Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2016-11-28

Appropriations and Oversight Committee Meeting

This meeting starts at 0:00 in a recording that covers several meetings.

Attendance

Robert A. Boisselle present · Ward 4 Alderman; Donald L. Conn Jr. present · President/Ex-officio Member; Scott M. Forbes present · Ward 7 Alderman; Gail Infurna present · Vice Chairman; Jennifer L. Lemmerman present · Ward 2 Alderman; Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis present · Alderman at Large; Monica C. Medeiros present · Alderman at Large; Peter D. Mortimer present · Chairman; John N. Tramontozzi present · Ward 1 Alderman; Francis X. Wright Jr. present · Ward 3 Alderman; Michael P. Zwirko present · Alderman at Large

Agenda

Minutes

CITY OF MELROSE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE CALENDAR● NOVEMBER 28, 2016 Aldermanic Chamber, Aldermanic Chamber, Melrose City Hall Committee Meeting 7:25 PM 562 Main Street, Melrose, MA 02176 The public should take notice that the Melrose Board of Aldermen may, on certain occasions, have a quorum in attendance due to standing committees of the Board of Aldermen consisting of both voting and non-voting members. Members attending this duly posted meeting are participating and deliberating only in conjunction with the business of the standing committee. Attendee Name Title Status Arrived Peter D. Mortimer Chairman Present Gail M. Infurna Vice Chairman Present Michael P. Zwirko Alderman at Large Present John N. Tramontozzi Ward 1 Alderman Present Monica C. Medeiros Alderman at Large Present Robert A. Boisselle Ward 4 Alderman Present Francis X. Wright Jr. Ward 3 Alderman Present Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis Alderman at Large Present Jennifer L. Lemmerman Ward 2 Alderman Present Scott M. Forbes Ward 7 Alderman Present Donald L. Conn Jr. President/Ex-officio Member Present In Attendance: Assessors Chris Wilcock and Lee Phelan

ORDER-2017-51 Appointment Appointment of Brian M. Donovan, 9 Morgan St., to the Human Rights Commission to fill the unexpired term of Mathew Helman; said term to expire on the last day of February, 2019 Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen

ORDER-2017-44 Classification of Property Request to set a Public Hearing on Classification of Property for November 28, 2016 at 7:30 P.M. and subsequently determine the Classification of Property Without Recommendation Board of Aldermen

ORDER-2017-50 Acceptance Acceptance of Pedestrian Access Easement at Stone Ridge Heights Subdivision off Dexter Road Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen City of Melrose Page 1 Updated 12/22/2016 4:59 PM

Transcript

▶ 0:00 Peter D. Mortimer: We've got a 7.25 start tonight. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. The hour is 7.25 on November 28, 2016. This is the Committee on Appropriations. I am the Chairman, Peter Mortimer. We are joined by the Vice Chairman, Gail Inferna, Alderman Michaels-Werko, Alderman John Tramontozzi, Alderman Monica Medeiros, Alderman Robert Boycelle, Alderman Francis Wright, Alderman Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis, Alderman Jennifer Lemmerman, Alderman Scott Forbes, and President Donald Kahn. This meeting is being recorded by MMTV. It is available for viewing on MMTV website and on the Melrose, Massachusetts, City of Melrose website if anybody would like to see it in the future. alderman forbes has made a motion to open the floor for public participation duly seconded by

▶ 1:08 Peter D. Mortimer: alderman inferno all in favor please say aye aye aye opposed hearing none we are hereby open for public participation if any members of the gallery would like to come forward seeing none motion to close second alderman inferno has made a motion to close public participation duly seconded by Alderman Boycelle all in favor I say aye the first order we have before us tonight a public participation is closed by virtue of that order by virtue of that vote the first order we have before us is order two zero one seven dash five one it is the appointment of Brian M Donovan of 9 Morgan Street to the Human Rights Commission to fill the unexpired term of Matthew Hellman said term to expire on the last day of February 2019 motion to suspend the rules to bring

▶ 1:58 Peter D. Mortimer: forward the second we have a motion to suspend the rule by Alderman MacMaster Margolis bring forward the applicant duly seconded by Alderman Forbes all in favor please say aye any opposed hearing none please come forward sir good evening sir would you like to make an opening statement or would you like to proceed directly to conversation and questions from the Alderman I would only I'd only like to say I appreciate and I give thanks to the committee for inviting me here this evening. And other than that, I don't really have an opening statement, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much, Mr. Donovan, and any Alderman wishing to be heard. President Kahn, please. Yeah, Mr. Donovan, you have a very impressive resume, which was submitted to us.

