ORDER-2020-19 : Expanding the Senior Citizen Property Tax Work-Off Abatement Program by amending Melrose Revised Ordinances, Chapter 6, Section 6-1 as set forth herein

Transcript (~4 min @ 2:01:32)

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▶ 2:01:22 Francis X. Wright Jr.: on file thank you thank you thank you thank you second item on our agenda is order 2020-19 expanding the senior citizen property tax work off abatement program by amending melrose revised ordinances chapter 6 section 6-1 as set forth here and before we start the discussion on that I would like to say I did receive a call from the mayor and the city solicitor today regarding this matter they had intended to have Chris Wilcox the city assessor appear to comment on this however he was on a scheduled a vacation and therefore is unavailable today they requested that this matter be held in committee ultimately so that Chris could come forward to speak to us as to the application the impact prospective impact of this um revised ordinance on the city and how it would be carried out there are i guess several questions that the administration has if not members of this council but in any event they've requested that we wait to hear from the assessor that said councilman deros the maker

▶ 2:02:51 Monica C. Medeiros: of the order thank you um thank you very much as the maker of this order i appreciate the opportunity to speak on it i did also receive a call from the mayor about this about an hour before the meeting which i appreciate very much i think it definitely would be beneficial to have the certainly the new director of the council and aging who would who is in charge of this ordinance and the implementation of this ordinance as as it currently exists as well as with the proposed changes but just so that the members here have some time to think about it the the two major changes to this are this is for the senior tax work off that's expanding this for instance right now the current law basically says that individuals who are 60 years old and older or disabled individuals are eligible to participate in the program there is a provision of the state law that allows for if people are physically unable to to serve themselves which you know may very well be with an older population if there's caregivers to their spouse or for instance some of them may have issues such as you know dementia or other issues that might prohibit them from taking advantage of this program it does allow for volunteers to do the work in there in there who are under age 60 to do the work in their stead so that this opens it up to people with different abilities to to fill us in so this ordinance would be accepting that provision of the state chat the state law as well as to increase the the maximum allowable abatement that is allowed under the current program in Melrose is $1,000 per calendar year the state has increased this to 1,500 and I am proposing that we also increase this to 1,500 anybody who's working we have to pay them by law a minimum wage I believe this is sort of to to set things up for a 15 state minimum wage so that it's it's the same amount of benefit for the same amount of hours so that's what um the intent of this ordinance is and i'm sure there may be some other comments but otherwise i would like to move that this be held in committee

▶ 2:05:21 Francis X. Wright Jr.: any other comments motion before us to hold this matter in committee second second by uh counselor madero seconded by councillor zorco members of the committee all in favor aye aye aye opposed this matter will be held in committee item three on our agenda is