[Speaker 5] (0:12 - 2:20)
Alright, welcome everyone. We've got a busy agenda, try to get through as much as we can before a seven o'clock public meeting on task classification. First, before we get started, I want to move to public comments.

Public comment is an opportunity for members of the public to express their opinions on items both on and not on the official agenda. Public comment is not intended to be a discussion, debate, or dialogue between or among the select board and residents. Additionally, before sharing their comments, we'd like residents to please state their names, addresses, and if known voting precinct.

Each speaker will be limited to speaking once for a maximum of three minutes. Residents may raise new issues, identify community problems, and comment on past, present, or future agendas. Absent extraordinary circumstances, the board will not respond or react to the issues raised and they should not be discussed or debated at that time.

We request residents speak respectfully and refrain from criticizing or disparaging individual committee members, town staff, or other resident groups or individuals, and we request residents refrain from making comments that contain political statements or include commentary, criticisms, or other statements about any town staff. Individuals may speak at the discretion of the chair. With that, is there public comment either here or on Zoom?

And if people want to submit public comment, they can do so at my email address which is nduffie at swampscottma.gov. Any public comment? Not seeing any. We will move on to our first agenda item, which is recognition of service to two amazing long-serving volunteers, Tom Ruskin and Monica Tambourine, and they are such humble, incredible people that they preferred not to be here.

[Speaker 12] (2:20 - 2:28)
Well, Tom, I believe, is in Florida, and Monica emailed me, said she was very appreciative, but she could not make it tonight.

[Speaker 5] (2:28 - 2:40)
Perfect. So we have Tony Abrandowitz, the current chair of the Conservation Commission, and also a volunteer extraordinaire to accept these awards and gifts of appreciation.

[Speaker 12] (2:41 - 5:19)
This is on, right? Yeah. As Neil said, my name is Tony Abrandowitz, and I'm the chair of the Swampscott Conservation Commission, and I'm here tonight to give tribute to Tom Ruskin and Monica Tambourine, who both retired this past year.

When I first joined the Swampscott Conservation Commission, Tom and Monica were already very long-standing members. As a newbie to the Commission, I learned a lot from them, not only the workings of the Massachusetts Wetlands Protection Act, which the Commission administers, but also on the rewards of volunteerism. Becoming volunteers on the Commission, Tom and Monica made a commitment to share that most precious of resources, their time.

Without volunteers like Tom and Monica, our town would really be at a loss. An unknown author once said, volunteering is the ultimate exercise in democracy. You vote in elections once a year, but when you volunteer, you vote every day about the kind of community you want to live in.

The Conservation Commission job is not an easy one. It requires a continual commitment, firm commitment, to conservation and public service, and that is what Tom and Monica brought to the Commission. The responsibilities of a Conservation Commission require a great deal of study, learning, and thought by its members, who become experts only by patience, hard work, and ongoing training and education.

Tom and Monica's long-standing commitment to volunteer on the Commission made a difference for open space and wetlands and other water resource protection in our town, something they should be very proud of. I know I speak for the others on the Commission when I say that Tom and Monica have been missed since their retirement, and while I know that they chose to volunteer selflessly and without expectation of being recognized or rewarded, the Select Board and I, on behalf of the Commission, wish to do just that. We want them to know just how much their years of dedication are appreciated and valued.

I am therefore pleased to accept on their behalf these certificates of appreciation and awards. Thank you.

[Speaker 5] (5:27 - 6:14)
Thank you, Tony, for coming down and for accepting these awards. So the official citation of appreciation is in recognition of their extraordinary contributions to the town and its conservation efforts as a longtime member of the Conservation Commission, and that's for Monica and I'm the same for Tom. And then we have these awards for Conservation Commission on behalf of a grateful community.

Thank you for your dedication and service to the town of Swanscott. Anything from the Board?

[Speaker 7] (6:17 - 6:19)
I really appreciate their service.

[Speaker 1] (6:22 - 6:53)
Yeah, your leadership, like you're an appropriate person, perhaps, for their leadership, but I'm glad that the Committee's Commission's in such good hands with you, and I'm grateful for all their time, and I'm grateful for this recognition, as I think there are so many people that, in years and decades past, have kind of gone into the sunset unnoticed until their absence was noticed in the Committees and the void is left, but certainly by the appointing authority to acknowledge its importance.

So thank you for doing it. Thank you, Sean.

[Speaker 3] (6:53 - 8:06)
Yeah, I, you know, I'm humbled at times to think of, you know, the open space that we've been able to create, the parks, the trails, the things that will last for generations, and we think back on the leadership of the members of this Commission. It seems, you know, incredible to be able to serve as a volunteer on a Conservation Commission and create a future legacy that will last forever in a, in your hometown. This is the gift that members of this Commission, members of the Planning Board, members of other boards and committees get to give, and certainly, you know, we recognize these two incredible individuals, but there's so many more that continue to serve, and it does really make Swampskate the unique community that it is.

So I share that not just for those that are currently serving, those that have served, but those that we need to serve. You know, there's some extraordinary opportunities here, so contact us and look online and really engage in democracy. Wonderful words tonight.

Thank you. Thank you.

[Speaker 5] (8:13 - 8:22)
Okay, so moving on, we have an update on license renewals, and I think is Angelica or...

[Speaker 3] (8:22 - 8:38)
Angelica is going to be presenting a presentation tonight, but we have Chief Posada here as well, and, you know, representatives of the Swampskate Police Department to really support some of these responsibilities.

[Speaker 1] (8:46 - 8:57)
Joe, do we have camera issues? Yeah, we just noticed that didn't switch when Tony was speaking. I didn't know.

Otherwise, it didn't switch on our screens anyways. Yeah.

[Speaker 11] (9:09 - 10:21)
Good evening, everyone. I'm here to open the presentation that explains about Town of Swampskate's annual license renewals. I'm here to express to our community that we take this oversight and regulation very seriously.

We as a police department could not make this happen without our partnership between the building department, the community and economic development department, and our partners at ABCC. I just want to know that this topic is not about this interpreting and enforcing regulations, but it's about the collective vigilance that we have as a community to ensure that our children, our residents, and our town is safe in terms of public safety. And so, while I don't take credit for any of this, I give all the credit to Angelica Noble, Marzi, and Sergeant Jay Locke, as well as Steve Cummings from the building department.

So, without further ado, I'll let Angelica explain the process to you.

[Speaker 5] (10:22 - 10:23)
Thanks, Chief.

[Speaker 2] (10:25 - 14:48)
So, I know that a number of the board members were here last year and the year before for this presentation, but we're gonna go over it again for our new board members and we're gonna do it a little bit differently this year. So, instead of having liquor license be separate from common victualers, we put them all together so it was just one easy presentation. So, this presentation will cover the retail liquor license, common victualer license, entertainment license, as well as class 2 used cars license.

So, I'll start by... Can you just click? Oh, there it goes.

I will start by going over the process. So, the process for annual license, the annual liquor license, begins in October. So, we receive the packets from the ABC with all of the materials that we need to send out to our license holders.

And then, a list of the licensees is sent to the building department and the police department. Also, the fire department has the list, too, because all three agencies conduct their own inspections. So, in November, we send out the packets and licensees come in.

They're fingerprinted at the police station and then inspections are completed by the building department, the fire department, and the police department. Each inspection has its own set of guidelines, but at the end, we all come together to make sure that everyone has done their inspection. And then, also, Patrick, the town treasurer, confirms that all licensees are current as far as their invoices due.

So, we just make sure that all licensees pay all of their bills up until November 30th. So, then, in December, we're here tonight. The select board is going to vote to approve the liquor license and then I take the renewal forms that are all signed within the month of November, send them to the ABCC, and then I create the license and the license are then distributed to the establishments.

I wrote on here that an approved license will not be issued if there are pending items. So, in the past, what we did is we always anticipate there being some sort of item that is pending, but I don't physically give the license, which means they're not able to serve unless that is taken care of in December. And then, I just wanted to throw on here, too, that the liquor license isn't just during the renewal season.

We also have a number of amendments that come in throughout the year. In this year, we had a new license that was Pomona. We also had a transfer of license from Too Tyriffic by the Sea.

Right now, we're pending the alteration of premise for Cafe Avellino and we also had Uno's that has closed. So, one of the one of the biggest parts of the liquor license renewals is the fingerprinting process. So, I believe it was in 2009, the town of Swampscott adopted a policy to have the responsible manager on the license be fingerprinted.

So, we have them come in, they're fingerprinted, it's sent to the FBI and comes back, the chief signs off on it, and then if they're suited to hold the license, they're obviously approved. We do collect annual fees for those. So, there's $70 that goes to the town and then $30 goes to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

And so, the next part of the license, which Sergeant Locke is going to speak on, is the annual compliance. So, this is the process in which we have an underage individual go into a business and they attempt to get served alcohol and that's how we ensure that our licensees are complying with the law. And then also on here are the daily operations that the police department does each and every shift to ensure, as Chief Quesada said, that our licensees are following rules, regulations, and ensuring a safe community.

Would you like to explain?

