ORDER-2021-36 : Request to set a Public Hearing on Classification of Property for December 7, 2020 at 8:00 P.M. and subsequently determine the Classification of Property

Transcript (~43 min @ 2:46)

Speakers identified by voice; unnamed voices are numbered within this recording. Auto-caption text — verify against the video.

▶ 2:46 Speaker 2: Yes. Yes.

▶ 2:51 Christopher Cinella: Okay. We have one order before us this evening. Two orders, actually. First order 2021-36, a request to set a public hearing on classification of property on December 7th, 2020 at 8 p.m. and subsequently determine the classification of property.

▶ 3:12 Christopher Cinella: I'll entertain a motion at this time to suspend the rules. I know we have Mr. Wilcox with us this evening second motion to suspend the rules made by councillor mcnaught seconded by president Grigoraitis madam claire please call the role chair sanella yes vice chair Migliorelli yes

▶ 3:37 Speaker 2: councillor Tramontozzi yes councillor mcmaster yes councillor mcnaught yes councillor eccles yes councillor Garipay yes councillor stewart yes councillor thomas yes councillor Jamaleddine

▶ 3:55 Christopher Cinella: yes and president Grigoraitis yes 11 yes okay suspension if you want to bring

▶ 4:01 Speaker 2: just a little cut on i believe he has a presentation

▶ 4:13 Speaker 2: can you hear us yes i can screen is on yours when you're ready

▶ 4:16 Speaker 3: Okay, let me just get my video on. There we go. Good evening, everyone. It's that time of year where the tax bills are getting ready to go out. I believe that the classification hearing for this year is new for about nine members, so what I'm going to do is just go over some of what the laws are and rules as far as the classification hearing, And I'll start to entertain questions after that. For this presentation, please feel free to follow along on our website. The assessing webpage has this presentation in an interactive form. So members of the city council or any residents or property owners can follow along during this presentation. I'm going to share my screen and kind of just go into everything. Before I start, I just want to just give you a quick update on 2020 operations in the assessor's office and kind of what has changed. So as far as the law, nothing has changed as far as property tax. All of our responsibilities that were existing before COVID are still in place. So we are still operating to value every property at 100% full and fair cash value. I want to thank my staff. They've been unbelievable. pivoting with the circumstances and launching all sorts of new techniques for us to do our job and also serve the residents of Melrose. I want to thank Sarah, Janet, Jane, my senior worker, Bob, and my intern, Courtney.

▶ 6:01 Speaker 3: All of them have been really excellent in helping us move forward.

▶ 6:13 John N. Tramontozzi: Are you kidding me Jeff? You're not you're not muted Jeff Jeff. You're not muted.

▶ 6:21 Speaker 2: You can go on mute please.