▶ 2:51 And we would like to all collectively thank you for coming forward and volunteering to serve on the Human Rights Commission. Thank you. We appreciate your service. Thank you. Thank you, President Kahn. Alderman Medeiros, please. Thank you, we also agree. And I would like to just, if you could just say a few words, tell the public a little bit about yourself and about why you're interested in this position. Absolutely, I've been a resident of Melrose for almost 14 years. I am a licensed attorney in the commonwealth. I have been for approximately 15 years, although I do not have an, I'm not actively practicing in the commonwealth at this time. am primarily a a stay-at-home parent although I have been doing some work at

▶ 3:35 the Melrose Veterans Memorial Middle School as a substitute teacher I've also taken on some pro bono families as a sort of a parent family consultant with respect to special education in other communities but not here in Melrose I'm the father of three children all three of whom are still in the Melrose public schools one set to graduate in the spring one in the middle school and another one in the high school and it is my son James who is in ninth grade and has autism spectrum disorder who gives me the most reason to want to be part of the Human Rights Commission I appreciate that a lot and I think that your experience is a little bit unique to compare to some of the other commissioners and I look forward to what you'll bring to the board thank you

▶ 4:25 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: Thank You alderman Medeiros alderman MacMaster Margolis please um thank you and thank you for taking time out of your family responsibilities to serve on this committee I think you'll find that it's a wonderful group of people and I am excited about your diverse background that you'll be bringing to it also I just like to publicly thank Matt Hellman who is resigning from the committee after serving for a good long term too but good luck to you and thank you thank you very much yes thank you for a motion to recommend we have a motion to recommend this order for passage by Alderman Tramontozzi do the second by Alderman McAteer-Margolis any further discussion seeing none all in favor please say aye any opposed hearing none your application will be recommended to

▶ 5:15 Peter D. Mortimer: the full board on December 5th for passage you need not come again we thank Thank you very much for your willingness and your service to the city of Melrose. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you so much. And again, my thanks to the committee. Absolutely. Thank you. The next order we have before us, well, we're going to have to change up the order because the public hearing is scheduled for 7.30. So we will call that hearing now. It is order 2017-44. request to set a public hearing on classification of property for November 28 2016 at 7 30 p.m and subsequently determine the classification of property 7 30 p.m now so motion to convene the public hearing second alderman MacMaster Margolis has made a motion to convene the public hearing

▶ 6:08 Peter D. Mortimer: duly seconded by alderman Forbes all in favor please say aye aye any opposed hearing none the public hearing is hereby called to order are there any members of the public who would like to come forward and ask questions or offer opinions on the classification of property which will be discussed in committee tonight seeing none motion to conclude the public hearing second alderman forbes has made a motion to conclude the public hearing on the classification of property portion of the pub of the duly seconded by alderman Zwirko all in favor please say aye on discussion yep i i don't really know that we can have a public hearing without hearing from the uh exactly the members of the administration who are here to indicate what we have in the hearing about uh i understand

▶ 6:53 Peter D. Mortimer: i thought we would just have the public portion of the public hearing first uh concluded so um i'll leave it open for now uh will you withdraw your second all the triangle will you withdraw your motion alderman mcintyre my goals i i didn't move it i moved to open the hearing thank you Thank you, we'll draw the motion. All right. Gentlemen, we're under suspension of the rules. Would you please come forward? Good evening. Good evening. Would you like to make an opening statement, Mr. Wilcox? I would. Lee Phelan is here with you. That's correct. This is Lee Phelan, he's on the Board of Assessors. Kathy could not make it tonight, but it's a three member board, myself, Kathy, and Lee. first like to say that I appreciate all the work that's been done by my staff