[Speaker 6] (14:49 - 18:00)
When we do compliance checks, thank you, there's a set of regulations we have to follow pretty rigid to the safety of the juvenile and for everybody else involved. We try to get someone with a young look. We can't change their look.

We can't make them look older. They cannot carry any ID. We give them a set amount of money for every establishment, the same amount of money, and they go order the exact same beverage at every place.

If a violation does happen, they need to remain on scene for a moment or two in like a, say, a bar establishment. They need to remain on scene for a few moments and then they'll come out and grab one of the investigators, myself or Detective Delano. Sometimes we have an ABCC representative with us, and there's a very rigid vetting process to get them into what they're doing.

Obviously, we have to sign off with the parents. We document them thoroughly, who they are. We check the backgrounds, any criminal background, so we know we have a clean individual going to do what we need to be done.

Then for the notification purposes, for letting that the situation is going to happen, in January of 23 coming up, notices will be posted in public areas such as the Police Department, Town Hall, and then it'll be sent out to the press that these checks are going to happen. And from that, we did last year, we completed last year. We had a couple violations, as you were aware, and they went through their process and everybody seems to get the educational part of it, which is the main goal here.

I'm not trying to hurt anybody, but there are rules and regulations that need to be followed. Also, we hosted a training not too long ago with the ABCC at the Police Department. If we could do more, that'd be great, but you know, with the time and money, it's a big thing.

But that's definitely a positive to have that type of training come in, and we're able to host it, and it's available to other officers to assist in what we're doing. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, so when there's a component in OUI arrest that you document where they had their last drink, if it's an establishment, and that goes into the report, which then gets processed through the court, and it's not a component of the Police Department compiling the information, it actually goes to the town clerk office, town hall.

So you'll be able to pick up any violation coming from that end much easier.

[Speaker 9] (18:06 - 18:14)
Were there any establishments that were out of compliance this most recent?

[Speaker 2] (18:15 - 18:37)
The last compliance check that we had was, so it was, the compliance check was last November, and then the hearings were in December. So we haven't done one since then. Got it.

But they plan, I believe Ted has it planned for January, right?

[Speaker 6] (18:37 - 18:41)
It's gonna be posted in January, and then we'll set out to do.

[Speaker 7] (18:41 - 18:46)
So I have a question. So you tell people we're gonna be doing a compliance check? You have to.

[Speaker 6] (18:46 - 18:47)
It's part of regulation.

[Speaker 7] (18:47 - 18:50)
You have to? You can't say this and we're gonna do a compliance check all year long?

[Speaker 2] (18:50 - 19:13)
Well, that's it. So the notification says that there'll be a compliance check throughout the calendar year, and then we can go in whenever, whenever. But the issue is that you can't just say, okay, let's go in on Friday.

You have to find the underage person who's going to go in. You have to make sure they get signed off on. So it's not, it's kind of a big process, but it could be any day.

[Speaker 7] (19:13 - 19:21)
And how often, how often do you do compliance checks throughout the year? Historically, I believe they've been...

[Speaker 6] (19:21 - 19:33)
Once a year for, of that nature, but you know, if we have an incident, obviously we investigate as incidents come in. But we have a set scheduled event once a year for...

[Speaker 2] (19:33 - 20:17)
And the ABCC has their own event that they do. So it's essentially two compliance checks per year, but, and they're both like surprise visits, but the establishments know about it. And then, just to clarify too, so the police department also does like an administrative compliance check.

So that's when, if there's a new business owner who opens, if there's transfer of license, and every November during licensing season, criminal investigation CID department, they go in and they ensure that the proper signage is up. They have, their license is posted. They make sure that all of, all of their signage is up to date.

So that's an additional, kind of like an additional compliance check, but it doesn't include an underage individual.

[Speaker 7] (20:18 - 20:20)
And is there any educational training for actual businesses?

[Speaker 2] (20:21 - 23:10)
We hosted a training last year where we had a special investigator from the ABCC. It was actually this year, it was in March. She came to the police station and we invited all businesses and we, we encouraged them to come, and I believe all but one came, and it was because they had some, something else, some prior obligation that they had to go to, but we also encouraged them to send anybody.

So if they wanted to send their wait staff, they could come. It wasn't just the owner. So we tried to make sure that the whole from top down would be able to be trained.

And we do hope to schedule this at least once a year, but it is hard to schedule with the ABCC. It's hard to get somebody out, but we're gonna try and schedule it, make it an annual thing. Are there any other questions about the compliance, the process?

Diane, can you switch? Okay, so we'll now get into the types of license and the licensing fees. So we have Section 12, which is on-premise, and Section 15, which is off-premise.

And we have, so there's a restaurant license, which we have all, I don't want to just read off the slide, but there's all alcoholic beverages is $2,400, restaurant with just wines and malts is $2,100, and so on. So there's restaurants, clubs, veterans clubs, package stores, off-premise and package stores, off-premise. And then most recently, we just adopted a policy for bring your own bottle, which will be $2,400 per year.

And just because this is a new policy that we had just adopted, I did add in some of the most, what I thought was the most important information about the BYOB for anybody who might be watching or interested. The policy was adopted in November of 2022. This policy allows alcoholic beverages to be brought, to let the patron bring alcoholic beverages in, and it is limited to only malts, malt beverages and wine.

We would require that the employees of the business are trained through an industry-approved alcohol training program, and the consumption of alcohol must be limited to that of the common victual or hours, and the permittee must allow compliance inspections by a Swampsville Police Department or the ABCC. We require proof of liability insurance. Like I said, the fee is $400, and I'm currently working in the final stages with MARSI to finalize an application for, we have one business who is interested in this, so we're working to finalize that application and get it out to them ASAP.

You switch slides.

[Speaker 5] (23:10 - 23:16)
Just to confirm on that, didn't we decide that the first year there would be no fee?

[Speaker 2] (23:16 - 23:19)
The first, yeah, that's in there. The first year it would be waived.

[Speaker 5] (23:19 - 23:20)
Okay, just making sure, thanks.

[Speaker 2] (23:21 - 25:43)
This is the most exciting part, so I hope that this quote, I'm gonna try and explain it, I hope that it makes sense, but please stop me if there's any questions. So we'll look at the table on the left first. This is the quota for restaurants and clubs, section 12 on-premise.

So as you know, every 10 years there's a census, and that determines the population, and each city and town is given X amount of license based on their population. So the first section of our quota is for all alcoholic beverages. This number is based on just the census, so we have 17 allowed.

We've issued 13, so there are four available within the census quota. So in 2017, Sean brought it up that the town of Swampscot could really benefit from having additional license, so we did have eight additional license added via special legislation. We have used two of them, and so there are six of those available.

So in total, we have 10 all-alcoholic beverages license available in the town of Swampscot. Something that I did want to point out for special legislation is that there are guidelines for special legislation, so it has to be in B1, B2, or B3 districts. So as long as the business lies within those districts, then we could grant their license under special legislation, and this is also a great tool that we can use to maximize the amount of license.

So we want to be granting special legislation license in order to maximize our census license. We also have one veterans club. This is exempt from our quota, and I did double-check with the ABCC, and they said that those are unlimited, so we could have as many veterans clubs in town as we wanted.

It's not just limited to one, and the final type of Section 12 on-premise license is wines and malts. We have five allowed, and we've issued one, so we have four available. Are there any questions about the quota, the special legislation?

[Speaker 9] (25:43 - 25:49)
Yes. Angelica, are these licenses, use it or lose it? Like, is there any...

[Speaker 2] (25:49 - 25:55)
No, they're not. They were, the special legislation, no they're not. I believe they stick with the town.

[Speaker 9] (25:56 - 26:04)
Okay, so everything is census-driven, nothing is like, if you don't issue a license within five years, those get put back?

[Speaker 2] (26:04 - 26:17)
I've never, they've never said that. I can double-check with them, but they've never said that. I think that they anticipate the population increasing, right?

So you're saying, like, if the population were to decrease, would they deduct license if we don't?

[Speaker 9] (26:17 - 26:18)
Or if we just don't issue them?

[Speaker 2] (26:18 - 26:21)
No, I don't think so. I think that everything is based on the particular town.

[Speaker 9] (26:22 - 26:22)
Okay.

[Speaker 2] (26:22 - 26:27)
That's how they've always related to me, and special legislation would be the same way.

[Speaker 9] (26:27 - 26:28)
Okay, thank you.

[Speaker 2] (26:28 - 28:46)
So on the right-hand side, this is our package store license quota. These are off-premise. We have all alcoholic beverages, the same.

Actually, they're both based on the census, so we're allowed four. We've issued three. There's one available in wines and malts.

We have five. We've issued three, and we have two available. So in summary, we have ten license available for all alcoholic beverages, four license available for wines and malts for on-premise, and then one all-alcoholic beverage for package store, and two wines and malts for package store.

The next slide is a visual that just shows, it breaks up the different sections, so it's essentially the same. It shows our two businesses who were granted under special legislation, which is Cafe Avellino and Mexicali Grill, and also the Veterans Club has a little green star there, so it's just important to know that those are exempt from our quota, and then on the right is just a visual of our different businesses that we have, and then the next slide. So these are all the license.

