. We're living there now. If you drive by, we're the big white house with the purple lights. We're the ones that are always on the porch and we look insane. The reason we look crazy is we don't have a kitchen. I've been cooking on the grill for eight months. We have nothing. And I'm asking for total abatement. I'm hoping that we can be seen just like the other households that have been seen as substantially damaged even though we're living there because we can't move forward. Even today, and I'm disappointed that Bill Frazier isn't here. He was on the emails. I'm constantly trying to figure out how to move it forward, how to clean stuff out, how to remediate it, how to lift it. And we're being stopped by the city and by the state. We're not allowed to move forward. And so while we're asked to live in this level of horror, one would hope that we wouldn't also be asked to pay full taxes on it because this is really wrong. We can't live somewhere else. We're in almost $2,000 a month in where we live and there is no support. Where was I supposed to move my kids? Where were we supposed to live? And the most bizarre thing it was only about two weeks ago that I found out that we are only five households. All along, I assumed there was a bigger we. I couldn't figure out why people weren't more upset, how people were living. And it turned out we were alone. So in terms of your questions, yes, we're beyond 50%. And I can state that because we received the letter from the city saying, raise your 1870s house, a minimum of seven feet or tear it down. And I know it doesn't say the seven feet. It says above the base floodline. But what I can tell you is having talked to them, we're looking at seven to 10 feet to raise our entire house or we knock it down. And because we bought in 2017, if we have to knock it down, we lose everything, absolutely everything. Thank God the bank will be made hold, but we will be homeless and we will have nothing. And that's where we are. And we live with this every single day. Well, everybody says it takes time. Well, it's been eight months. I don't even have insurance money. I don't have a kitchen. I don't have a bathroom. This sucks. And it feels really, really unjust. So we're more than 50%- I'll go over the questions. Yeah, more than 50% loss of value. Yes, we have been living there as best we can. Again, we have no walls. We have no ceilings. We have no kitchen. $40,000 out of my pocket later, we are dry and we have insulation and we have heat roughed in, not more than that. So we're nice and warm, but we have nothing. And it's really impressive to see. I'm sorry that none of the folks that have walked through are here tonight. I've seen it and you put the floors in. We have subfloors. We don't have floor floors, but subfloors are a godsend. We no longer have to be. We don't have to go across the joist, which yeah. And I'm really too heavy to go across one of those two by 10s, it's not good. So we have been living there the whole time, but in a really questionable level. Our utilities stayed running and I'm one of the biggest ones saying for goodness sake, if you can raise your stuff, raise it. Our heat and our hot water lasted through it. We just have nothing else left. Our whole first floor is gone and it's still gone right now. And we live there. And in terms of commercial, well, I counted on the income from a two bedroom apartment and we've lost it completely. So we've lost all of our income on that as well. And at this point, I can't correct it because I'm waiting for all the decisions from the city and the state. And so that's the worst part. I can't even fix it myself. And we have to live with it every day. Because where else do we go? And this property has is one of those that has been determined to be substantially damaged. Yes, it is. We have to raise the entire thing or we have to demolish it. And then we have nothing. And we had insurance. And the thing that keeps driving me crazy is every one of us, I bet in this room, has car insurance. And if your car were totaled tonight, whether you did it and ran into the moose, and I know you did it and ran into the moose. But if you had an accident with the moose, if you went off the road, if someone stole it from you, you would go through the process. And a few months later, someone would give you a check to replace it. We pay thousands of dollars a month. Actually, thousands a month a year for this insurance. And now that I call on it, it pays less than half. How is this right? And so all of these calls on if only people had flood insurance, I'm the example. I have national flood insurance. I paid for everything I'm supposed to pay for. And we've got, in theory, we will get a little more than half. It's been eight months. I called again today. They're working on it. I need to be patient. I'm really over it. I've become a bitter, horrible harpy. I find myself saying things that I can't believe I've said because I cannot believe we are living like this and that there aren't answers. And then I'm not even allowed to fix it myself. I'm told that I cannot and that I have to wait. I'm sick of waiting. I'm tired of living like this. It's awful. I miss Ed living next door. Yeah, Ed's gone. His place is boarded up. Mary's gone. Her place is boarded up. You'll hear from her next week. Katie's place is boarded up. The only places that are open are the apartment buildings which have been able to rebuild