##VIDEO ID:xrrhGmYWKMg## good morning I hereby call to order the town of dayon board of assessors regular meeting uh November 20th 2024 the time is 9:36 a.m. like to note that this is a public meeting being video and audio recorded for cable broadcast and Internet Posting on www.ma.gov and YouTube uh at this point I'd like to ask g stain to for the Pledge of Allegiance I pled ALG to the flag of the United States of America and to the for it stands one nation God indivisible with liberty and justice for all we are all here today um start with old business being the number one Brook Street solar pilot agreement so I believe this was um tabled correct uh yes uh Mr chairman uh it uh on the morning of uh the town meeting uh I went to town hall and from uh the assessor's office uh made a conference call to uh Mr Haz at grasshoppa and um um Stephanie was present and I asked him if they had approved the payment schedule on the pilot agreement and he said that they decided they weren't going to do it the taxes were too high so at town meeting it got table so that's the end of that but while we're talking about that this is the second time on this solar project we have put together a pilot agreement this is the second time we've had done a second pilot agreement because we had one other that wanted an agreement then they didn't want it then they wanted it and when we did it the second time they said the taxes were too high there is a clause in a pilot agreement ment that says that the uh company when they enter into the agreement will pay the town of dayon $5,000 uh to cover the cost of putting together a pilot agreement I think future discussion we need to come up with some kind of fee schedule and quite frankly I 5,000 would be good as far as I'm concerned if we put together a pilot agreement and it's refused for whatever reason and they ask for a second one there should be a fee attached to the success that one and any others that they ask for in succession so so could you explain this to me we have to pay our tax consultant to put this together um there are recording fees at the registry of deeds so so if if the if it we only if I only put it together once it gets approved at town meeting and everything everything is fine they pay the 5,000 that's it now obviously if if it doesn't pass a town meeting you don't charge them the money but it just seems like we incur we the town incur expenses to put a pilot agreement together besides the the tax so what you're saying is the $5,000 is only charged if we approve if the whole thing is executed right through town meeting yes so I'm saying now is since this is the second time I've had to put together two pilot agreements for two two different sites and again they didn't like the taxes that was the problem before how many times do they come back and say we want a pilot agreement only to say well the taxes are too high well wait a minute I explained to Mr HZ we don't make this stuff up we actually have a consultant who is certified by the of Revenue to do this kind of work it's a it's it's sort of a special special tax assessment kind of thing and the fact that all of them have been accepted by the other parties and got approved at town meeting I mean how many more times am I going to be asked to put a pilot agreement together which means again if if time goes by the taxes have got to be recalculated because we know taxes increase over a period of Time how much more expense will the town incur to do this and like I say so it's something we need to think about not to decide on today but seems to me that there should be an application Fe and when you say I would like a uh pilot agreement you know we should have an application fee that would match pretty much what the cost the town would be to put it together whether they accept it or not because we've already incurred the expense is that you're saying we incur the expense and then if they refuse it we've still paid the expense right okay so they should be an upfront a good point and quite frankly what's the thought about that if a town meeting is gets rejected the work has still been done to put the thing together and the 5,000 as far as I'm concerned stays in there if it's successfully executed they still pay the 5,000 to the town to cover other expenses all right um but I the town rejects it though yeah but but I that's I think that's problematic right so if you charge them $5,000 they're coming in in good faith saying all right we'll pay the $ 55,000 application fee no we had I that a few times you arged what the 5,000 we've had companies say we don't think we should have to pay that nobody else charges that I said this is the pilot agreement indien it's boiler plate and quite frankly for the most part they don't AG they don't argue but every now and then I'll get well it was the same one that had me do two pilot agreements not this one previous one uh we don't think we should have to pay that I would suggest that there you know we could I don't know how we move forward with this but we could take a portion I think 5,000 is a bit steep because we don't pay 5,000 to the um to the uh professional to uh do the work you know maybe a thousand might make sense but there there's also the chance we could incur legal opinion all right all right so that's you you try to do to figure out what our cost is sorry figure out what our cost is put a little buffer in there for legal opinion and then maybe you start