I don't need to go through them, but I will point out that we do have two licensees whose inspection is pending for their own internal issues that they have to fix internally, and then once they do, they're gonna reach out to us as soon as possible, but of course if they don't do that before the end of the year, they will not be given a license, and they would have to reapply as a new license, and then the rest of the businesses, their building inspection is scheduled for tomorrow, and then we do have one business who is pending a change of manager, and then another business who is applying who is seeking a new location. Are there any questions? So that sums up the liquor license.

If there's any specific questions that I can answer about it.

[Speaker 7] (28:47 - 28:50)
Where do we fall in line with the fees compared to other communities?

[Speaker 2] (28:51 - 29:03)
So I did look at other communities. We assess every year. We look at Marblehead, Lynn, Salem.

We are very comparable to them. We're kind of right in line. We're not like way under, way over.

[Speaker 3] (29:07 - 29:18)
We do look at that every year. We ask these questions every year when we go through the presentation, and we're gonna continue to, you know, look at your communities just to make sure that we're competitive.

[Speaker 5] (29:21 - 29:27)
So these, the ones where it says scheduled 12-8, that's, their inspection is scheduled for tomorrow?

[Speaker 10] (29:28 - 29:28)
Exactly, yes.

[Speaker 5] (29:28 - 29:37)
And then the ones that say pending, they've been inspected and there are issues they have to resolve, or the scheduling of the inspection is pending.

[Speaker 2] (29:37 - 30:28)
Yeah, they have not been inspected. One of them is waiting for internal paperwork. They're a corporate business, so she had explained that they're waiting for their fire certificate internally, and once they get that, they'll be able to fill out the application to have our building commissioner go out there and inspect.

I'm not sure why it's late. I think they're just having trouble getting it internally. And then the second business that's pending, he had explained that it was a transfer of license and there was some administrative information, I guess, that they had to change with their fire safety.

But they do have an occupancy permit. They are all set. They're okay to open, but as far as the renewal, they need to change some items on their end, and then they hope to get that to us within the next week or two.

[Speaker 18] (30:30 - 30:31)
Okay.

[Speaker 13] (30:31 - 31:14)
And then one thing we would be remiss if we didn't remind you that you probably recall last year, C&L Liquor Store, who no longer has a storefront location, they were granted a six-month license, and obviously they still continue to look for a new location. They have not found one, but they did request a new license. We had reached out to Town Council to seek their directive in regards to the process that we should follow or that we could recommend to the Select Board, and they suggested that a show-cause hearing or do-cause hearing should be held by the Select Board regarding their license.

[Speaker 1] (31:16 - 31:20)
So we're not voting on that tonight, or we're voting on that tonight?

[Speaker 13] (31:21 - 31:40)
Well, what is in front of you tonight are the license renewal and C&L Liquor Store did request a license. We just wanted to bring to your attention that if you were to approve a license, I think you can deny it, or no, I'm sorry, no, you would have to do a show-cause hearing.

[Speaker 3] (31:40 - 32:06)
It's involved with a revocation, because essentially if the board denied the license tonight, that would be a revocation, and Town Council has advised us that, you know, in order to avoid any type of legal issue, it should be approved tonight, and we should schedule a hearing in January to ensure that the license holder has a due process.

[Speaker 1] (32:06 - 32:15)
But their license already expired. It did. So therefore they're not prejudiced if we don't renew them tonight, because they already have an expired license.

So what if we took no action tonight on their license?

[Speaker 3] (32:15 - 32:21)
It was my original, if you took no action, it would be tantamount to a revocation.

[Speaker 10] (32:22 - 32:25)
What did they put as an address on their renewal?

[Speaker 3] (32:26 - 32:33)
It was my original position that we were just not going to recommend this license. But we've never we've never approved a license that doesn't have an address.

[Speaker 10] (32:34 - 32:36)
Because if they don't have it...

[Speaker 1] (32:36 - 32:40)
Understood. I'm sympathetic to those points.

[Speaker 10] (32:40 - 32:44)
So if the address is inaccurate, then...

[Speaker 1] (32:44 - 33:14)
Well, they did come back to us pre- background. They came back and asked for a six-month extension to find another home, and so we gave them a six-month... Last December, when we did the licenses, we gave them a six-month license.

That's all they renewed it for, and they haven't come back or anything, and nor have they found a location. And the sole purpose of us issuing licenses, the criteria, if you look at it, is pretty much location dependent. So I don't know how we could possibly ever have the basis to issue a license if there's no location.

I just find that befuddling to me.

[Speaker 3] (33:15 - 33:20)
I share that perspective. I am reporting out what Town Council has shared with us.

[Speaker 5] (33:21 - 33:25)
So if we don't renew it tonight, then we would have a show-cause hearing.

[Speaker 13] (33:25 - 33:26)
Yes, the Town Council...

[Speaker 1] (33:26 - 33:45)
Before January 1st. No, I think what they're saying is, Town Council's saying you have to renew it, which again, if Town Council is gonna say things like this and you totally disagree with them, that's a good excuse to have Town Council sitting here so that we can disagree with them as well. Just because it's...

I don't mean to put you on the spot, but it's an asinine analysis.

[Speaker 5] (33:45 - 33:46)
We renew it and then have a hearing.

[Speaker 1] (33:46 - 33:53)
And then we give it to them, and then the burdens on us to have the show-cause to revoke it is just crazy to me, when we all know they don't exist.

[Speaker 13] (33:55 - 34:20)
So the message from KPOL is that if the Board is inclined to... is not inclined to renew the license, Tom McEnany, Town Council recommends that the Board schedule a show-cause hearing before December 31st this year to consider canceling the license under General Law Chapter 138, Subsection 77, based on the failure of C&L to exercise the license.

[Speaker 1] (34:23 - 34:28)
Okay, fine, and then that's what my suggestion would be, that we have a show-cause hearing.

[Speaker 10] (34:29 - 34:30)
I just have a background question.

[Speaker 1] (34:30 - 34:30)
Sure.

[Speaker 10] (34:31 - 34:43)
So they had a valid license when they had a building. They came before us and said, give us six months to find a new building. That expiration would have been the end of June of this year, correct?

[Speaker 1] (34:44 - 34:46)
Yes, I can't be exact about the dates, but yes, in concept.

[Speaker 10] (34:47 - 34:49)
Between June and now, they've done nothing?

[Speaker 1] (34:49 - 34:51)
Well, I don't know if they've talked to anything about it.

[Speaker 13] (34:52 - 35:05)
I've had several discussions with them. I shared with them locations of potential sites, new things that were coming on the market, vacant storefronts, and other locations. Unfortunately, none of them match their requirement.

[Speaker 10] (35:06 - 35:10)
Okay, thank you.

[Speaker 1] (35:11 - 35:19)
So is there a reason the show-cause has to happen before December 31st, since the failure to do so is not going to create a lapse of their permit, because their permit already lapsed?

[Speaker 18] (35:20 - 35:20)
Yeah.

[Speaker 1] (35:20 - 35:30)
So I think that December 31st makes sense for someone who currently has a permit, right? And theirs would lapse if we didn't take action, but theirs isn't lapsing because it actually already lapsed. We just didn't renew yet.

[Speaker 7] (35:35 - 35:41)
Well, and is there anything with the ABCC that requires us by December 31st? I don't believe so.

[Speaker 2] (35:42 - 36:38)
I know that the owner had mentioned like a pocket license, so other cities and towns, I've never looked into this, but they allow a pocket license, which you can just hold the license, so if you're looking, but I've never asked Town Council about that. One thing, I guess, just to keep in mind is that we do have a license available, so last year when he was asking, it was the last license, so it kind of prevented opportunity for someone else, but now that our quota went up, we do have a license available, so if the board chooses to, I guess, table that business for tonight and then we do schedule a show-cause hearing before December 31st, it's not preventing somebody else from exploring Swampscot. I know that that was one of the reasons is that we didn't want him to be holding a license and that would prevent someone else, but that's not the case anymore, so.

[Speaker 5] (36:38 - 36:46)
So, but I think that we have, we would have to renew the license tonight to have a show-cause hearing on December 31st.

[Speaker 1] (36:46 - 36:51)
No, I think Marcy's thing says if you, if you just read it again, Marcy, because it's actually supposed to be negative.

[Speaker 5] (36:52 - 37:05)
A non-renewal of the license is tantamount to revocation or cancellation, therefore, if the board is not inclined to renew the license, I recommend that the board schedule a show-cause hearing before the 31st. Before December 31st to consider canceling the license.

[Speaker 1] (37:06 - 37:26)
Right, so therefore, we're not, we're not not renewing it tonight, we're taking no action tonight, and then the reason before the 31st is because he's saying that for some reason we have to make a decision before the 31st, so we're just taking no action tonight. We're not saying no, we're not saying yes, we're, they, they don't even have, this is the absurdity of it all, they don't even have a valid license.

[Speaker 5] (37:27 - 37:34)
Well, that's why I'm, I don't understand the mechanism of having a show-cause hearing to cancel a license that doesn't exist.