exactly the way they are, but God help them when the next flood comes. Okay, we have any questions? Yes, I mean, when I went to your house and you'd go up the steps where your porch is, I can't remember if you have windows in your basement, but you really lost your basement. You lost your first floor. So you really two thirds of your house is gone. Yeah, and I put a grain of salt on the basement because after the flood before Irene, the basement was emptied and there was a very, there was a really good thought put for it. We had nothing in it, no utilities. We stored nothing in it. Even though our house has no storage, we were really true to that. There's nothing in it, but it had never filled before. And so, yeah, we had done all the things. When I bought the house, it was because it was remediated and I knew it hadn't been touched in Irene. I knew the first floor hadn't been hit since 27. And that stuff in theory worked, but there was so much damage this time that even though the heating system itself still worked, we had to remove all the delivery units and that's what we then had to rough back in because as October came and there weren't solutions, I mean, we were offered trailers in like Cambridge, but how do I bring my kids to Mount Pilier if we're in Cambridge? I was just trying to get to the loss. So our whole first, so our first floor was all of our living. It was our kitchen, our first floor bathroom, our family room, our parlor, our dining room. It's all first floor because the second floor is split between three bedrooms and a very small 1870s bath. And the rest of the second floor is the apartment, but the apartment isn't usable because the whole entry to it is gone. And when you walk in the apartment door, you're standing in what was once our family room because there are no walls. No, thank goodness. We were in between tenants at that point. My other question was when you talked about the city saying you can't do something, are those letters that Michael Miller writes on behalf of the FEMA rules, or is that something about the city rules that's unknown? It becomes really complicated in terms of the funding and all the other pieces that go into it. We've been waiting a long time for final decisions on the FEMA levels in terms of what's the base flood level? What do we need to build above? Then we've been waiting on whether there is or isn't gonna be money to assist us in raising the houses because none of that is covered by insurance. But the biggest thing is until there's some solid decisions made on what can and can't happen, it was about a month ago that I had this horrible moment when I thought what had been told to us was that there was a real possibility we were not going to be allowed to rebuild at all. Cause what was said was that there are parts of a month that based on the mapping will not be allowed to be rebuilt, but for a while that wasn't clarified. And so we really wondered whether we were that part of the section. So there have been a lot of, and today I was asking about surveys and that whole area, if it's gonna be bought out and leveled and all these things, the city's gonna have to pay for those surveys. But what I was told is that they're not ready to move forward on any of it. So trying to decide what we are allowed to do and aren't allowed to do my intention, I know this is gonna sound nuts, but there's a lot more research than this than it sounds like. My intention is actually to raise the structure. I'm gonna raise it. My intention is to raise it above the amount they say and make it flood proof and make it something that is sustainable going forward. It's a really big question to do it. We're gonna have to really truncate the house. We're gonna have to add another apartment. There's no way in heck we can afford a second mortgage. So we're trying to do all sorts of things to figure out how do we fund this if it's only us? But our other option is losing everything. Oh, one was the last time you had a tenant in the apartment. The tenant moved out. I can't remember whether it was mid-May. It was really quite recently between when 1300 a month at that point and I'll be straight up, we were moving it to an Airbnb. So while there's all this pressure against the Airbnb's with the increases in taxes and two oncoming college educations, my intention was to have my sons flipping an Airbnb for money. And yes, we had every intention of switching this to an Airbnb we can't afford the way things are going with the increases. And so yes, that's why when the lease ended, I worked to my tenants knew three months in advance that we weren't going to extend the lease because we were going to switch the rental. And so that was part of my sensitivity and I recognized we're three or less units and I live in one. So I'd be exempt from what they were talking about earlier, but it always worries me when we keep putting controls on landlords. Two cents in the letter. Oh yeah, I talked to them. Yeah, I mean my last two tenants, I extended it month by month while they were buying houses. I love our tenants. We've had great ones. Yeah, we communicated all of that. It was all good to go. They were long gone before the flood happened. And actually they came back to help us clean up. What portion of the second floor is usable? The second floor wasn't impacted by floodwaters, but recognize everything carried up there and everything is on the first floor. Our