▶ 6:26 Speaker 3: So, I just wanted to thank my staff operational and they've done a great great job. I also want to recognize Sarah, my office who during cobit actually successfully became a mass accredited assessment. So, the office now has two full assessors, also by the state of Massachusetts, which is a great thing and she worked really hard and finished it during COVID. So, a couple of other projects that are going on in our office, we did go to our appraising software. We launched a full cloud version of appraisal software. And we started using aerial photography and artificial intelligence to conduct property. And so that that's groundbreaking kind of technology that we're taking advantage of being able to enter houses and kind of go on properties as we used to. So now what I'll do is just start the classification hearing. So, if everyone can follow along, I did send an agenda, but again, I'm sharing my screen. That's live right on the city's web page. So anyone following at home. Can actually just go right to the city assessors web page, go to 2021 classification hearing and this is the presentation that we'll be using today for this meeting. The 7 slides and what we're going to do is actually. Just give this 1, 2nd, we're going to have 4 items to vote on the 1st item that we're going to vote on is actually whether or not to choose a small commercial exemption. In Melrose, we haven't identified any properties that would meet that qualification. So we've never implemented it every year. We try and look for properties, but because of the nature of the properties, we don't have any identified ones. Open space discount is the 2nd vote of the night in Melrose. We don't have any property classified as open space, but it is a state requirement to go over it. If we did. The 3rd vote would be a residential exemption. The administration has not recommended a residential exemption, so that would not require a vote tonight. The 4th vote is kind of what we'll deal with the selection of a minimal residential factor or known as a tax shift. so with that i'm going to start the the quick slides and just give you a kind of a history of of where property tax is going and then ramp up to the shift slides so in this top um total levy by fiscal year this is from uh the start of this is roughly 2003 all the way to 2020 and what it does is it shows what the city um used for a tax levy you can see in 2019 to 2020 that's the override so for the most part it moves along at about a two and a half to three percent uh rate every year and then when there's an override or a debt exclusion it would actually go up further than that over on the right hand side is just a property history of residential and commercial tax rates just to see where they are and how they go up and down depending on what the valuation of the market is for those years so that goes again from 2003 all the way to 2020. uh down below this is tracking the city of melrose's average um single family value but also the state average and you can see there's a similar value until about i want to say 2016 and then that's when the Melrose market really started to pull away compared to the state average. So I want to provide this. We do get questions about it. Here's your single family tax bill and the two optics that we have here, one in red is Melrose and then the state average. And as you can see from 2003, they pretty much go up at the same rate until we have, you know, 2019 where we had the override. The last block that we have here is just a commercial shift history. Just so everyone can see where historically the previous boards have shifted. This is just for the city of Melrose. It starts at 1.48 and last year it was 1.63. What I also like to do is compare our valuations and our tax bill with all the surrounding communities. This graphic that I'm showing right now is actually for the whole state. Right now, I have pretty much just our immediate area, but you can, using this graphic, go out to the whole state and pull every single assessed value and every assessed tax bill for single families, just so you can see exactly what's happening outside of Melrose and compare different changes based on valuation or tax bill. So, again, you can go in and type in 20 miles from Melrose, and it will actually move all those numbers and recalculate all the averages at the top of this. So, these are some of the interactive tools that I'm using to explain kind of property tax and kind of inform residents of how Melrose compares to other communities across the Commonwealth.

▶ 12:11 Speaker 3: So, the slide number 4, this is a direct export from Gateway, which is the Department of Revenue's website that tracks kind of our property tax. So, what you're looking at right now is just the assessments by class. If anyone wants a breakdown, please just after this meeting let me know, but all these codes are property codes, depending on whether they're commercial, residential, or even personal property. property and these are all the valuations so the total valuation for fiscal 2021 is uh 6 billion 76 million and and that includes the whole city so all property it does exclude exempt parcels so if you look at the bottom uh the value of the exempt parcels is is below that over on the right hand side top right hand corner um this actually explains what the levy limit is and how it's calculated in massachusetts we have proposition two and a half we're limited by how much money we can levy through taxation from one year to another this um this graphic on the top right hand side explains um all the different factors so we take the levy from last year we apply a percentage of uh two and a half percent we factor in any new growth which is allowed by law and then And we add any debt exclusions, this debt exclusion that we're looking at right here is for the high school or middle school project a few years back. So, the total allowable levy based on all those numbers is 68,878,709. Right below that is what we call the tax calculation for just 1 rate. So this would be a factor of 1. if the city council decided not to shift the taxation, this is the tax rate that would be needed to raise the revenues to support the budget for 2021. So without any shift, the tax rate would be $11 and 33 cents.