[Speaker 10] (37:34 - 37:49)
Typically the license expires at the end of the year, so I just want to be clear that council knew that this was a six-month extension and that it did not go to the end of the year. I wonder if that is why he is saying we need a show-cause hearing by the end of the year, because he thinks it is expiring, but in fact also it's already expired.

[Speaker 13] (37:51 - 37:56)
I can go back and double-check, but I mean this, this was an ongoing discussion, they were, council was aware.

[Speaker 1] (37:57 - 38:13)
We've had numerous discussions with Town Council about this particular license. Once, once again, I appreciate the, their legal advice. Clear as mud.

Clear as mud. Helpful. All right, want to finish the presentation, then we'll...

[Speaker 5] (38:13 - 38:16)
Yeah, let's finish the presentation. Sorry, thank you, Angelica.

[Speaker 2] (38:18 - 38:42)
I was looking for the, an additional email from Tom, because he had emailed us twice with his initial response back when this had expired, but if I find it after I can talk about it. So, I think this concludes the liquor license portion of the presentation, and we will move on to the common victuals renewal process.

[Speaker 1] (38:42 - 39:07)
So, can I just make a comment on the, there's the, the Richdale, you have listed as an all-alcohol wine and malt, but I believe it's a package store wine and malt. You have it in the tables correctly, like your count is correct, but on this table, it's listed as an all-alcohol wine and malt, and Richdale is just a package, package wine and malt. Again, on page slide 11, your slide 11.

The last company is called Richdale.

[Speaker 2] (39:09 - 39:11)
All-alcohol wines and malts.

[Speaker 1] (39:11 - 39:12)
Yeah, but they're packaged.

[Speaker 2] (39:12 - 39:12)
Oh.

[Speaker 1] (39:13 - 39:14)
Yeah, so just, I'm sorry.

[Speaker 2] (39:14 - 39:14)
Oh.

[Speaker 1] (39:14 - 39:15)
You have it right now.

[Speaker 2] (39:15 - 39:16)
Yes, yeah, yeah.

[Speaker 1] (39:16 - 39:19)
On the bottom right, it's just here. I think you just erroneously just referenced.

[Speaker 2] (39:19 - 39:20)
Wrote, okay.

[Speaker 1] (39:20 - 39:22)
So just, if that gets corrected, make sure that we're...

[Speaker 2] (39:22 - 39:30)
Oh, I changed, pack, okay, yes, I changed, I flip-flopped, and should, that should say package store wines and malts. I'll change that, that way.

[Speaker 5] (39:30 - 39:30)
Great, thank you.

[Speaker 2] (39:30 - 43:17)
Next year, it'll be correct. So, the Common Victualers license, these and the entertainment are all processed through the Office of Community Development, but Marissa was unable to make it tonight, so I'm going to do my best to explain this. The Common Victualers is required for any business that serves food, so this is essentially the license that allows an establishment to have food and seating.

The Department of Health approves each application, so Marissa works closely with Jeff and they ensure that the Department of Health goes into the business and that they obviously are suitable to offer this license. And similar to the liquor license, assuming that these are all approved tonight, a license will be created and they will be brought to each establishment, and they do expire at the end of the calendar year, similar to the liquor license. There's a renewal fee of $125 for these establishments.

And the next two slides show all of the businesses who are applying for the Common Victualers license. A lot of the information is redundant, but we wanted to make sure that it was all here. So, these two tables have the hours of operation, as well as the capacity for each business and the renewal status.

So, we recommend that, same as liquor license, that all of these businesses are renewed and approved for next year, except for the few that are highlighted in red, which are pending. We anticipate them bringing their information before the end of the year, but again, if they do not return the information before the end of the year, they would not be given the Common Victualers license. Are there any questions about the Common Victualers license?

The next section of this is the entertainment license process. So, if a business is looking to have live music, dancing, trivia, movies, if there's any sort of events, we do require them to hold an entertainment license. This is also very similar to Common Victualers process through the Office of Community Development.

All balances have to be paid in full to the town before we issue this license, and they are renewed each year to be expiring at the end of December, and the renewal fee is $125. We have not received any complaints in 2022. Nothing has come in to the Office of Community Development, and we are, we had a meeting, and we're currently working to recategorize the fees for the entertainment license for the following year, just because this does include televisions, widescreen TVs, things like that, and we had a discussion that probably, maybe a TV is either going to be at a different tiered price, or we're just going to revamp it all and bring it to the board before we have to renew these.

The next two slides, again a little bit redundant, but related to this particular license, so they are the names of the businesses, the entertainment hours, which obviously fall somewhere in between their hours of operation, and then the right-hand column shows what the entertainment for that particular business is. Are there any questions about common victualers or entertainment?

[Speaker 10] (43:18 - 43:22)
Is there a distinction when the television is used as a menu board?

[Speaker 13] (43:26 - 43:30)
Well that would not be, so it's not, it's not considered entertainment, right?

[Speaker 10] (43:30 - 43:35)
I just wondered, because like Dunkin Donuts is on here as two TVs, are they watching TV, or are they just using it as menu boards, that's all?

[Speaker 2] (43:36 - 45:45)
That's kind of the discussion that we had about this, is that maybe, obviously, if you're at a sports bar and they have TVs that are playing sporting entertainment, that's a little bit different than Dunkin Donuts, who might have the TV there for background noise, or they're just using it to play music, so that's kind of what sparked the discussion of tiering the entertainment license and maybe having different prices for different types of entertainment. And that concludes the, so that basically, that concludes all of the license for my portion, which is liquor license, common victualers, and entertainment. The final license that we'll be discussing is the Class 2 renewals.

So the Class 2 are used car dealerships, similar pricing, so the annual fee is $125. There's an annual inspection conducted by the police department, and similar to liquor license and entertainment, is that all balances owed to the town must be paid in full, and the licensees have to renew each year. So we had, I have, Sergeant Locke is here to discuss the inspections and answer any questions and also talk about what we do as a police department to inspect each business to make sure they're in compliance.

But I just wanted to point out, right now we have three businesses who have active license, Four Seasons Motor, Paradise Auto Sales, and Euroline, but Euroline informed us earlier this week that they are unable to get us their application in time. They do plan to renew it, but it's just not gonna, they weren't able to get it together for tonight, but they do hope to get it together and present it to the select board at a later date, but also understand that there could definitely possibly be a lapse in their license, and there could be a time period in January that they aren't able to sell used cars. I also added photos if we want to just get familiar with which business is which.

[Speaker 7] (45:47 - 45:51)
Can you explain what that means?

[Speaker 2] (45:52 - 46:19)
It says number of cars, what does that mean? Six? So there, they are, their license, the exhibit parking plan only allows them to sell six.

So if each license, I have a license here, so an example is sales are limited to four vehicles parked in spaces two to five as marked on the exhibit parking plan. So that means that if they're only limit, if they're only licensed to sell four cars on their premise, they can only sell four cars on the premise.

[Speaker 7] (46:20 - 46:24)
Do you mean present four cars for sale, or do you mean sell four cars an hour, a day?

[Speaker 2] (46:24 - 46:26)
No, that's, no, they can only present four cars.

[Speaker 7] (46:27 - 46:27)
Okay.

[Speaker 2] (46:27 - 46:30)
They can, they're only licensed to have four cars on the premise to be sold.

[Speaker 9] (46:32 - 46:34)
So what are the other cars on the premise for?

[Speaker 2] (46:36 - 46:39)
Being fixed. So that's what we were discussing.

[Speaker 6] (46:40 - 48:53)
So a lot of times when they're bringing in these off lease or used cars, they need maintenance and need to be fixed. They, those vehicles are not designated for sale. They can have a certain amount of cars, whatever the building inspector says.

I don't know what's going to regulate that end of it, but like, like a Four Seasons Motor Group, for example, they can have six cars on display with, they have to be labeled, there's a sticker that goes on the windshield that's being full display, and being that like Four Seasons is a continuation of one building, so there's other businesses in that building. We have to have them pan off the vehicle. So if you drive by that at some point, you'll see chains up and down in the side that, that qualifies for fitting the, panning off of the vehicles from the other establishments.

So in their float plant, they have six cars for sale. They have them out front, again, displayed, have to have the titles and everything that needs to go with the car. But they can have, again, they'd have to refer to however the building inspector is going to allow vehicles.

And they have a large facility. In the back, there's a very large garage out back. They wouldn't even know that, as big as it is, which is usually full of cars.

They, I know, I just want to address one thing. I know that, so they can have six cars, and then I know the Board of Selectmen's had a question in the past about online sales. I spoke with the Division of Vehicle Services from Massachusetts Police, Sergeant John McNeil, and he tells me that there are no master laws regulating an online sale.

So they can have these six cars physically sitting on premises. They can sell an unlimited amount online, as long as they're not sitting, as long as they're not anywhere near their property. They can't have no other car.

That car cannot be on their property during this time.

[Speaker 1] (48:53 - 49:06)
So there are 49 cars listed on their website tonight. Have we checked to see if any of those 49 cars, besides six, are sitting on the premises tonight? Because there also was just under 50 cars parked at the premises tonight.

[Speaker 6] (49:07 - 49:39)
We just recently went, about four days ago, to check on the vehicles that are for sale. Again, out front, there's a book, a white book inside. It's got three areas for citations.