kitchen, our everything, what we have on the second floor are bedrooms. And so yeah, we're living in those bedrooms and they aren't impacted, but not having a kitchen or bathrooms or a living room or floors or walls matters. Thanks. But to zero in on that a little more, the area of the building that was an apartment and in your plan as an Airbnb, do you know what the square footage of that area is? About a thousand square feet. Okay, out of the total building, whatever that is. Okay, great. And that was usable because the entryway to it was on my first floor. Yeah, and the foundation is badly damaged in the back. We weren't just flooded from the river, we were flooded from the hillside. And so there's substantial damage to the foundation in the rear of the house as well. So without that being evaluated by the structural engineer, which we've only been waiting seven months on, that's what we're waiting on with the insurance company. I don't dare. I mean, how could I, even if I made it so that they could get up there, what if the back of the house dropped? I mean, and the damage is, I mean, you can see where it's folded under. So it's significant. So just help me understand that a little bit. The apartment foundation is damaged, but the foundation for the bedrooms is not, I don't... What you have to understand is that the house, you have the farmhouse, which was the original front of the structure. Okay. And so think of it as two rectangles. You have the front farmhouse, which has a basement under it. The back of the house was the barn. It does not have a full foundation. It's a stone foundation from the 1870s and there's no basement under. When the water hit from the back, it folded the back of the house under. And although we've done our best to stabilize it and I've had a contractor come in and put up temporary things, because the very back of the first floor is our utility room, because that's where when all the utilities were moved from the basement, everything was moved to the first floor in that back room and raised on big pedestals. But because of how hard it hit the back of the house, it folded that foundation. And so the rear wall of the house is questionable. We've put up temporary supports on it. But again, we're waiting on all of this stuff because if we're raising the house, we'd be fools to deal with the foundation. If we're raising the house, meaning knock it down, we're also fools to deal with the foundation. So trying to rent it right now, I could not do it with good conscience. That's why we're not living in it. That's why we're not living in the apartment either. I think it's really questionable. Anybody have any other questions? Thank you. I'm sorry, you're all here this late. We will be taking up all of these three requests at the end of the entire process. So you'll be getting a decision from us and in the month probably. That's our hope. Thanks for coming in. Which street? All right. That is the end and we can give some news. Yeah. John, you're up. So you all know this process is still moving. I think we all need a break. It's also with prickles. So it's awfully hard now to plan meetings when we don't know if we're gonna have one or two or three or zero. We're also up against... So what I had been recommending was let's start scheduling these out again after the one on the 15th. And we've got next week and then we got the 15th but we're gonna have to come back and do more. This process could go on. I'm talking this with Sarah LaCroix and we're just like, we don't know when, how long it's gonna go. But the idea of coming together and starting to hear cases again on the March 28th. So we all get a break. We get a break around town meeting day and then the 28th, the fourth. I'm thinking that if we get more we could probably fit them both into those two days and then have a third meeting the next week on the 11th to decide because one of the details in the bill is decisions have to be made by April 15th. So if we meet on the 11th and we're good. Now, this could change if we suddenly get a flood of... If we suddenly get a tabalach of more requests and we could because all the district heat bills went out. And a lot of people you heard from the representative from Mr. Malone. A lot of folks are upset about having to pay all of that. So Sarah says she's directing all those to abatement. Now those ones wouldn't, that's a utility. So it's not real estate. So it wouldn't fall into the bill. So we could push them off further. But just so you know, there's that coming potentially too. So we're looking at a never ending process here. I have a general question. Will all these properties be reappraised in April? That is something some people are open mind where you don't do it unless they ask. I'm gonna pull actively go to the folks and adjust these. So I'm going to adjust as many of them as I can. So they're in April 15th deadline for us to act on the flood ones. So far you've only heard abatements for the first two quarters. Would that deadline also apply to any abatements for the third and fourth quarters? I think it probably would, I don't have to ask. So it feels like maybe we should ask folks who we've already heard to tell us if they're asking for third and fourth too. Sort of a sum to the expanding third, I don't know. I mean, especially if, to be frank, if the state is paying for it, we want to give people all the relief that we can give them. And