▶ 14:18 Speaker 3: On slide five, what we're doing here is we're actually getting into the shift amounts. This year, the city of Melrose is allowed to shift up to 1.75 by law. And this is 71, believe it or not, 71 different options that we have. So if you're on this graphic at home or at the meeting, you can drag it all the way out from a one factor all the way to 1.75 and all these numbers will change. So the percent increase will change, the tax rate will change and the dollar increase for both the commercial side and the single family assess value. When you look at the graphics on the bottom, you can see that a shift lower than, let's see what it is here. It is a shift lower than 1.60 would actually be a decrease on the commercial side. So that's where you see kind of the flip as far as the graphics, anything 1.6 below, you'll see a decrease in negative amount over last year. So that's kind of what's happening Once you get up to over 1.6, that's when it starts going positive on the commercial side. For this meeting, I chose to really look at 1.60 to 1.70 because historically, that's where the council and the Board of Aldermen in the past have landed. But feel free to look through all 71 different options allowed under the law. On slide 6, this is just another version of the shifts that are available, but what we did was we did a max and a minimum, and then the actual calculations for the tax bills in the graphic over on the right-hand side. This is also interactive. Right now, I'm showing you 1.6 to 1.7, but you can go from 1 to 1.75, as we did before, and all of this information will update depending on what selection you choose. This last slide is just some of the terms, because a lot of this stuff is only used once a year, maybe you're not familiar with certain terms. this is what the Department of Revenue defines as all these different factors starting with CIP. So anytime you see CIP, basically it's going to be commercial, industrial, and personal property. So that would be anything downtown, that would be anything used for businesses, industrials kind of shrinking, but that was where Washington Street was, now it's apartments. Personal property is tangible assets of the business, so it could be conduit or telephone lines, or it could be a typewriter or machinery in a business. We do tax that and it is under the commercial tax rate. Levy is pretty much what we take in from property tax and there's a bunch of other terms down here. Feel free to So take a look at it, but everything I believe that's in the presentation is defined in this slide right here. So, what I'm going to do now is just kind of go back to this slide here. By law, this meeting, what we're trying to do is to look at a minimum residential factor. On this page, you can see the 0.96 factors. That's what we would be voting in. Each one has an impact on the single-family or residential side and the commercial side. My only recommendation for this meeting is for the board to select anything from a factor of one all the way to 1.75. At this point, I can take any questions that anyone has. Thank you.

▶ 18:17 Christopher Cinella: Do you want to shut the presentation down just so I can see folks? I don't know if they still need. I'll have you down, Councilor Tramontozzi, but just a quick show of hands, though, real quick, because I couldn't see everybody. All right. Thomas.

▶ 18:36 Speaker 2: Councilor Tramontozzi.

▶ 18:43 Speaker 3: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

▶ 18:47 John N. Tramontozzi: And Mr. Wilcox, thank you for coming in to provide us with the presentation. And I have reviewed the presentation, and I have just a couple of questions that I'm getting a lot of people from me or from elsewhere.

▶ 19:07 John N. Tramontozzi: But Wilcox, you mentioned that the 1st vote we need is the small commercial exemption and based on historical experience with the council, we have voted. Um, I would at some point would be suggesting that we have a motion to not adopt a small commercial exemption would be in order. Mr Wilcox also, you said the selection of an open space discount for the same reasons historically we have not. And we don't have that that there'll be a motion to not adopt that 1. Um, you mentioned the residential exemption, you said that we do not have to vote on that. Can you further explain that? Sure, I get feedback also based on the administration would have to put that in front. So I believe a vote from the mayor or recommendation would have to come before the council could vote on it. I can get an answer from the solicitor on that, but that's my understanding. Since there is no recommendation one way or the other by the administration, we do not have to act on that. But just historically, correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Wilcox, since a significant percentage of the property in Melrose is residential, we have always traditionally and historically agreed not to adopt the residential exception.

▶ 20:45 Speaker 3: Is that correct? You're muted.