One area, they sign it when the car first comes in. Second area, that it's as long as it's sitting. And then the third area is when it gets sold.

So that book has to be presented to us when we go in. And any sale from that, this calendar year, has to be recorded in that book as well.

[Speaker 9] (49:41 - 49:55)
Sergeant Locke, just looking at slide 20, which is the images of Four Seasons Motor Group, it looks like there's two vehicles that are kind of parked, kind of up on the curb, on the sidewalks, a little bit. Is that, is that typical for...

[Speaker 6] (49:55 - 50:40)
In that area, there's, on that side of the street, or both sides of the street, but we we've addressed that multiple times with them. This signage has gone up and signage has mysteriously come down. So the town's taking care of that a couple of times for us.

But a vehicle being parked on the side, as long as it's not interrupting the flow of traffic, that's a tight street to begin with. We've always had a sort of litmus test of if you can walk by the car with a baby carriage type situation for a curb issue. You know, vehicles aren't supposed to be parked on the curb.

That's sort of a rolling area, not, not checked off with the granite curbing like it is on the other side.

[Speaker 2] (50:41 - 50:45)
This photo is also from Google Earth, so it's not from today. Yeah. So I don't, just...

[Speaker 9] (50:45 - 50:46)
Fair enough.

[Speaker 2] (50:46 - 50:52)
Just to make sure, I don't know what was there today. I'm sure there were cars there, but this is a Google Earth photo.

[Speaker 6] (50:55 - 51:10)
But the town is recently, looking at that photo there, the town recently in the past year has installed curbings and such to sort of show the perimeter where it's gonna, where you need to park and who needs to follow the rules.

[Speaker 2] (51:13 - 51:31)
There's just two more photos of the other two establishments. If there's any questions about these ones here, that's Paradise Auto Sales, of course, and then right across the street is Euroline Motors. So this is the business that is, that has not given their application, so.

[Speaker 9] (51:31 - 52:05)
Correct, yeah. I have questions here too. I know this may be a Google, a Google Earth photo as well, but I've driven down Paradise Road and there are six, seven, eight, ten cars parked alongside of a state road, and that is certainly a hazard, especially in bad weather, even in good weather.

So I'm just curious as to what, you know, what type of enforcement action Swampscott Police is taking just to ensure the safety of the roadways of motorists who are driving on Paradise Road.

[Speaker 6] (52:05 - 52:18)
So we've received complaints with that park situation. Also Franklin is, that white building is in the background, that's Franklin going on there, and some of those vehicles have migrated over there.

[Speaker 9] (52:18 - 52:19)
Yep.

[Speaker 6] (52:19 - 52:50)
And we've addressed that with the owner many times. Some vehicles have been tagged. The vehicles out front there, just beyond that vehicle, the final vehicle with the entrance to the DPW, is a no parking.

It's technically a state highway, it's not supposed to have any parking anyway. Yep. There's a little give because they're operating a business, those vehicles are supposed to be moving, coming and going, moving.

They're not supposed to stay in spots where they're in for an extended period of time. So we address what we can address at the moment.

[Speaker 9] (52:50 - 53:13)
Yeah, there have also been some complaints about, from one of, if not both of these organizations, these businesses on Swampscott Road as well, in the neighborhood. So I'm just curious if there have been any citations or other enforcement actions taken by Swampscott Police over here, just to protect.

[Speaker 6] (53:14 - 53:38)
We've issued parking tickets sporadically to different vehicles that are out there. We've also, again, Detective Delano will get on the phone and call the business, hey you need to move your cars, you know, give them a heads-up, a warning again, you're operating a business, but these businesses can't impact the surrounding communities, which on certain days they do.

[Speaker 9] (53:38 - 53:52)
Yeah, yeah, that's really my major concern, is the fact that there is there is continued, you know, disruption and cars parked for long periods of time in these residential neighborhoods from these businesses that just blatantly disregard.

[Speaker 6] (53:53 - 54:02)
We try to address the violation when we get it. That's a obviously a very well-traveled road.

[Speaker 5] (54:03 - 54:09)
Does it tend to be both of them? Is it both of the dealerships on Paradise?

[Speaker 6] (54:09 - 54:23)
Yeah, so the other dealership, as you know, is right across the street just out of the shot. So Swampscott Road is pretty much right behind where that camera's taking a picture. So they tend to stay on their sides with their own business.

[Speaker 5] (54:23 - 54:32)
Right, so Franklin tends to be Euroline. Franklin, yeah, we tend to have a, yes. Swampscott Road tends to be Paradise Auto.

[Speaker 7] (54:33 - 54:37)
And then what about Four Seasons? Do you have a lot of complaints from residents over there?

[Speaker 6] (54:38 - 55:01)
We've had as many, I think pretty much even, but yeah we've definitely had complaints. With the proper signs going up and we've addressed how they need to, if someone's parking there. Not all those cars parked there are theirs.

People going down to the plaza or somewhere else, the floor shop and such.

[Speaker 11] (55:01 - 55:21)
If I can chime in, we're currently working on a plan to address this. To be completely frank, a lot of the, we ask people about the vehicles and they'll say that's not mine, that's theirs. There's a lot of finger pointing in opposite directions.

So that's where we're addressing right now.

[Speaker 5] (55:22 - 56:17)
So Euroline, I mean my recollection is, so they just started selling cars. This is the first time they started selling cars. We issued them a permit last year and we had a long conversation with them about their parking plan in this particular issue.

We were, you know, given a lot of assurances that it wouldn't be an issue after the first month or two. I don't want to hear my voice like that.

[Speaker 1] (56:20 - 56:20)
Thanks.

[Speaker 5] (56:23 - 56:41)
So I think that, you know, there's just, there's been frustration with this issue, I think, dating back years. But certainly with Euroline, it's not as if this wasn't part of their application process. So I don't know, I mean.

[Speaker 10] (56:42 - 57:04)
That's one set of ads is terrible. You take a turn off the main road, you have to take it fast because you don't have a lot of opportunity, and then you pull on the street, somebody's coming around a car that's parked, and you've got cars on both sides. I travel that often, it's less than ideal on a regular basis.

And then adds snow on top of that makes it really difficult.

[Speaker 1] (57:04 - 57:34)
Can you clarify what it is that you're looking into? When we talked about traffic committee, we talked to traffic committee, and I think frustration with how we deal with traffic changes is pretty well documented. For example, Pine Street doesn't have resident parking signs up in an area that we four months ago voted to make resident parking, for example.

But are you like holistically looking at, just kind of give us a sense of what you're looking at?

[Speaker 11] (57:34 - 59:11)
So Officer Lloyd is in charge of this project, and so what we're trying to do is find out what legal teeth, essentially, that we may have as a police department, as a town, to enforce this, to ensure that this stops. Right now, it doesn't seem like we're getting a lot of cooperation in terms of, it's hard to determine whether, okay, you know, first off, we need to find out who these vehicles are registered to, where do they come back to, who are the owners of these vehicles. So there's a lot of legwork that's involved in this, and we want to make sure that we talk to the businesses so that they have an opportunity to speak for themselves and give us their version of events of all the vehicles parked, as well as us coming up with some type of plan to address this, whether it be, you know, we try to tow all the vehicles, do we have the correct signage in place, and again, contacting town council to see and find out exactly what we can do to change this, because I agree with your sentiments. I, as well, especially coming from the outside, just driving into town, it just, nothing irks me more than to, oh gosh, I'm gonna pull out into this road, I hope I don't get hit, and so that, without giving specifics, Peter, on exactly, we are trying to kind of build a case into, okay, what can we do to resolve this issue, because it's obviously not happening.

[Speaker 2] (59:15 - 59:28)
I think, Sean, you might be able to clarify this, but I think that the building commissioner, too, was looking into options, right, to give citations on the town side for these businesses who are not compliant, so.

[Speaker 3] (59:28 - 59:51)
That's correct, we did meet today. Unfortunately, you know, as Selectman Speleos has pointed out, we have been talking about this for not too long, and part of this is zoning compliance, and it's also the Select Board regulatory compliance with the license, and so we've just got to, we've got to just start enforcing compliance.

[Speaker 2] (59:52 - 1:00:03)
I think if we, I mean, if Officer Lloyd works together with the building commissioner, then we can really come up with a plan between our departments to be able to make sure that these, they're in compliance.

[Speaker 3] (1:00:05 - 1:00:50)
I think the most important, look, we want these businesses to be successful. They're small businesses, many times, I mean, we heard a very compelling story about the proprietor for this business, and I think, in some ways, I know that they're struggling to, you know, be successful, but they have to do it in a way that really ensures that the entire community will be safe, and part of our effort to really think strategically is to walk softly, but carry a book of citations, and let them know that they are going to get tied up in a due process of regulatory compliance if they just can't seem to balance the business with, you know, our responsibilities for keeping that neighborhood safe.