there an application fee is in order yeah but what I'm saying is that you could take that $5,000 that's in the agreement and reduce it by whatever this application Fe would be again that's going to require legal opinion because this whole boiler plate has already been approved and we've we've actually it's in place people have paid it so we have to be very careful yeah because everybody gets the same agreement I'm not suggesting changing the agreement by the way this is just talk we're just talking about what no no that changes the agreement okay but we and I I well not the total cost the total cost could be500 but up front it's a th000 th000 application fee 5,000 so the the number Remains the Same it's just that it's split into two pieces right correct so I'm saying the total will be 5,000 that you've paid if you accept the pilot agreement however an application fee is $1,000 so if it's accepted and voted on at Town Hall and everything else then you pay 4,000 then you pay 4,000 which is the remaining and we don't have to we don't have to decide this today but I just thinking about this I'm thinking I don't need practice putting these things together and to have our consultant sit down again and go through it again it's like these these that other pilot was 2021 three years went by okay but the work was done three years ago and like I think Al having a application fee would discourage people from frivolously applying for these things you know they need to be serious that they really want to well the other thing too is they can come back again and they can request it again but that's why I'm thinking we we'll do something yeah but I just wanted you guys to know uh what I was thinking about so we'll we'll put this on a future agenda when we have a chance to look at it old business B discussed small commercial exemption results which was it got abled I believe and um I I said I'm sorry I was not there um I should have been U I forgot about this because I was worried about other problems but um yeah I saw the video uh I think we could do a better job of explaining it so was table or was table table table so we can bring it back at the next meeting which I suggest was that because of future people were confused about what it is no I was totally unprepared bill was going to make the presentation first of all I want to publicly apologize to anybody that sees these I was not prepared at all I didn't have anything with me normally I would have stood up with you know a handful of papers um there were questions like how much money does it what does this mean the text as far as money goes and all that and who's going to qualify and and I gotta there was a question that really threw me because we talked about the 10,000 exemption but then we talked about about the tax rate or the amount of money and I'm thinking I'm really not sure but again tabling it was the best way to go uh because I thought this is going to come up again and I felt badly because we worked with the industrial uh development commission to do this and we had approved it and everything but again um it got tabled and um I think we will um somewhere down the road make a motion to put this on the agenda for the Ann meeting and I will uh presuming I'm still here will umad I'm next no I'm next are you sure yeah yeah because the person that's up next is the chairman right don't you no that doesn't mean anything I think I'm up in April no I'm you wish you anyway anyway assuming I'm still here I will be prepared because we did have that discussion about what it would cost the town and I know that if we go back in our minutes and such we can see exactly uh what that would be and just be prepared to give answers to questions um there was I I know what I saw is there was a question of whether it's it was an exemption or credit and it was definitely it's an exemption not a credit uh credit but the exemption I was trying to explain to them the exemption and you might it's up to 10,000 I mean everyone's not going to get 10 grand all right necessarily and it means you're not taxed on the first $10,000 worth of right but if somebody only has a Ply diddly thing it might not be worth 10 grand we would probably vote the exemption for the value of whatever if it's 3,000 it's up to 10,000 if you have value of 3,000 then that was what the exemption would be right we'd have the bills somehow um we can company can pull different and and I was trying to without the documentation it's difficult to say talk about the exemption and the relationship to what the tax would be all right and I said I was totally not prepared and I'm thinking to myself this is coming back again yeah whatever so I agree so I just wanted it to be discussed well then there was a there was an argument about can we re reconsider the vote to take table it got tabled M I don't remember that excuse me wait a minute the there was a I I was trying to explain it there was a motion to table called a vote to table it failed so discussion continues right I do remember that then somebody makes a motion to reconsider the tabling that dumb yeah and I I'm looking around so then they're looking in the books to figure out how to I said Miss doesn't work that way no no so I say to the moderator Mr moderator this is a completely new motion you don't reconsider tabling there was a motion to table the vote was called and it failed discussion resumes now somebody can make a motion to table or move the