▶ 7:50 and the board members this year we had a reval this year which is every three years this will be the last year of the three-year cycle we're actually going to a five-year cycle for revals but it's been an extremely busy year and I appreciate Janet and and you know helping out and making everything smooth so if I can go right into the presentation yes please do the reason that we hear for the classification hearing is for four items to select a minimum residential factor or shift the tax burden for an open space discount a granting of a residential exemption or a granting of a small commercial exemption without shifting the tax rate the city of Melrose would have a one one tax rate for all properties that tax rate this year would be $12.16 the estimated tax

▶ 8:46 levy for this year is fifty five million three hundred thousand and if you apply the twelve dollars and sixteen cents you would basically with all the assessed value you back into that tax levy Massachusetts office offers us the option to shift the tax burden from residential to commercial industrial personal property and there is a page in the handout that has all the shifts for this year we we looked at shifting from 1.48 all the way up our max shift for this year is 1.75 but that's for this board to determine tonight historically the board has chosen to shift with the tax burden equally the increase to be equally on the residential and the commercial side Melrose for a second year in a row has been an unbelievable real estate market we've had record

▶ 9:45 sales the days on the market have gone down we're averaging about 42 days on the market we had 238 sales and our average sale price this year was 528 for 88 and that's all the sales activity in 2015 for this fiscal 2017 valuations so it's calendar year 15 is what we're looking at a couple other items is Melrose still has one of the lowest shifts as far as the comparable communities the max shift we can go to is 1.75 last year we were at 1.48 which is the lowest compared to malden saugus stonem and wakefield and this year the reason that the tax rate goes down is the valuations have gone up we're at record levels as far as assessed value so what it does is it actually pushes down the tax rate at this point i'll turn it over to to the

▶ 10:49 board for any questions but it's been an unbelievable real estate market and and that's the reason for the lower rates this year thank you very much mr wilcox president khan please yeah so of the four questions that are before us one of them at least is non-question is that correct we have no open space that qualifies under the statute so even if we wanted to exempt property under the open space exemption we're doing nothing is that correct that's correct that we do not have any properties classified as open space okay and and just But just so the public understands, when we adopt the shift factor, that means, let's say we, just to pick a number out of a hat, if we adopted 1.54, that would mean that the commercial property tax rate would be 1.54 of the residential, so is that correct?

▶ 11:41 That's correct, you shift it to the commercial, industrial, and personal property classes. Okay. And if we were to adopt any residential or commercial exemptions, which we never have in my tenure here, we would still have to raise the same amount of money. Is that correct? That's correct. You'd be shifting it within the class. So the commercial exemption would be shifted to other commercial properties. The residential exemption would be shifted to other residential properties. Right. So overall, if we adopted either one of those exemptions, we wouldn't really be engrossed saving any tax dollars to the citizenry. We would raise the same amount of money. That's correct. That's all I had. Thank you, President Kahn. Alderman Lemmerman, please.

▶ 12:28 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for this information. I just have a few questions based on your presentation. Just something on your actual PowerPoint slides that I wanted to ask for clarification on. On pages 9 and 10, the two charts, the 2016 tax rates for Marlowe's and surrounding communities and the average single-family tax bill, both of those, the column all the way to the right, there appears to be missing footnotes. There's asterisks in the title row. I'm sorry, which? so the surrounding communities one there's it under rank okay has a double asterisk but I don't see the corresponding footnote and the same on the next one I was just wondering wanted to make sure that we have the information we needed for those I can I can look into that and see if I cut

▶ 13:19 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: anything off with a copy in the slide and then that would be great thank you very much it looks and you mentioned this actually the comparable communities that they all at least those on this sheet go to basically the maximum allowable tax shift do you have and I know you can't speculate on reasonings of other decisions made in other communities but do you have a sense of the analysis of their decision to go to the maximum where we haven't in the past I can comment on the dynamics of the parcels they have a lot more commercial industrial and personal property the effects of the shift are a lot more if we did that here it would be a smaller impact as far as what we get in it would affect our residents it's not as much if you have 10 or 20 percent it makes a

▶ 14:13 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: huge difference and the money you can take in when you only have about 8% it's not not a lot so I mean you it's a decision for you guys I wouldn't want to answer every board every year can make that decision but they've elected to shift all the burden that they can to the commercial and then if I'm remembering quite correctly I was hoping you could just confirm this with me last year the the shift that we ended up ultimately implementing it didn't equally change the percentage increase for both for the residents versus the commercial is that right there was a there was a it was higher on the on the commercial side is that correct I honestly don't want to comment it's possible I can get back to you with that quite I don't have last year's