[Speaker 7] (1:00:51 - 1:01:34)
So, Chief, would it be possible to have a plan within the next four weeks that will present back to us, you know, including if citations are being written, if you are getting complaints, just some real empirical data versus non-empirical. I will say that I don't live that far from Four Seasons, and, you know, I find them, you know, I find them to be pretty much incompliant quite often, but maybe other neighbors don't. There used to be issues with parking on the side, and there hasn't been for quite some time, so, but again, that's just my experience.

Maybe other neighbors have different experiences.

[Speaker 6] (1:01:36 - 1:02:31)
I could just add something for enforcement purposes. You mentioned Pine Street. I'm the court officer for the department, so I handle cases going down, and traffic appeals, and such, and today, I think out of seven citations that were being appealed, I think five of them were off of Pine Street, so the officers are, you know, nod to the patrol units.

They're out there doing what they're doing. This is a very, this area here is a very highly traveled road, as we said. It's, you know, main access through town.

We have, I mean, any portion of the day, you'll see a cruiser posted up somewhere a little further up towards the school or right there, because we're coming down the hill. You're coming into that choke point, and it's also, you take on the left, so like you're saying, there's definitely, you know, physics of the road plays into a lot of things, so yeah, they definitely are out there doing that thing.

[Speaker 5] (1:02:34 - 1:02:48)
All right, any more questions or comments on any of this? So is the hope tonight that we approve the licenses in all these categories other than the ones that are pending? Is that in scheduled?

[Speaker 2] (1:02:49 - 1:03:08)
Yes, I think my question is, is it possible to approve, so of course approve the ones that are ready for approval, but approve others, and would we have to come back for, come back once we get that information, or can we approve them and then once they submit it, like approve it pending, and if they submit it, then we can give them the license?

[Speaker 5] (1:03:11 - 1:03:15)
I mean, I think we already, we talked about legal issue with that.

[Speaker 7] (1:03:18 - 1:03:21)
I would think if there's no legal issue, why couldn't we do that?

[Speaker 10] (1:03:22 - 1:03:45)
The distinction, I just want to make a distinction between those who have not yet applied, and those who have applied but have a pending matter. Yes, those, if they've applied and have a pending matter, I don't foresee an issue with that unless there's another, unless you know otherwise, but if they have not yet applied, then I wouldn't want to say, put the cart before the horse and say, well if you do.

[Speaker 2] (1:03:45 - 1:04:08)
No, I agree because I think, I mean, they had, we gave them ample time to be able to apply, so if they haven't applied yet, there's of course a reason, but my thought would be, just like you said, so if they've applied and it's pending, we could approve it, and then of course if they did not end up giving the information by essentially the end of December, then they would have to apply as a new license.

[Speaker 7] (1:04:10 - 1:04:15)
So, and it seems like the only, the only one that will be affected by that would be this Euroline Motors?

[Speaker 2] (1:04:16 - 1:04:19)
For class twos.

[Speaker 7] (1:04:19 - 1:04:26)
Right, so and then they're, they're existing, for Euroline Motors, their existing license is going to expire at the end of December.

[Speaker 2] (1:04:26 - 1:04:27)
Yeah.

[Speaker 7] (1:04:27 - 1:04:31)
Which means they're gonna have to run back in here before the end of December, otherwise they can't.

[Speaker 2] (1:04:32 - 1:05:09)
No, I'm sorry, I thought, I thought, Katie, you were, and you were asking about like the whole, the, all of the license that we're voting on, so I was referring to the liquor license, common victuals, and entertainment. Euroline would be, as you were saying, that they have not received an application, so they will be a new license no matter what. They are, they can't, they can't give it to us tomorrow and expect us to process it before the end of the year, but for, for example, Tyrific, so we've received their application, they're just pending something on their end, but we would hopefully vote to move that on that to fruition.

[Speaker 10] (1:05:10 - 1:05:19)
Got it. I still, I'm not very clear about C&L Liquors, and I still have issues with C&L Liquors. No?

[Speaker 2] (1:05:19 - 1:05:28)
Why not? I found the initial letter that we sent to C&L that, do you want me to read what it says?

[Speaker 10] (1:05:28 - 1:05:35)
Not the whole letter, but it, is it possible to just table C&L to the next meeting? Can we do that? Yep.

[Speaker 5] (1:05:35 - 1:05:35)
Yeah.

[Speaker 10] (1:05:35 - 1:05:39)
Because I just, I just feel like we're missing a lot of information and clarity.

[Speaker 1] (1:05:40 - 1:05:40)
I just think we won't vote on that tonight.

[Speaker 10] (1:05:41 - 1:05:42)
Yeah, I think that's okay.

[Speaker 1] (1:05:42 - 1:05:49)
Margie, can I ask you about Paradise Auto Sales is doing an expansion of their business. Can you explain the process they went through for the expansion of their business?

[Speaker 13] (1:05:54 - 1:06:23)
Absolutely. They requested a special permit to increase their, the number of bays that they currently have. As you recall, they had three bays where they operated, did repairs, and other servicing of vehicles, and they actually increased, increased it by two, so now after the construction, they'll have a total of five bays that were approved by ZBA.

[Speaker 1] (1:06:24 - 1:08:19)
So can you just help me, and this is not a licensing thing, but it speaks to licensing, right? Because if I remember correctly, their special permits contain a lot of language about how many cars they can have parked on the parking lot over hours, how many cars can be in a state of disrepair, etc., etc., because it kept under zoning. This is a B1 district.

Under zoning, this is a prohibited use. It's prohibited. So their grandfather, I'm going to assume their grandfather, which means that you can make conforming changes, but you can't make non-conforming changes.

An expansion from three to five bays is making a business that's this big, this big, which if it's prohibited is non-conforming. So I'm just, was there not any, the whole point of changing zoning to make things prohibited was because at some point the planning body and town meeting made the decision that having this continue, we would rather it phase out as opposed to having it be a continued use, and my guess is it's the proximity to Swampscott Road or Swampscott Ave, right? It's my guess why they did it.

But if the zoning board's giving permits to expand non-conforming uses when they're prohibited uses, I just, I'm raising this also to the town administrator, that's, you know, just, we seem to struggle with these things, like these, I get, we want to be business friendly, but business friendly just means consistent in my view, right? We're consistent in our interpretation of bylaws for the residences and for the business. So here you interpret business friendly as, well, we gave them a permit to go do something, that's great, but it's not neighbor friendly, and zoning is both.

Zoning gives you predictability and it gives you predictability is what your neighbor's going to be able to do, right? And so it works both ways, and I just, I point this out just because every year we struggle with these three properties in particular, right? And they are what they are.

They're, you know, I mean, we'll hopefully, on the margins, get them better, but every year, literally, this is my eighth, we have struggled on these properties.

[Speaker 3] (1:08:20 - 1:09:16)
Excellent points, and, you know, we meet, you know, we met as a team to go over each and every one of these properties, the building commissioner, the director of community economic development, you know, the police department, and town staff. I mean, we we've tried to look at the zoning and really understand, you know, where is our regulatory, you know, focus, and how do we how do we look at the master plan? How do we really support, you know, our responsibilities to protect neighborhoods, but to, you know, enhance and help small businesses?

We need to get better at this, and frankly, I will continue to pull a team around these properties. This will not be a once-a-year responsibility we're gonna meet next week. We're gonna talk more about how do we how do we really focus on just a few properties in this town that are commercial, and really make sure that they're gonna be regulated.

[Speaker 1] (1:09:17 - 1:11:24)
And mine's not the commercial. My statement's bigger. It's for everybody, but can I, it's because I don't want it to be, can I just suggest that we've got many communities now have their zoning board and planning board applications current, pending, and approved.

You can access them all online now. So you can see the filings. You can see, so when you see an agenda, you can click on the agenda item, and it'll take you right into that, or whatever it is, you know, to be able to do it, because that just gives transparency and light and air to people.

Right now, if any of us wanted a zoning application, we would have to ask you, right? We can't get that online. We can't find that, and I just feel as though if people got to know that these zoning applications were out there, I think sometimes neighbors hesitate to pick up the phone and call, because they don't want to be difficult, like don't want to be that neighbor.

And so I think having it online allows them to at least see it, know what's going on, so that they can't say, they get the notice at home, but the notice at home just says there's a hearing, and they would have to, they feel like they have to show up just to know what that's about. I think just good idea helps, because this is not, this is, if the town wants this use, then the town can change the bylaws to allow this use. I don't have an opinion about that, but I think once we make decisions about things, and I just, you know, I get it.

I just, I'm gonna go back to, I know Marcy, we're still looking for our senior planner, but I can't wait for a senior planner to be hired. It's a burden, and I think having someone that vets these applications more substantively, so they're getting memos saying zoning board, this is an easy one for you, zoning board, it's out of your hands, the town meeting decided this for you, right? You can't actually give the relief, as opposed to make them feel as though it's a jump ball, and they can decide this, or they have to decide this.

Frankly, it's a relief to the zoning board, not a burden to them. It's like that we don't, we don't have a say in this, you know, next. Just may be helpful, because here, I suspect we're going to see exacerbated issues on this property, because they now have five bays, not three bays, and so good for them.

Hopefully they're successful, but that, you know, translates ultimately into cars for sale, and people coming to us, and people coming to you all, and stuff, and again, I have no opinion about the use. I love that they pump my gas, I'm good with it, so, but.