question or cut off debate or call the vote you keep so the interesting part of that is is that if to do a motion to table is you know 50% plus one right but a motion to reconsider which I suppose is technically possible that takes a two-thirds vote so need more need a lot more votes to get a motion to reconsider than a motion to table and they went to Town Council and he got the book out to look it up I'm standing there down front thinking it's not how it works yes um this is not rocket science and so discussion continued then it got tabled but it was like all right well we'll be back we'll be back we'll be back in the spring watch new business sign motor vehicle abatements I move that we approve and sign the motor vehicle excise taxes it's a good thing Nancy comes with a box for you guys are bad the 2024 motor vehicle abatements in the amount of $1,345 I second motion made and seconded any discussion all in favor I I this is our sixth um motive vehicle commitment there's two pages that need to be signed should just be oh two stickies on this one guys Mr chairman I move that we approve the motor vehicle on trailer excise says in the amount of $4,895 and5 I second motion remain seconded any discussion all in favor I I I 61 oh we got a 61a lean release yep so I see did you say oh oh we're releasing lead we're releasing and re-recording okay it was a name change okay um I only see uh releases on is on the bottom this one is it's the same person just two different property locations okay so what's going on so we are removing and there's a name change and then we're we're putting them back in so that's all we're doing is a name change yeah well the the speakers have changed because some have been released but we didn't do a whole new release in a re-record so a while ago you sometimes it would say like on the the stamped in One release 10 acres but we didn't actually pull it out and re-record it with the new amount so that is what some of these so now we're doing it now this is so some had been released but not released and re-recorded right and now we releasing and re everything in their state of what they are out there right and putting them back in uh Mr chairman I move that we approve the release of classified Forest agricultural or Horticultural recreational land tax lean for Eric both okay m one lot 960 North Street 15.26% are each one of these individually or is this all one person it's one p it's one family but the locations are in different places yeah okay um also 2450 Chestnut Street map one lot 87 18.3 acres and the last one is re-recording what is oh so this this is actually all and E at the same time yeah I just have and to re-record property at 2450 Chestnut Street 28.74 Acres with 27.75 Acres classified and this is map one lot 87 just second oh I'm sorry second I thought you were still reading looking hold up there NY I want to look at this closer um so Rel relas record okay so the numbers the acres are not going to equal because some were released a while back but were never re recorded it's going into a trust we're releasing about 33 Acres and we're recording 27 so you're saying that those six acres were already released in the past okay um I don't suppose we have any map back of napkin anything of what this is it would be back in the office and if you want me to get show you more and send it next time I don't think it's a big c I'm looking at the addresses so is it the land on N Street backs up to the land on Chestnut Street they're connected yeah okay because I'm familiar with the site I know I know where this site is on Chestnut Street so Scott Scott and now it's under the daughter's name Emily Leonard Trustee of the trust it's right next to Hersh she's her she's property so North Street is that that's one the churches yes okay Al so one's coming in I see so they kind of like that yes this property AB buts it's on the bend in the road where Richard hagman's house used to be yeah okay I know you're talking about and her she is yes yes yes I think they were talking about maybe looking into solar there too but nothing's said now we can't have um we can't have solar and in chapter at the same oh wait wasn't there a special one isn't there a new one that's just solar no no Chapan can be released in solar that's what's behind arujo yeah that's what's at Brook Street most of that land has been chapter land that gets released are we we are North Street yep so I guess you should probably put in the address the actual address of the this one 24 50 Chestnut Street yeah because s Street really doesn't have an address because it's just land so this is 2450 is that curve with North Street I think she's this is it our this going up there so it's lot 96 and 87 I think that's North Street okay yeah that's North so 2450 is I hate reading these 76187 87 87 yep map one lot 87 so that's 245 that big chunk is 87 yep so you go up that here and then 96 is the other this one at zero Maybe 96 yeah so 96 is this landlock chunk here and this is considered North [Applause] Street oh yeah this is North here goes up goes to GLE Street you ever gone down that road into GLE Street all the time that did they ever fix GLE Street oh yeah yeah it's nice now it's nice cut through all the way into yeah when I'm going over to like br going a pizza or something I always go that way okay yeah so that whole this whole property is 18.3 Acres aren't you supposed to reserve an acre for what this one for the house