▶ 15:02 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: unfortunately no problem that's all right thank you and then finally one last question that I have for now is about the the residential tax exemption and the calculation that you provided in here which thank you I think that this was something that was asked for last year that you provided after so thank you for including it here is these are these calculations done based on no shift or is there a shift calculated in this this is on a shifted number this was with both increase the increase to the commercial and industrial being the same I had to pick a number and so what I did was I picked 2.8 increase on both the commercial and industrial that's that's kind of where they leveled out but yeah this is based off of the highlighted yeah I would have to have

▶ 15:45 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: you know a bunch of slides at different shifts I have to pick something unfortunately sure sure no I understand that you would need to do that I do do think just sort of a comment that it's because this depends so greatly in the calculation and the analysis depends so greatly on the shift it does seem a little odd to be voting on them at the same time and it seems like it would make more sense to vote on a shift before we voted on a residential tax exemption but it's just a personal preference on that and a comment on that Thank You mr. chairman Thank You alderman live moment alderman Medeiros please thank you um thank you so much again i uh i just wanted to go back over the historical levels and this is the residential and commercial property as a total of all property in the city

▶ 16:38 Monica C. Medeiros: and it looks like the amount of commercial property that we have in the city has actually decreased uh this year and to only 8.08 of all property in the city and and that is as a result of new growth or could you explain um the way i look at it is three factors um two large projects from this year we have 158 essex street that was a large commercial it's now residential 37 washington street was a large commercial that's residential that's that's one reason we're losing commercial parcels another reason is the commercial growth we're not seeing as many building permits and the commercial side compared to residential we're seeing unbelievable single-family and residential building permits that's the

▶ 17:27 second factor and the third factor also is the commercial values are moving more in a one to three maybe five percent where the residential is far so you know moving at a higher rate so those three items would really shrink down what we get in for total valuation for the city that's correct can you talk about how much new growth that we've seen in the city and and how that affects the calculations that are here to growth for this year is roughly 700,000 that's I think both the highest it's ever been you know those two projects that I mentioned 158 Essex 37 Washington you know all the stuff that's going on down on washington street all the the building permits every year adds up to that 700 000. we don't have

▶ 18:18 a lot of new um you know single-family uh buildings but we have a lot of people renovating moving in taking kitchens bathrooms you know renovating their whole house so that that adds up and growth pushes what we can take in for taxation it's one of those items that allows us to take in more for the levy so it does push us past the two and a half whatever we take in for growth and uh and leave us with only 8.8 percent commercial um now the chart that's 2017 assessed values by class does this include our non-profit or i've actually added a percentage right at the bottom from last year from your question uh 7.2 percent is uh 351 million roughly and that includes all of the municipal properties the hospital all at churches

▶ 19:17 Monica C. Medeiros: okay great that uh so 424 parcels and if totaling 351 million dollars in value and i'd also like like to add I do have a list of all those properties someone did request that I made copies for everyone here so at the end of the meeting I can hand those out yes that would be that'd be very helpful I know and hopefully that covers oh just one fast last question I know last year we made some changes to our tax write-off abatements and in the work off that do we see that at all in this calculation or is that coming out of a different account the the senior workoff program comes out of the overlay account we'll see that this year we did have a lot of people I think the previous year we had 17 people and last time I heard

▶ 20:11 Francis X. Wright Jr.: we don't have the final list but it was over 30 and then this year we also had the benefits fair for a lot of city programs and I think we increase the numbers from that so we could see 40 or 50 next year but as of right now I know it's more than 30 thank you very much thank you mr. chairman thank you very much Alderman Medeiros Alderman Wright please Thank You mr. chairman thank you gentlemen with regards to the Washington Street and the Essex Street developments the value is placed on those thus far is as of July 1 yes sir it's so that value will go up this fiscal year as they complete those projects that's correct I want to say 158 Essex was probably around 20% for this year and 37 Washington Street I don't know off the