▶ 20:50 John N. Tramontozzi: Okay, it's all, it's all a shift in the residential class. So, but cities like Boston have a lot of non owner occupied towns like Tisbury have 2nd homes. So, what they do is with a residential exemption, they shift it to the non owner occupied. So Melrose is 90% plus owner occupied and that that's been the reason in the past. Correct. But it doesn't prevent us from, at some point in the future, adopting to help, say, seniors, for example, senior citizens or veterans in a small amount or some amount if they're a resident and they meet certain qualifications such as age and income. We could always adopt something like that in the future, correct? Yeah, the city council actually has the maximum, I believe on the senior exemption, and I believe we have every local option for veterans. So the city of Melrose has always been very forward thinking and very accommodating to seniors and to veterans for property tax exemptions. That would be completely separate, but we have adopted the option and we've gone to the max. Correct. All right, good. Thank you. I wanted to clarify that, that, that there's a difference between the owner occupied a residential exemption that we're talking about in this. So, basically, the selection of the minimum residential factor is what's a priority this evening. And so it's just just as an explanation, the shift causes a shift to, if we want to reduce a residential tax rate, we'd be shifting to the commercial base to be a higher base to offset the reduction in the residential rate. Is that correct? That is correct, up to roughly 75%, correct. Right. But on the other hand, you don't want to necessarily overburden the commercial establishment because, obviously, we want a commercial base. We have a commercial base, as small as it may be, but we want them to survive. And so we don't want – I don't think, personally, that the shift should be that great. I think we have done a shift, as you mentioned, and I think what we can do that today without a significant burden on the commercial base, but yet give the residential tax base a little bit of a break as well.

▶ 23:30 Speaker 3: Yeah, any of the shift is fine with me. I don't have any formal recommendations, but that is correct. Historically, we've gone about the same percentage to spread the tax burden, but that is up to each board every year to decide. 1 of the 1 of the shifts that I was looking at was a 1.68 shift. Can you just give me a little bit of an explanation on what that would do in terms of what the current rate. Is for residential and commercial and what would change if that was adopted. Sure, and if I could just have everyone follow along on slide 5, 1.68 would increase the residential single family by 167 dollars. And it would increase the commercial average commercial 663 dollars and 94 cents.

▶ 24:24 John N. Tramontozzi: Okay, and that is that is a rate that we have used in the past most recently just a year or 2 ago. So it seems that I'm suggesting. Although, you know, certainly others will have, I think that's somewhat a balance in between the higher and the lowest rates. And it's, you know, any tax increase, frankly, but especially in these times. but we in order to pay our uh bills and uh to balance our budget uh we have to set the rate pursuant to the claremont massachusetts guidelines and um but uh but anyways thank you for that explanation and at this time i'll um i'll hold off and doing anything further and let others say what they say thank you thank you thank you mr chairman and thank you mr wilcock i

▶ 25:21 Leila Migliorelli: want to first take a moment um and thank you for this great presentation um it's it's dynamic it's easy to follow it's so thorough um i also want to thank you not for this but also your work on the covet 19 website and all of that great data there that goes out and above and beyond your job And it's been a really helpful tool for residents. I know I pointed people there too, when they're looking for information. So, thank you so much for that. I did, I had the opportunity to watch last year's meeting so got myself reminded myself a little bit of what went through what went through the process last time and just wanted to ask a double check. You said, so that if we were to keep everything the same, it would be a rate of eleven dollars and thirty three cents that would keep it the same, which would.

▶ 26:15 Speaker 3: Is that correct? So, so a factor of 1 is basically the same rate for commercial and residential historically. We haven't done that for a long time, but that would be popular where communities only have a small amount of commercial. So that is an option that's on the table. We haven't done it here in the 7 years. I've been here or the previous years that I know of, but that is an option.

▶ 26:39 Leila Migliorelli: Okay, thank you. So then just walking through a little bit about, you know, thinking about the increase for residents versus commercial, and I know something that was discussed last time was, you know, trying to keep in mind our small business owners and, you know, the tax burden facing them. But then on the flip side of that, I suppose we should also look at how many of our small business owners actually own their space and whether that cost gets, those savings gets transferred on to the business owner. Do you happen to have any information about that, statistics or anything?

▶ 27:14 Speaker 3: Not individual statistics. I know that depending on the lease structure, sometimes they pass property tax through. Sometimes the tenant is responsible, but that's a year-to-year building by building. I would say they're responsible one way or another, whether it's in their rent or they pay it directly, and there's a mix. I don't know the percentage, but there's probably a healthy mix throughout Melrose.

▶ 27:40 Leila Migliorelli: Thank you. That's actually all I have for now.

▶ 27:45 Speaker 2: Councilor McNaught.