for the house there's a house on oh a big piece of land for a little house kind of jealous who they giving it up to no no they're putting a trust they put trust oh the whole thing so this release I mean the re-record does the acre for the house these like I said they're not so it's both of these chunks together they're going they're put they're put together now so their acreage no the power line would be to the West 9.5 of their property cuz if you that cut that's where the power line is is what you're releasing right that's the entirety of that property okay see that right there L is over here 1526 is this one this is 10 acres okay so five maybe maybe they cut that off zero here this this right that's so zero we have 15.26% released but not recorded so we're releasing the original and cleaning it all up to clean it to pull it out even though there might only be 10 acres we're releasing it the way it is out there right so when it gets recorded this entire chunk of chunks of land is all going into the trust so it it'll all show is under the trust these locations but it's all together now one trust different Parcels yeah two partel two Parcels right okay under chapter but we recorded it on one deed right I mean on on one yeah okay so this is 90 both of these are 96 that must be why it's considered North Street so that was 10 acres and this is 5.7 Acres so you look at like 15 Acres I must be looking at here yeah so it's releasing this entire amount here is releasing all three of these plots and what's getting recorded back in is now 27.7 so Ryals have stay on Ry don't doesn't that go to this what's going back a house on it okay the one that's yeah the one that's behind say the country they should talking about on it guys sorry just this is what's Happening Here looks like they got three pieces yes three Parcels they're taking out yeah and they're putting the two back in but it's minus the one acre for for the house so that looks copacetic [Music] yeah where you going it's going wandering here um yeah here it is this is what I was talking about I actually followed this one day it's GLE Street off the Reynolds Avenue and this it's this homes and everything on but the last time I was up there the road was a very bad condition um oh I know what you're talking about it goes yeah yeah yeah the one yes the one off in ROV yeah that's a bad road yeah yeah that's a bad well it was I haven't traveled that in a long time me the once was enough so I made so we have a motion in a second to approve that and any more discussion all in favor I I right so we have the tax stickies on that one we have the tax classification here tonight here so so what are the numbers um well I'm still working on things well it's been because of the reval Year everything has been yeah so what I'm concerned about is that last year we we recommended that we go maximum for commercial so I'm wondering if with the reval of the commercial if we might recommend going back in the other direction um I don't have like crazy numbers all I have right now is um we're going to this is what we need to raise right so this is what we need to raise this is what we have for estimates in revenues so this is what we need to [Applause] raise so the max is this so we're like 240,000 away from the max yes interesting so this is you signed all three oh I'm sorry I did so um so I set up the scenarios I I just I quickly before I came by see I I Shi the phone this this um the amount we have to raise y the rat formula as I call it I'm trying to remember from the annual not from the special annual this's money in there I believe to pay for costs at BP and and Aggie not the bond but other costs I'm thinking is that ring a bell I don't know right here this is um last year's plus the two and a half plus the growth and then this one shows a debt exclusion Sera debt exclusion that's probably that's the only debt exclusions that well the only they're enough we have debt exclus for all the roof projects that we're still paying for and also the police station okay okay but I'm thinking there was some kind of expenses that relate to Aggie and BP that are not they would not be debt exclusions they're not gazillion dollars but I'm thinking there was some kind of expense involved they might be on this on this sheet on the fourth page um well it would be also in the part of the warrant that has the education budget cuz that's they're listed right so I mean yeah I don't get into all that I have my own forms she puts things in I put things in the clerk puts things in Paul puts you know we all have different portions that we um do you know when we were talking about town meeting and people saying a vote a vote was cast it I don't know what I'm voting on I don't understand this earlier in the town meeting when the first motion came up to make a payment on the what the fifth payment of the seven or fourth payment seven-year payement y on the and a voter actually got up and wanted to know why this was not in the budget and where are these expenses coming from and and why is this happening and all I actually agreed with her well the other thing was the explanation that was given we keep Capital expenses separate that wasn't the answer the answer was the answer I gave four years ago there was a special warrant article we voted to buy a fire truck over seven years as a lease thing that was when the commitment was made and because it was a special warrant article you keep