▶ 21:02 Francis X. Wright Jr.: top but it was not full valuation okay and the follow-up on Alderman Lemmerman question as I understood it related to a residential exemption you give us some percentages of residential parcels and you talk about the parcels as they relate to owner-occupied do you have any statistics as relate to units so I mean say Washington Street all the development down there may be you know six units six parcels but it may be made it's going to be made up of hundreds and hundreds of units right yes is that information you can share with us as far as it here already as far as the residential exemption it would be part parcel so it would be one application and I know the owners don't live there so they would be part of the non-occupied I guess I don't really

▶ 21:57 Francis X. Wright Jr.: understand the question I'm sorry well I'm just I mean I'm looking at when I look at it I think about in terms of not just parcels but how many residences in the city would be impacted positively and negatively and you are looking at it from the aspect of the parcel because that's your job yes but I'm gonna look at it from the aspect of of how many households will potentially be impacted so if that one parcel on Washington Street is impacted there are dozens and dozens of units in each one of those buildings that may or may not see an increase you know using the 37 Washington Street that would be a 112 an income property note that would not qualify their their rents would actually go up because they would pay more in taxes well their rents that's the

▶ 22:58 Francis X. Wright Jr.: question in my mind is would their rents go up or what you know do they have that type of a lease that would be bait the tax would be absorbed by the tenant but which is not normally the case with residences but or are they gonna face a some market value rent so that the owner is going to charge whatever he can based on what the market will bear so now you don't have those answers and I don't expect you to but to the extent I have to look at the issue of residential exemption and whether or not that's something worthy of this board to look at this is information that would be helpful to me it's not something that the board has to consider necessarily but it's something I'd like to consider or because we do have to make a decision on residential exemption thank you thank you

▶ 23:47 president kahn please yeah are you under any kind of time constraint in terms of when the tax rate has to be set um we were on the time constraints of the next meeting making a final decision in order to get tax bills out timely we have a process with the collecting department for getting things okay so you're looking for final action by the board on this order by our meeting next monday if possible yes okay and just just to follow up in terms of an of an exemption a residential exemption it only can be taken advantage of by a tax real estate tax payor is that correct it has to be the owner of the property that applies for it so any apartment buildings unless the owner lived there the occupants would not be eligible for a residential

▶ 24:37 exemption but even if i were the owner and i lived in a 50 unit parcel i could get an exemption for myself but the other tenants would not the other 49 units would not be um i just want to make sure we have that that we understand that and just just something that i always harp on but um new new growth boosts what the two and a half limit can be calculated on for next year is that not true that's correct so you know new growth is good for the fact that we have the new growth and whatnot but also people should understand if we have seven hundred thousand dollars of new growth this year then it boosts the number from which the two and a half can be applied to for next next fiscal year that that's correct and just one other thing on new growth new growth can only be

▶ 25:37 realized in in one year is that not true that's correct so whatever new growth we realize on a project in year one uh if the assessment goes up in year two because it's a built out large 100 unit project we don't get any any kick for new growth in the second year um just a correction we would get growth if we went to 50 this year and then next year we got an additional 50 to bring it 100 evaluation it'll be 50 each year okay so so whatever calculate whatever percentage you assign in year one you can you can carry over the balance to year two if the project is not completed in the first year that's correct if it was a house and it was just framing one year and then the next year was complete we'd have one year at just framing the next year would be a hundred percent

▶ 26:27 you would only take from the fifty to a hundred percent in the second year so so if all of these projects that you've talked about um were fifty percent in this year uh generating seven hundred thousand dollars then you could capture the next seven hundred thousand dollars in this in the upcoming tax year that that's correct that's all thank you president khan alderman chairman tozy please thank you yes um i um are you um recommending uh uh that we adopt the shift factor of 1.535 the board has no recommendations uh i've outlined where the shift was even um in the past um i know don my pre-assessor has indicated where it's even so uh the board of assessors has no official uh recommendation the um that decision is left to this board to make that's correct what is the um