▶ 27:47 Jeff McNaught: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Wilcox, for being here. the second um what uh vice chair Migliorelli was saying i was actually fortunate enough to be in one of my first couple meetings last year when when i saw this uh presentation given and saw the praise that you got from that council because it was the first time they had um had the benefit of such an interactive i would call it a document but it's much more than that i don't know what the right word is but um thank you for for making it easy for us uh essentially um i'd also like to mention um um how lucky we are to have you in this role i know you've worked for other cities and towns um salem texbury weston just to name a few just finished up your um a year of being the president of the mass association of assessors i think that's what it's called um so we're extremely fortunate to have your talents in melrose and again that's echoing count uh vice chair Migliorelli sentiments that um you've done you do a great job with everything you do so thank you that's my long long-winded way of of opening up um and um to council trim and tozy's point he mentioned three things that we don't have to deal with um so before i get to any questions i was going to make a motion to not accept the first three items um so that we can clear that up and then we're only working on the minimum residential factor so that would be an emotion second

▶ 29:36 Jeff McNaught: all right i won't read them um unless you want me to mr chair please do okay a motion to not accept

▶ 29:50 Jeff McNaught: the um let me read this correctly rather than my chicken scratch uh a motion to not accept a granting of a small commercial exemption a selection of an open space discount or a granting

▶ 30:07 John N. Tramontozzi: of a residential exemption it's just a point of order if i could uh council mcnutt we may you may want to just make that those motions separate as uh three separate motions a motion not to accept

▶ 30:22 Jeff McNaught: the first one but and so forth that's fine let's go one by one uh making a motion uh to not accept

▶ 30:32 Christopher Cinella: the granting of a small commercial exemption so we have a motion by council mcnaught to not accept the small commercial exemption second second by councillor Garipay

▶ 30:48 Speaker 2: any discussion madam clerk sheriff sanella yes vice chair Migliorelli yes councillor Tramontozzi yes councillor mcmaster yes councillor mcnaught yes councillor eccles yes councillor Garipay yeah counselor stewart yes counselor thomas yes councilor malady yes president Grigoraitis

▶ 31:17 Jeff McNaught: yes eleven yes okay okay make a motion to not accept a selection of an open space discount

▶ 31:25 Christopher Cinella: second so motion to not accept an open space discount made by council mcnaught who was the

▶ 31:31 Speaker 2: second i know vice chairman really seconded that clerk please call the roll chair sanella yes vice jim magliarelli yes councilor Tramontozzi yes councillor mcmaster yes councillor mcnaught yes councillor eccles yes councillor Garipay yes councillor stewart yes councillor thomas yes council of Jamaleddine yes president Grigoraitis yes 11 yes and and the third motion is a motion

▶ 32:04 Jeff McNaught: to not accept the granting of a residential exemption which are made by companies to not

▶ 32:12 Christopher Cinella: accept the granting of a residential exception seconded by vice chair migliorelli the discussion

▶ 32:21 Speaker 2: Chair Sinella? Yes. Vice Chair Migliorelli? Yes. Councilor Tramontozzi? Yes. Councilor McMaster? Yes. Councilor McNaught? Yes. Councilor Eccles? Yes. Councilor Garipay? Yes. Councilor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Thomas? Yes. Councilor Jamaleddine? Yes. President Grigoraitis? Yes. 11. yes okay so those have been removed we still on discussion overall council mcdodge

▶ 32:57 Jeff McNaught: did you have anything else to add uh i was just gonna um suggest another number not making a motion for it of um 1.65 um that keeps us in line um with what we did last year percentage-wise I do realize last year and it lowers it for both the single family and the commercial. I would say significantly it does, but it gives everybody a break. Last year, I believe we were in the realm of single family went up about 700 and some odd dollars and commercial went up over a thousand. It was either 11 or 1300. I don't have it in front of me. But this gives everybody a pretty significant break during a year that I think everybody needs it. So I don't think that we need that. And believe me, I know that there's businesses that make a lot more money than others do as far as being a profit center, but there's very small businesses in Melrose that don't. So I think it's important that in the year of this pandemic and in the world that we live in that we we keep it down as much as we can for both and i think that meets a happy medium at 1.65 thank you honestly thank you mr chair thank you mr wilcox for being