[Speaker 13] (1:11:25 - 1:11:36)
Well, just to let you know that I recall that this was, this business in particular received a lot of support from the community when they were going through the process. They did document, and they did show that they had property.

[Speaker 1] (1:11:36 - 1:13:00)
But that doesn't matter, Marcy, and that's, we are beyond the popularity contest. We're beyond the popularity contest. We have to be, because if you're unpopular, and you're living next to this, and you're just having a struggle with the person, you shouldn't be penalized, because they get along with everybody else.

You should have rights just to rely on the bylaw. Just to rely on the bylaw. I'm not saying, like, when it's a jump ball, or a decision of us, you can come say your case, and we're yay or nay, right?

Police decide to give you a warning, or a ticket, that's based on a judgment in the field, based on their experience, and what they think is gonna be the most helpful, right? But when our bylaws say, heck no, type of thing, I'm just saying people, it shouldn't be based on that, and I'm not saying the Zoning Board does that, but no one should feel good, or better, just because, hey, I'm popular, as opposed to unpopular, and there are neighbors there that have shown up here. There's a neighbor across the street from this one that I know they're okay, because they've made arrangements, right?

The cones are put out every day at the end of the driveway, so that that guy's driveway is never blocked. That doesn't happen by accident. That happens because they made peace, and they, they, that's great, but that doesn't deal with the house two doors down that came last year, and sat here for two and a half hours waiting for us to get to it, who, who's not at peace, but he's, he suffers a lot of the same issues, so I just, there's no judgment here at all.

It's just more about, like, just, and your senior planner, man, that person's gonna have a great job. All right, if we have a senior planner.

[Speaker 5] (1:13:01 - 1:13:26)
Being mindful of the time in our 7 p.m. public hearing, so should we just, maybe we'll just go through these one category at a time. So, do I have a motion to approve the liquor licenses as they appear in the presentation provided with the exception of C&L Liquors?

[Speaker 1] (1:13:27 - 1:13:34)
Yeah, just, I just want to make sure that packaged our correction for Richdale, which I think is how the license is written, it's just the presentation's off.

[Speaker 2] (1:13:44 - 1:13:47)
That's what happens when you do a presentation for hours.

[Speaker 1] (1:13:47 - 1:13:54)
No, no, no, no, trust me, there's no, like, here there's truly no judgment, because you saw my presentations, there's a reason you're doing them and I'm not.

[Speaker 2] (1:13:54 - 1:13:55)
I feel like I redid it.

[Speaker 1] (1:13:55 - 1:13:58)
No, no, it's just, we just want to make sure nothing inadvertently issues.

[Speaker 2] (1:13:58 - 1:14:03)
Yeah, no, so those are confirmed wines and they'll offer wines and malts in the R package stores.

[Speaker 5] (1:14:05 - 1:14:13)
Great, so we had a motion, do we have a second? All right, any further discussion on that? All those in favor?

[Speaker 18] (1:14:13 - 1:14:14)
Aye.

[Speaker 5] (1:14:16 - 1:14:26)
Okay, common victors license, I think that approve them as presented in this package. So moved.

[Speaker 7] (1:14:28 - 1:14:30)
Is there a second?

[Speaker 5] (1:14:33 - 1:14:36)
I mean, yeah, okay, further discussion.

[Speaker 10] (1:14:36 - 1:14:45)
The pending will be, as long as they've applied, we can approve them as pending so far as they conditionally meet all the items that are pending.

[Speaker 15] (1:14:47 - 1:14:51)
Yep, say it.

[Speaker 9] (1:14:55 - 1:15:09)
David, move to approve the common victualers license, including those, including those with pending items, assuming that information is received in a timely manner.

[Speaker 5] (1:15:10 - 1:15:28)
Second. Further discussion? All those in favor?

Aye. Okay, entertainment licenses, I don't think there's anything pending here, so a motion to approve the entertainment licenses as presented. So moved.

[Speaker 18] (1:15:29 - 1:15:29)
Second.

[Speaker 5] (1:15:30 - 1:15:32)
Further discussion? All those in favor?

[Speaker 18] (1:15:32 - 1:15:33)
Aye.

[Speaker 10] (1:15:35 - 1:15:44)
So we are meant to get a plan involving the, I guess it's going to be four weeks. The plan is for enforcement.

[Speaker 7] (1:15:45 - 1:15:46)
Yeah, okay.

[Speaker 5] (1:15:48 - 1:16:06)
So class 2 licensing renewals, so this would be a motion to approve the applications for Four Seasons Motor Group and Paradise Auto Sales. So moved. Is there a second?

Any further discussion on this? All those in favor?

[Speaker 18] (1:16:06 - 1:16:06)
Aye.

[Speaker 5] (1:16:08 - 1:16:12)
All right, that's it.

[Speaker 1] (1:16:13 - 1:16:23)
Angelica, best presentation in eight years. Angelica, thank you so much. I'll tell you, by far, best.

Great job. Yeah. And I just was, it was great to have it all consolidated and I appreciate it.

[Speaker 5] (1:16:23 - 1:16:27)
No, thanks for everything. I know this is a major amount of work.

[Speaker 2] (1:16:29 - 1:16:31)
I just have one final question.

[Speaker 1] (1:16:32 - 1:16:33)
You're going to ruin it. You're going to ruin it.

[Speaker 2] (1:16:34 - 1:16:42)
One question too far. If you say yes to this, it's easy. Are we okay with doing electronic signatures or would you like me to bring a license to be, okay.

[Speaker 5] (1:16:42 - 1:16:46)
A motion to apply electronic signatures to the applications?

[Speaker 2] (1:16:47 - 1:16:48)
To the license, yes.

[Speaker 5] (1:16:48 - 1:16:49)
To the license.

[Speaker 2] (1:16:49 - 1:16:50)
So moved.

[Speaker 5] (1:16:50 - 1:16:50)
Second?

[Speaker 2] (1:16:51 - 1:16:51)
Second.

[Speaker 5] (1:16:51 - 1:16:52)
All those in favor?

[Speaker 10] (1:16:52 - 1:16:53)
Aye. Aye.

[Speaker 5] (1:16:53 - 1:17:21)
Thanks. Thanks so much. Thank you, Chief.

Thank you, Chief. Thank you, Sergeant Locke. Thanks, Margie.

All right, moving on to public hearing, joint public hearing on tax classification. If we can, it looks like everyone is a panelist. Diane?

[Speaker 15] (1:17:24 - 1:17:29)
Yeah, we have a few attendees. Eric Schneider and Matt Kirshner showing as attendees.

[Speaker 5] (1:17:30 - 1:17:40)
Okay. And then Neil's here. Is Tasia one of the panelists?

[Speaker 16] (1:17:40 - 1:17:42)
Is that her phone maybe?

[Speaker 5] (1:17:43 - 1:18:03)
Is she on the phone maybe? She's there. She's a panelist.

Okay. Can you guys hear me? Yeah, I can hear you.

Thanks. All right, so I think first we have to open the public hearing.

[Speaker 1] (1:18:05 - 1:18:14)
This is a public hearing by the Select Board, but it's a public meeting for FNCCOM, and just help me. Okay.

[Speaker 3] (1:18:16 - 1:18:17)
They've been invited. No, I just wanted to know.

[Speaker 1] (1:18:18 - 1:18:19)
I wasn't aware of that.

[Speaker 5] (1:18:19 - 1:18:34)
Yeah, they have to call the order, but I think that we open our public hearing first. So there's a motion to open the public hearing on tax classification. So moved.

Is there a second?

[Speaker 7] (1:18:34 - 1:18:35)
Second.

[Speaker 5] (1:18:36 - 1:18:55)
Any further discussion on that? All those in favor? Aye.

Aye. Okay, Eric, do you want to call your meeting to order? And you have a quorum, right, Eric?

[Speaker 18] (1:18:55 - 1:18:56)
I do have a quorum, yes.

[Speaker 5] (1:18:57 - 1:20:08)
And then Neil, do you need to do the same? Okay, great. All right, so we're here mostly to talk about the tax classification and the shift.

We've had two meetings where we've talked a lot about the property values. This is actually technically a vote of the Select Board, ultimately, but as we did last year, Finance Committee and the Board of Assessors are here to provide their thoughts. I think last year we did this in a different order where we also discussed free cash, but we've already essentially decided on the free cash use from the special town meeting on Monday.

So the focus will be mostly on the shift to commercial and industrial properties, as well as the residential and commercial exemptions, which are basically the votes that we need to take, I believe, tonight, right, Sean? That's correct.

[Speaker 3] (1:20:09 - 1:20:37)
So I think we might be helpful to start with, Patrick, just to kind of go over some of the tax rates and areas that we can step into an overview of the residential exemption option and the small business exemption option, and then we can have...

[Speaker 1] (1:20:37 - 1:20:46)
Can I just ask, do those boards have what we're looking at? I believe so. Yeah, okay.

So we're, what's going to be on the screen is what everybody has. Okay, great.