▶ 27:17 John N. Tramontozzi: What's the current tax rate per 1,000, that residential rate? $12.33 per 1,000. If we were to accept the, assuming we accept the shift factor of 1.535%, what does that do to the rate per 1,000? All the rates, it would reduce it to $11.80. So the city of Merrill's residential tax rate per 1,000 would actually be reduced? that's correct and when was the last time the the city conducted a citywide assessment we had a reval this year we also had cyclical inspections every nine years we have to go through the city to verify data this was done this year and we also had a reval which is done every three years so we had two projects actually running this year so the reval has already been taking place the reval

▶ 28:15 John N. Tramontozzi: is this current year we just actually got final certification last week would that be reflected on the fiscal 2017 tax rate bills that's correct so and we anticipate that the assessments are going to go up the assessments did go up quite a bit so which which means that higher property values should yield more income to the city not necessarily back into the levy so as you go higher on the assessed values the tax rate comes down that's why we went from 1233 down to 11 that's that's why we're reducing the tax rate that's correct all right good all right thank you Thank You alderman Tramontozzi ozi alderman's work oh please thank you excuse me Thank You mr. chairman and thank you for your presentation tonight appreciate your time before us these these shift options

▶ 29:06 Michael P. Zwirko: that we have before us they are all excuse me they are all going as close to the levy limit as possible is that correct that's correct we historically have left basically rounding on the table we have gone right up to the two and a half percent every year okay and the other I noticed that thank you for providing the the figures for our surrounding communities I was just hopeful that maybe in the future you could provide some communities that don't necessarily touch the four corners of Melrose but are similarly situated to us we've talked about these communities before when we've discussed other issues before the city so if you could just consider a similarly situated community like one that has the residential burden that we do as opposed to a town like

▶ 29:52 Michael P. Zwirko: Saugus where they have the benefit of route one in the mall and etc and their commercial property is I think on your graph somewhere around the 20s if not higher so that would just be helpful for us too because you know we often talk about the inability here to actually expand the commercial tax breaks or the the difficulty in doing such where we've had to have overlay districts in certain parcels so what we've tried to do as a city to rectify those that gap and how this burden falls more on the residents that'd be helpful if we had other communities that were added to your list and then I also noticed the the shift options that you provided I don't know the slide number but it doesn't actually

▶ 30:31 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: doesn't can't we actually go beyond that one point five eight factor that shift it can I can provide I could go all the way to one one point seven five if you want me to send you the complete list that's you know for now it if you could that be appreciated but you know again in the future if you could have the whole menu of shifts available to us at the time it would be helpful those are all the questions I had Thank You alderman Suarco alderman MacMaster Margolis please Thank You mr. chairman so I just wanted to go back to the residential exemption for a moment and you in your description you inform us that approximately 92 percent of Melrose households are owner-occupied so that would allow if we were to adopt a residential exemption that would give

▶ 31:27 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: the potential for the nut for those for that number of people to have the exemption correct but the break-even point for paying more or less is 540 so and what did you say the new valuation was of homes I'm sorry lost that on this page well the break-even 27% are you looking for how many would pay more as a a result of the right 27% would pay more more so that would be apartment buildings single families make predominantly single families but I thought I was just trying to see the the valuation of current evaluation of the average sale price was 528 does that factor into it in 2015 it does but for the residential exemption you would look at the break-even point so you would see exactly where someone would benefit from a residential exemption and where

▶ 32:29 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: someone will pay more they're different different factors so in saying that the rate would go from 1180 to 1442 that would be before there was any that would be like so the people who didn't qualify for the residential exemption because the house was valued at more than 540 yes would be paying 1442 per thousand Yes, and if they had an income property, they'd be paying $1,442 with no exemption. With no exemption. But if, in fact, the house was valued at less than $540,000, they would have a discount of how much? It depends on what the—well, actually, it depends on what percentage you pick. What shift we choose. At 5%, it would be $24,000. At 20%, it would be $98,000. and I believe through the municipal act we can go to 35 percent this year yeah

▶ 33:23 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: up to 35 percent okay and do we have the information for what I know Malden does it does that and other communities there's 13 communities I don't have them off I can get you that list Boston Chelsea I think as Alderman's worker was suggesting it might be helpful to know like communities to Melrose that if in fact they do offer that the if they do offer the residential exemptions okay thank you Thank You alderman MacMaster Margolis I'm seeing no further alderman wishing to be heard we have four items oh please please proceed briefly with regards to the reval yes I know they've been doing it every three years are we still on the three-year cycle or under the Missville modernization act will we