▶ 34:23 Mark Garipay: here um thanks for the detailed information and your time this week to let me um understand uh understand uh this whole presentation um well a lot of my questions have been answered but um did have a couple when we're talking about the commercial uh what falls into the commercial uh commercial um bracket um do the we've had a large increase in in okra village jack flats um some other larger apartment buildings is that as their for-profit businesses does that uh is that part of the commercial tax base or does that go into residential

▶ 35:12 Speaker 3: You're on mute. I'm on mute.

▶ 35:17 Speaker 3: Good. The commercial value would not include the jack flats or any of the apartment buildings. Those would be all under the residential rate. Anything from assisted living facilities to large apartment buildings are all at the residential rate. The only one that's at a commercial rate would be nursing homes.

▶ 35:43 Mark Garipay: and is that a um that's nothing that's voted on locally that's a state state or federal law or so

▶ 35:53 Speaker 3: that law was is actually part of the massachusetts constitution when they came out with the classes of property back i believe in 1980 before my time so a long time ago it's class one so that does include it uh the uh the mass association of assessing officers did look to challenge that or fine tune it but it required a major vote but it is a state law that that we cannot create our

▶ 36:25 Mark Garipay: own in melrose okay um and you had mentioned you'd given us a graph on the first page that had the percentages of what we um what we've gone up i think over the last 10 years what the shift has been um but historically um that's the shift but is it a split of typically 50 50 would you say historically over the last last couple of years um as i look at it i see you know 1.65 looks to be a pretty pretty even split between commercial and um commercial commercial percentage increase uh with residential 2.57 compared to 2.59 just curious historically over the last number of years would you have to know what the percentage split was not just the shift so as far as the uh

▶ 37:24 Speaker 3: the years that i've been here i believe this is my sixth classification hearing and uh listening to the assessor that was here before uh most of the time they tried to have the same percentage wise on both the residential and the commercial side so that would be more closely aligned this year to the 1.65 where it's roughly two and a half percent on both the commercial and the uh residential side but that is up to the board to decide for this year

▶ 37:56 Mark Garipay: yeah sorry too many things going on here on the screen um all right thank you uh and just curious um i know this you debt exclusions the middle school uh any idea how many more years left on

▶ 38:14 Speaker 3: that to answer that I can't find the information it started before I believe I was here but there is an answer I can get that for you from the auditor's

▶ 38:25 Mark Garipay: office no problem thank you very much council Thomas thank you mr. chairman

▶ 38:33 Cory Thomas: mr. Wilcox thank you again so much for being here and being so professional and so prepared you've answered so many good questions already the website that you link to on the assessors page for the record and for the people watching at home could you give the address of the city of melrose website where they can find this interactive tool

▶ 38:58 Speaker 3: you're on mute again yeah it's the city website under the assessors um i can give you the direct url it's um stay with me one second cityofmelrose.org assessor that that will get you exactly to the page the uh the document you're looking for is 2021 classification hearing on the sidebar on the left and that will launch the uh the dashboard by power bi

▶ 39:26 Cory Thomas: yep and again i wanted to thank you as well um for taking some time this week to work with me on that um it was really interesting to see um how you could break it down by each percentage uh increase or decrease uh down the dollar of how it directly affect your residential tax bill so i think it's a great tool for the community um residential and commercial owners in melrose uh if people have a chance to go by and and check it out they really should uh and they can see based on the numbers that we come up with tonight what the increase is going to look like in their residential commercial tax bills so thank you again for being so prepared and being

▶ 40:14 Shawn M. MacMaster: such a help to the city. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else for the first time? Councillor McMaster? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good evening, Mr. Wilcock. I just had one question relative to Councillor McNaught suggestion of a 1.65 shift. I'm unable to pull up a second screen here, so can you tell me what that would translate to? Yeah, just give me one second.