it separate you don't put it in the budget right you've got to pay it but the reason they do that is because you do it as a special warrant article so that you can determine is this going to be free cash or is this whatever all right but it normally doesn't go into the budget all right and we had two or three of those kind of articles but maybe the lady wasn't at the meeting four years ago but that's what I was trying to explain when you say we're going to buy something lease purchase or whatever over five years so it was a firet trucker ambulance and something that Tommy has okay and um that but but that was the reason that they're out there not because they're Capital it's because they were originally voted as special War account but but it's true what you're saying people don't understand all this Municipal Finance gobbley all I want to know is how much of my tax is going to go up right I'd like to ask uh what are our current rates 13 1368 we go 1368 and 2658 are residential and Commercial um so 13 68 y 26 58 y a current 1.75 56 doesn't make sense why why are taxes going down because your values are up tax percentage is going down the tax dollar isn't going down this rate not right right um the average house is 59,000 wow but I need so I guess what I need to know is the difference in value commercial and residential between last year and this year yeah I don't have all that stuff for you because what we had last year I can send you it during the day is what happened last year is the residential went way up commercial had and Commercial didn't right so that's why they got a bigger increase on there we pushed it hard on on the commercial because we didn't want to really give it to the the residential so I need to know is is it still still unbalanced like that or did Comm come up because if commercial came up then we should recommend lowering the rate off right now I I don't know I think commercial did come up I don't know this you know how high I that's fine so I'm gonna I'm gonna do this when I get back I'm gonna working on everything because I guess I got to do little presentation thing are you guys okay Bill Bill did a good job last year yeah I still got to type up stuff I just didn't really like that presentation you didn't like it there's too much there's things people don't care about that confuse people I think on it like the pie chart's great you know if you can keep it simple that's how I think so I'm simple so so we have an official meeting tonight correct yes yeah we got to meet with all of them continue this discussion at that point yeah well I I don't know if you guys you guys have to be around open we open our meeting inside their meeting right yes you guys have to be the meting is it 515 so 5:15 5:30 5:45 and then we're 6 okay the town so all right so we left the table are we first off the board selectman we are last we're at six o'clock oh oh I think thing we have a but I think the classification with with fire water we do all that yes then the select command open their meeting and then we're on the board yeah because we open our meeting inside theirs yeah after we done with the Departments right did I remember that correctly well we open up a meeting for each one of these and then it ends and then the next one comes in we call it to order set there as an end that and correct we got actually yeah we got all four meetings right okay so what I'm going to want to see is the previous year I think the fairest way is total valuation Fair because we have new growth in there I think I would look at last year versus this year in growth if you can you separate out growth was growth already calculated in growth is I can tell you what the growth is for each class for for business and residential commercial residential yeah I can I mean most of our growth is coming from personal property personal property which is that's growth not evaluation right okay because what I want to see is the revaluation so if we can just put growth to the side and see what the change in value is between last year and this year both residential and Commercial grow residential and commcial and Commercial can probably if you can put together something like that then we can run growth is just Well yeah if you had 509 property right right yeah if you had 509 last year we could say it was 468 last year so we know what that number is right it's 509 this year 23 sales so yeah you want to know how much it actually went up without these new structures exactly both for business and res I should be able to and by that we we can then figure out what a fair uh multiplier would be because that's really all we're deciding is the multiplier right so for so this is we're wrapping up fy2 for FY 26 Brook Street solar is going to hit it's going to be on for July 1 which means it's going to be FY 26 that's a huge amount of personal property right that'll be there yeah so I need to sit down with Rich about so the other thing we need to look at price of Solar that's not we up personal property yet for arujo or whoa FY 26 is going to have large amounts of value in personal property yep because we'll pick up Brook Street four of them and five of them Brook Street and Tremont reine and cabal Williams middle um we're already billing we're already billing the one way way down yeah and the other ones we already billing so they aren't going to hit have two that were two two phases on one and two other ones we have already that we