▶ 34:15 Monica C. Medeiros: go to the five-year cycle we are officially on the five-year cycle so the next one i believe is 2021. great thank you thank you thank you alderman wright alderman medeiros followed by president Conference i just wanted to make a motion after everybody's spoken very good thank you sir i just had a question i need to follow up on something that alderman mcjammar goals asked we we saw that the average sales price was five hundred twenty eight thousand four eighty eight what is the average home valuation it's at 500 it's actually on the shift page with five hundred thousand eight hundred oh I see right there right at the top thank you very much that's all Thank You alderman Medeiros president Kahn wanting only to

▶ 34:59 Peter D. Mortimer: make a motion in the interim two other people have indicated they wish to be heard I'm only going to make a motion to conclude the public hearing mr. chairman Not to forego any further discussion. No, we certainly wouldn't forego discussion in either case, but we can accept your motion to close the public hearing at this time. Second. President Connors made a motion to conclude the public hearing at this time, duly seconded by Alderman Forbes. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, now we are just discussing the order as a Board of Aldermen. We are under suspension from a previous motion. still before us and we have alderman's worko in queue followed by alderman lemon please proceed

▶ 35:43 Michael P. Zwirko: alderman's workup thank you again mr chairman this is more of just a general comment as opposed to a question um you know in the past three weeks down in the west wyoming section of the city three new businesses one's about to open um have opened um about six seven years ago uh when we were climbing out of the recession there were vacant businesses in main street there aren't any any longer the city's thriving the city's doing very well from its commercial tax base i know historically we have had the residential and commercial on par with each other this isn't a suggestion you know we can't get out of this hearing without using the term override so I'll just throw it out there you know the city had

▶ 36:33 Michael P. Zwirko: a long discussion about the need for an override last year and that discussion ended with a decision people have talked about the Mellor's repressed has reported the affordability issues here in the city these shifts no matter we don't have the whole graph here but whether or not you're going up to one point seven five or down to one point four eight we're not talking about a major increase or decrease should we shift these burdens the point I'm trying to make in a very long-winded way is that commercial properties here in Meadows are doing very well here in the Massachusetts economy we have one of the lowest rates of unemployment people are again fighting their way out from the recession and spending money commercial property owners have the benefit of

▶ 37:18 Michael P. Zwirko: making money whereas generally residents don't certainly they could rent out some of their property but for the most part the folks in the commercial sector are making money so I would be I am NOT beholden to keeping the historical shift equal if we were to entertain moving away from that I certainly would be interested in entertaining that it's just something to raise I don't think that this would impugn any private business owner and I think that we have some great small businesses here in the city of Melrose and I know that people private citizens put their neck on the lines to go out and start something but I also think that it's a it's a fair share of a burden and I think that for the most part we're doing quite well here in terms of our economy in Melrose

▶ 38:02 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: Thank You mr. chairman Thank You alderman Suarco alderman Lehmann thank you just a quick question confirm that I'm understanding properly with with the residential exemption in terms of condos it's their individual owners they receive their individual tax bill they would be put into this calculation that way the same way that a single family that's under right that's correct a condo condos would be a part of it apartments would not unless it was owner-occupied apartments so it would be one residential exemption for the whole building right okay great thank you very much thank you thank you alderman Lemmerman seeing no further alderman wishing to be heard we have four items and i suspect president khan you're about to make a motion sir i am that was why i raised my hand

▶ 38:48 all right um i i don't know what the board thinks but i'd like to um well i i we we have four items we really don't have four items we don't have any open space so i don't think that's really a open space that's subject to to an exemption so i don't really think that that's a real topic of discussion um i would like to consider this order for at least another week until our next meeting and i would like to make a motion at this time to send this order through to the full board without recommendation and perhaps other aldermen feel the same way but i'm making that as a motion president khan has made a motion to send this order to the full board on december 5th without recommendation said motion was duly seconded by alderman inferna any further