▶ 40:40 Speaker 3: Let's see. So as far as the 1.65, you're looking at an increase on the average single family of $180.18, or 2.57% over last year. The tax rate would be $10.95. On the average commercial bill, you're looking at an increase of $386.21, and that would be an increase of 2.59% and a tax rate of $18.70 per thousand.

▶ 41:08 Speaker 2: Thank you. That's all I have for now. Anybody else for the first time? Councilor Thomason?

▶ 41:19 Cory Thomas: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Wilcox, at 1.65, you said residential will be 10.95 and commercial 18.70?

▶ 41:28 Speaker 3: That's correct.

▶ 41:29 Cory Thomas: What are the current rates for residential and commercial 2020?

▶ 41:34 Speaker 3: The residential rate is $11.05 and the commercial is $18.58.

▶ 41:41 Speaker 4: Thank you, sir.

▶ 41:45 Speaker 2: Councilman McNaught.

▶ 41:49 Jeff McNaught: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Sorry, I didn't clarify that earlier, Council McMaster, and thank you for doing that. Highlighting what the difference is between last year and this year, and to say it differently, there's about a $500 savings per household and about a $700 savings per commercial business, if you have that right, Mr. Wilcox?

▶ 42:16 Speaker 3: Yeah, last year was a huge year with the override. So it's not a typical year, but it's a lot low, correct? It was roughly a 10% from just the override. It's quite a bit less this year.

▶ 42:29 Jeff McNaught: Yeah, and to put it differently, single family households went up 700 plus dollars and businesses went up roughly 1,300. So this is significantly less and I think fair and balanced in keeping with the percentages that we've tried to match year over year. That being said, I would make a motion to move ahead and to shift the burden at the 1.65.

▶ 43:03 Christopher Cinella: 2nd, Councilor McNaught is motioning to. Shift the burden to 1.65, seconded by. Councilor Thomas on discussion. Councilor.

▶ 43:17 John N. Tramontozzi: Yes, thank you. Mr. chair and thank you. Council McNaught and I will support that motion. The reason the difference between 1.651.68 is not significant. except that I was hoping to give the residential homeowners a little bit more of a break in light of what we've been experiencing in these difficult times with COVID and all. But I understand it would have saved them a little bit more money, but it would have assessed the commercial rate a little bit higher as well. So I think that's fair. It's reasonable. Again, I wish that we didn't have to raise taxes at all on the real estate here in Melrose, but I will support adopting a shift of 1.65. Thank you.

▶ 44:19 Speaker 2: Councilor McNaught.

▶ 44:21 Jeff McNaught: Through the Chair and thank you, Councilor Tramontozzi. Just to highlight the differences between those, It would have saved households $13, which is why I saw 1.65 as a more advantageous for businesses who would have paid an additional 200 plus dollars. So, I appreciate the spirit of compromise. Thank you.

▶ 44:52 Speaker 2: Okay, anybody else on discussion? Seeing none, Madam clerk. Yes, yes. Council of training and. Yes, consular McMaster. Yes. Consular. Yes, consular Eccles. Yes. Consular. Yes, consular Stewart. Yes, counselor Thomas. Yes. Consulate your melody? Yes.

▶ 45:26 Christopher Cinella: president Grigoraitis yes 11 yes unanimous okay great well thank you mr wilcock still there um do we need to vote on the actual uh hearing as well um historically there's been a recommendation

▶ 45:37 Speaker 3: to the whole board and the actual vote is to the uh full board uh one just item if uh when we vote for the full board if we could do the minimum residential factor and not the shift number uh legally i think that that covers us um so there would be the nine uh point nine six six six zero number would be the official vote it's okay for the appropriations but i think when we do the actual classification hearing we should we might might have that number in it great thank you madam

▶ 46:12 Christopher Cinella: president you got that thank you okay onto our next uh order this evening thank you for coming time 2021-41 an authorization for the mayor of melrose to execute a power purchase agreement for rooftop solar installation at memorial hall i believe we have this rover coming on i'll bring her in yes i'm going to pull her into the panelists right now okay martha can you hear