built so we have yeah there's two on Richmond Hill there's that little tiny one on Williams Street street but the the three biggest ones Main Street right yeah but that's not it's attached it's the power plant I mean not the power plant it's National Grid yeah that pays all that stuff goes through them yeah yeah but so we will have we will have I did mention that in our our finance meeting we had yesterday I didn't mention that but who met yesterday uh was it was Paul Serena Karen Town Administrator myself Shara all of us he wanted to start talking about budgets and different things and if I may ask so you said we're we're 200 under the levy limit under our Max yeah how did that happen um I thought we were slammed up against it well that or something or we have we have more growth than we accounted for okay the um we about 200,000 it was almost four so I think that there it is the other thing was um at the town meeting that uh there was another tabled article the administrate of the cruiser thing yeah that could that was like 75 so that got tabled but that was never in the budget well but what I'm saying is when you put this whole thing together it would have been in here if it passed if it passed that's true I mean everything should be up to date you know everything has to be as of the last town meeting everything is right here that's what we're working with uh what about the overlay we've discussed is that been accounted for no I think what our best bet is because we there's really no place for that money to come from that it needs to get pushed to ATB if if there's going be a big uh thing with the power plant I don't think we don't really have the funds to negotiate an a batment with them so for right now we need 30,000 in there for right now well this is what I'm pointing out is that would it make sense we've got this 200,000 I think that's probably already tied up going someplace else I think I mean how much we're on the 11 but how much do we have in free cash as of the last town meeting do we know that yet because we've got to have money left in free cash I saw a thing very recently said our free cash was certified yeah yeah but but at the time Mee money was spent hey Ken how are you good um I don't have all those numbers I mean right now my focus is getting my stuff done all these questions you guys have is not anything not ready I'm not but but I'm not in right you're not a position does the accountant does majority of everything that really what we're not when're not ask you just I know but I don't understand but we need to know what's in free cash we're under the leving limit that's okay but the question is how much free cash do we have because we've got to have something because if we need money in an emergency there's got to be free cash to get us through fire oh yeah those are coming across you know for everything um so getting back to the power plant and Aquaria do we have the value yet on Aquaria is yeah it's it it's I put in what the um appraisal came in at it was actually a little bit lower so I don't so there went down a little but the power plant went up yeah and we're not doing anything else on those numbers that's it that's how it's going out because okay there's no time to try to negotiate and hash something out because so if the power plant wants to appeal they're going to appeal to the ATB they're going to probably fill out in abatement form okay right so so look this is how it should go we have a valuation we're sending it out to them yes exactly okay the point is is if they come back and they file an appeal for an abatement they're going to have to come up with some reasonable reason why they think the value should be different so the question is is there some other assessor out there some other consultant that's going to give a significantly different number right and and that's what we need to be prepared for and that's what we would put in the overlay so I thought when we had this discussion we were talking about putting a large number aside in case we had to right and I just don't think there was money at the time to put in there I mean we're all recorded and stuff okay so but it but you guys were firm on those numbers based on what we talked to them yeah deting numbers at all I'm saying that we just need to be prepared if stick to our guns with what we feel is right the the that's a different consultant but whatever they came up with s Susi came up with they've going to provide that to us right so that we can they this is similar to the pilot agreement this is what it is this is what it's based on this is what we have they didn't even come back on the pilot they didn't come back with a count which just didn't want to discuss which is not but yeah I I understand that okay so okay so we'll table all this until tonight yeah you have any other things to discuss oh we got minutes you oh yeah so all public input no that are you here for another yeah okay correspondence no uh minutes Mr chairman um make a motion we approve the minutes of June 26 2024 second motion remain seconded all in favor I I any anticipated items so um just a note um the uh article for that $10,000 uh exemption we just make a note that that's for future discussion okay headed for the ATM just so we don't forget it I will entertain a motion so moved so moved second motion made seconded all in favor I I I thank you everybody have a good day all right so Bill you're step you're clear on what