▶ 39:39 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: discussion on that motion Alderman McAteer-Margolis followed by Alderman Medeiros please Thank You mr. chairman just to confirm that the questions that we've and things that we've asked for this evening you'll hopefully be able to get to us and the one other area that we didn't discuss that I know we have never granted because we haven't had anyone apply is the small commercial exemption When we consider options such as Alderman Zwirko was discussing, I would just like to know if you're aware of any other small businesses in the community that would benefit from that exemption that aren't necessarily aware of it. And I know we discussed this last year as well, but we never really heard back from

▶ 40:24 Monica C. Medeiros: anyone. So I just wondered if you had, if you could let us know if you hear from anybody or if aware of any businesses that could benefit from that thank you thank you alderman MacMaster margolis alderman medeiros please thank you um just just some food for thought in terms of this discussion about uh commercial residential and how everything affects itself and in some to some of the points that alderman's worker brought up are very valid um but they're also you know just to to keep in mind we do a very small commercial base only 8.08 percent of the city and we did hear that although that there's been you know many building permits taken out to improve the residential homes in the in the city we haven't seen that kind of activity in the commercial uh aspect i've heard anecdotally

▶ 41:24 Monica C. Medeiros: some stories of some of the landlords uh raising rents which is is a good sign that our you know our property is worth a lot our business is worth a lot there's a great consumer base here for you know a lot of people who come in with a lot of disposable income but but it's not foolproof and you know our downtown is often you know the point of envy among our neighboring communities and so just as we do make those decisions that we you know keep keep that in mind and you know hopefully we find this the right balance that that helps the homeowners and at the same time doesn't overburden the thank you Alderman Medeiros seeing no further Alderman wishing to be heard we have a motion by President Kahn duly seconded by Alderman Inferno to take this order

▶ 42:19 Peter D. Mortimer: in its entirety and send it to the full board meeting on December 5th without recommendation where there will be further information provided are you mr. Wilcox and the board mr. Phelan and there'll be further discussion certainly about this and we will decide what we will do on it all in favor of the motion to send this forward to the full board without recommendation please say aye aye any opposed hearing none the order on classification will be sent to the full board with recommendation unfortunately unlike so many orders you will have to return so we uh we'll look forward to uh seeing you then and uh have a great evening thank you thank you thank you very much the next order we have before us it's one we uh skipped over so we could be on

▶ 43:12 Peter D. Mortimer: One time with the commencement of the public hearing is order. Scrolling quickly back to the top. 2017-50. Yeah. Make sure I read it correctly. The next order we will deal with is order 2017-50. It is the acceptance of pedestrian access easement at Stone Ridge Heights, a subdivision off Dexter Road. orders before you mr. president yeah this is a grant of easement to the city for us to maintain a public sidewalk on a new development so essentially this is giving the city the right to to maintain a sidewalk on this and I would presume that this is a condition of a special permit that's been granted relative to this subdivision so I would move to recommend the order president Kahn has made a motion to recommend this order for passage second we seconded by

▶ 44:32 Peter D. Mortimer: alderman forbes as it is your ward alderman forbes any discussion seeing none all in favor please say aye aye any opposed this order will be recommended to the full board for passage at our next full board meeting on december 5th motion to adjourn alderman mcintyre margolis has made a motion to adjourn but before we accept that motion to adjourn on a point of personal privilege alderman forbes police thank you mr chairman um i know i've sat here for the last couple of months uh it's been a very very difficult time not only for myself but for my family my father's passing uh he was a 10-year member of the board he's well loved here in the community anybody that knew him loved him and respected him so just on behalf of my family i just want to say thank you for the hundreds of

▶ 45:24 Scott M. Forbes: cards of well wishes and support for the thousand plus people that walk through the line out of services for the 400 people that showed up at Memorial Hall on the veterans comedy night and what you raised upwards of $15,000 for the bill for scholarship fund and for a simple sock drive my father started ten years ago that has now turned into 25 bags of clothes that are in my front hall with 12 drop-off locations all along the north shore to everybody watching at home and to everybody here in this room i just want to extend my deepest and heartfelt thanks and appreciation thank you mr chairman yeah here well said alderman forbes alderman mcintyre margolis has made a motion to adjourn duly seconded by alderman Zwirko all in favor please

▶ 46:13 Peter D. Mortimer: say aye aye any opposed hearing none the committee on appropriations is hereby adjourned thank you Thank you, one and all.

Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2016-11-28

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