so I want to make sure that we don't miss the deadline to do that or make it harder for people. So we'll need to know what the status of those buildings is for those second quarters, second or third and fourth quarters, right? Which would be January through March and April through, I mean, it seems odd to have an April 15th deadline to figure out if we're abating for April through July, which just haven't happened yet. It's screwed. It's not a good question. Well, we'll have to analyze the legislation, I guess. Would the state pay for it proactively for the next quarters? That's a good question too, I don't know. Bill is brand new, it's just kind of skimpy just at a glance. I think that probably is going to be one of those questions that the tax department will take on because they're the ones that are going to be tasked with implementing it. And there was some concern about Irene, some of the frustrations that were there were how it was implemented by the tax department that they were kind of stingy. So we may be facing something like that as long. We probably will based on history. I'll probably be in the system throughout. Will you be able to proactively reach out to people and find out the estimated date? If they are estimated to be returning to full use of their properties by July 1st, and then we'd at least have that information on hand. Yeah, we'll just send that to everyone. We know the ones that are substantially damaged. Right, maybe for the substantial damage ones we kind of think about. Yeah, one category for the other people, we already know that a good number of them are already using the property, but it would be good to find out for all the others. You know, it's one tax bill. Surely we can abate the whole thing if we wanted to and still be subject to the same. It's not like it's four different bills, it's one bill. So yeah, yeah. Depends how the state bill reads though. Yeah, the state bill doesn't read. The state only reads about it. First and second quarter. I'll check on that, but I'm feeling a little stupid now. Of course, it's one tax bill. So we can debate any part or an all and they're gonna be receptive to that, I'm sure. But I just don't want to, we set people up to ask us just for the first quarter. So I want to make sure that we're taking care of the others for the others and make those decisions before April 15. I think that lots are. Well, obviously. Well, I know two weeks and other tax payments. And our last year and the last people on the list we have right now is next week. And my question is, is there a way we can turn this around and at least give those folks that peace of mind and really that they'll know February 15th that they don't have another tax payment. Yeah, February 15th. Remember, we've got another meeting. And that's got a few hearings on it too, but that's when we're supposedly set to decide that all of this is on February 15th. Which is the tax due date. Which is the tax due date, yeah. And of course, I'm gonna put it on the 14 because we got a council meeting that night. Can't do it earlier. Excuse me, do you have a comment? Just as an FYI, as you know, when I was in Bairie on Tuesday, what the Bairie State Council said was that for tax evasion, they were going to be able to date the first 10 days and they were saying that something about the tax rules because they flooded the topic for 10 days. All of their members were going to have to pay 10 days in order to pass this and then they could have paid the rest. And I have no idea about the value of that, but just from the assistance you said, it was interesting hearing that. For any of us that are substantially damaged, whether we are demolishing or else is from days alone, there's not a prayer on the planet if any of that's happening before July. Yep. No matter what we want to do. I just have a quick yes or no. Have you thought about how the homestead tax payment works? Essentially, I got a rebate. That money is mine, but the city got it. Think about it. Thank you. So one of the reasons we wanted to hold on everybody and treat them all the same at the same time was that we wanted to be fair. But in listening to this tonight, I was thinking about how the substantially damaged ones took a different character. Yeah. And so there's this category of, well, how much of your basement was flooded? And I think we definitely want to take all those together and figure those out together. For the substantial damage, I'm almost inclined to go ahead and just say, any of those, we would 100% abate and just do it. The whole year. Yeah. And for the whole year. So you're saying we had to pay taxes on the land too. Yes. The building is very, so well, yes, that's well, too. And I would feel comfortable doing that because it was not a lot of properties. And my assumption is that all of that will be covered by the state, although your point about the land, maybe the land piece is not covered by the state. And we should hold on, meet and end motion and find out about that. Okay. That's a great intention. No. What we're thinking. Yeah. Yeah. No, no. Just that. And how many others substantially damaged have been here applied for abatement? That time. But we should let it next week. We should. Yeah. Okay. Well, we've got some homework. All right. Sorry, Jerry. I have it all. Okay. I think we're good to go. So we can adjourn as a, sorry. Sorry. As of the 17, yeah. Oh, yeah. Thank you all.