Board of Assessors

Minutes of the Board of Assessors Meeting of January 20, 2011 A meeting of the Board of Assessors was held on Thursday, January 20, 2011, in Room 208, 2nd floor of City Hall. The meeting was called to order at 8:15 AM by Chair Marylou Blaisdell Members Present: Marylou Blaisdell Kevin Moriarty Dominic D’Antoni Assessing Staff Present: Angelo Marino Louise Brown Gary Turgiss Cheryl Walley Minutes of the Meeting: Minutes of the meeting of January 6, 2011, were approved unanimously. Abatement Requests Presented: A complete listing of all abatements approved/denied is available in Assessor’s Office. Appointments: None Staff Items: Ms. Louise Brown, Supervisor of Assessing Administration, presented the Board member with a Warrant and Current Use – Land Use Change Tax Lien Release for Map G/Lot 24 and Lot 493 and Map F/Lot 1571, which the members each signed. Angelo presented a settlement he has been working on for a 2009 BTLA appeal for the property located at 590 Amherst Street. He explained this is the property with TJ Maxx and Panera Bread on Amherst Street. After speaking briefly regarding this, the Board made the following motion: MOTION BY Marylou Blaisdell to approve the proposed settlement on the 2009 assessment of 590 Amherst Street, pending receipt of a settlement agreement signed by the taxpayer or taxpayer’s representative. SECONDED BY Dominic D’Antoni. MOTION CARRIED. 1 of 2 Mr. Marino advised he has begun to look at statistics for 2011 and right now we are going to be at about 101% for the equalization ratio for 2010. Our COD is going to go from 8 to 9 and there are not a lot of problems with vertical equity so he is thinking about waiting another year to update the assessments instead of updating them in 2011. He looked at sales data from 2008, 2009 and 2010 using the time period of October 1 through September 30 each year and single family homes have gone up in value about 2% from 2009 to 2010. We are leveling off on the bottom of the market and maybe waiting another year for the economy to stabilize would be a good idea. After being updated by Mr. Marino regarding equalization, the Board members concurred and supports this decision to forego any updating of assessments for tax year 2011. Old Business: None MOTION BY Marylou Blaisdell to adjourn at 8:37 AM. SECONDED BY Kevin Moriarty. MOTION CARRIED. Transcribed by Cheryl Walley Department Coordinator 2 of 2