[Speaker 3] (1:20:50 - 1:22:33)
So based on the action taken at town meeting on Monday, we've recalculated the changes to the single-family tax bill, to condos, to multi-family bills, and Patrick has a few slides that he can present to just go over a few of those changes. We talked a little bit about the split, whether a 1-7-0 shift or a 1-7-5 shift, you know, should be utilized. I had made a recommendation that this year it may make sense to shift up to 1-7-5 given the shift in valuations.

When the town's overall equalized valuation shifts disproportionately to one property category or another, it gives us a chance to really think about, you know, how can we mitigate that? And this year we saw less than a 1% increase in commercial valuations, and so when we look at residential at a 15% increase or condos at a 20% increase, the size of the burden that the residential real estate tax valuation is going to pick up is significant. And based on that analysis, you know, we have some slides that we can present just to give the board a sense of, you know, how is that going to affect the residential taxpayers?

How will that affect commercial taxpayers? So with that, Patrick.

[Speaker 8] (1:22:38 - 1:23:29)
Thank you. So we have a couple slides here that highlight some of the key impacts that we've expressed that we want to see when we're considering our options for shifting the levy. Diane, next slide.

So this first slide shows... Can you just move the picture? Thanks, Diane.

So the first slide here shows impacts on a median basis to a couple different classes of property that we analyzed. So first class of property would be the single-family, median single-family property, and that annual tax bill is expected to increase $483 using a 170% shift.

[Speaker 5] (1:23:29 - 1:23:32)
Hold on, Patrick. Eric Schneider, do you have a question right now?

[Speaker 14] (1:23:33 - 1:23:42)
Yes, just to clarify, is this the median change to the single-family tax bill or the change to the median single-family?

[Speaker 8] (1:23:43 - 1:23:51)
This is the tax impact to the median valued single-family home. So when we say median, we're talking about value.

[Speaker 14] (1:23:52 - 1:23:57)
And then on the later slides, there's reference to the average, so the same... Correct, yeah.

[Speaker 8] (1:23:57 - 1:24:03)
Just two different, you know, measurements of value. So we're looking at the median valued single-family home.

[Speaker 14] (1:24:04 - 1:24:05)
Okay, thanks.

[Speaker 8] (1:24:05 - 1:24:44)
So that's a $483 projected increase with a 170% shift. Condos valued under $750,000 would see a $110 decrease in their tax bill, and condos valued above $750,000, the median from that set, would see a $303 decrease in their bill, which is 1.7%. For multi-families, so these are two families and three families, that would be an $80 decrease to the median value property in that class. And I've also highlighted the estimated tax rate at $1,174.

[Speaker 15] (1:24:45 - 1:25:01)
So Patrick, to be clear, one thing is that the 483 is the number that I recognize that number from what we did at the town meeting effectively, but these are the subtotals. It's obviously all the same rate. You've just subtotaled our database of properties based on condos and their values and such?

[Speaker 8] (1:25:02 - 1:27:12)
That's exactly what we did, and you'll notice, you know, obviously the median single-family bill is going up, and the other three classes we're showing here are going down, and that's driven by value. So single-family homes have appreciated much more than these other classes in this valuation, yeah. Next slide, Diane.

Okay, we're gonna flip over to commercial. So same thing, assuming 170% shift option, the average commercial industrial property would see a $2,000 decrease in their bill, which is 5%, and the median property would see a $974 decrease, which is 7%, and the projected rate would be $21.04. Okay, and these slides are going to mirror the other ones. This is just using the more aggressive shift option.

So the median single-family home has a $451 projected increase under this option, which is smaller than what you saw before by about $32, and the condos under $750,000 of value see a $128 projected decrease. Over $750,000 of value have a projected decrease of $375, and the multifamily see a projected decrease of $112. So each class sees an adjustment down in their bill on residential if we use a 175% shift.

Projected tax rate $1,169. Next slide, Diane. And again, this is the commercial subset.

So we're looking at the average value commercial industrial property experiencing $890 decrease, which is less than what you saw under $170,000, and for the median value property we're projecting a $591 decrease and a projected rate of $2,166. That's all that I have, so I'm open to reactions or questions on these slides before we move on to...

[Speaker 1] (1:27:13 - 1:27:55)
You did a great job. Thank you. Can you help us understand to the assessor or to the Board of Assessors that I just...

I'm sure it's all math, but just help me understand that the single families went up, the property type 101 went up by 15.9%, but then condominiums, which is 102, went up 20.9%, right? But there's an increased number of parcels, obviously, with condominiums, but the average bill still went down so significantly. I can answer your question.

Never mind, I want the treasurer to answer the question.

[Speaker 4] (1:27:56 - 1:28:00)
I'm sorry. Go ahead. Do you want me to answer it?

[Speaker 1] (1:28:00 - 1:28:01)
I want anybody to answer it.

[Speaker 4] (1:28:02 - 1:28:24)
No, go ahead. Basically, the markets don't act consistently, and so when you're dealing with changes in value, you can have certain types of property, like single family homes, that have a lot of very low supply, very high demand, and go up at a much higher rate than other types.

[Speaker 1] (1:28:24 - 1:29:13)
So let me just say, I'm not questioning the fact that they went up at different rates. I'm trying to understand, I'm trying to extrapolate that, and what's the head map that gets me to understand why, if single-family residential went up by 15.9%, and if you put one of the slides back on, the average single-family, the median single-family tax bill is going to go up by 400 and some odd dollars, but condominium goes up by 20.9%, but the median condo, whether it's above $750,000 or below $750,000, is decreasing. What's happening, and the answer might be in the averages, not the medians, but that's a huge swing, and something intuitively doesn't feel right to me, and I wonder if it's because there's 21 new condominiums on your roll, but I don't think that's the, so I just don't understand why that swing.

[Speaker 4] (1:29:13 - 1:29:20)
That's going to skew it some, but the, again, I haven't prepared for this question, so I'm not, totally.

[Speaker 1] (1:29:21 - 1:29:21)
Now you want the treasurer?

[Speaker 4] (1:29:22 - 1:29:27)
Yeah, thank you very much, and my contract just shortened from 10 to 5.

[Speaker 1] (1:29:27 - 1:29:32)
No, no, no, it's a life contract, Dick. We've already told you that. It's a life contract, my friend.

[Speaker 4] (1:29:37 - 1:29:55)
There's a lot that goes into the changes in value, and it's not just the markets, it's improvements to the properties, it's new inventory coming online, and I'm not sure exactly, I'm not clear, really, on what you're asking for, asking me for, as far as the question goes.

[Speaker 1] (1:29:55 - 1:30:07)
Why doesn't a different type property that appreciates the same way a single family, why doesn't it have a corresponding increase to the average or median tax bill that that property would have?

[Speaker 4] (1:30:08 - 1:30:10)
Well, the average and median are going to be different anyway.

[Speaker 1] (1:30:10 - 1:30:27)
So you can pick whichever one you want. Both of them are way off. So, for example, here, can you just go back to a slide?

Can we put that thing back up so people can look at it? Go back to the slide, which was any of the ones that we just looked at. It doesn't actually matter.

I think it's the left-hand side. Yeah, there it is.

[Speaker 4] (1:30:30 - 1:30:36)
That's the single-family residential exemption. All right, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make this.

[Speaker 5] (1:30:38 - 1:30:39)
Top one.

[Speaker 1] (1:30:43 - 1:31:19)
Just go down, right there, stop right there. Single-family tax bill. Single-family values went up, on average, 15.9 percent. Condominiums, on average, went up 20.9 percent. But the single-family tax bill is going up by almost $500, but yet the condos, which have an assessed value that went up higher than single families, is still going down by going down, going negative. And I just don't understand the math that gets there.

I'm not doubting its correctness. I'm just saying it's counterintuitive.

[Speaker 3] (1:31:20 - 1:31:22)
It's not all of the condos.

[Speaker 1] (1:31:23 - 1:31:27)
No, no, no, it is. It is all the condos. It's all the class 102.

It's all the one at property value.

[Speaker 4] (1:31:27 - 1:31:45)
And it's primarily mass. There are a lot more single-family homes in town than there are condos. Just as we have, it's the shift in the levy.

It's the shift in the levy off of one type of property that is larger onto another that's smaller.

[Speaker 16] (1:31:45 - 1:31:50)
Right, so I think more single-family houses sold overall than condos.

[Speaker 1] (1:31:51 - 1:31:55)
Yeah, so that speaks to the value difference. I get that, but whatever. We can move on.

[Speaker 8] (1:31:57 - 1:31:58)
Something... Patrick, do you have a thought?

[Speaker 1] (1:31:58 - 1:31:59)
We're gonna have Patrick try this.

[Speaker 8] (1:31:59 - 1:33:12)
I'm gonna try. Okay. Because I made that slide.

So the the median that, like take one class, for example, condos under $750,000. The median value last year of that class versus this year increased 6.7%. The tax rate itself is decreasing percentage-wise more than that. So if the bill is a function of value and the tax rate, you know, the tax rate is shrinking percentage-wise more than the value appreciated.

So the difference is the reduction. Does that make it more sense or less sense? Say it one more time.

So that, like if you have the median condo value for condos valued under $750,000 last year was $335,200. This year it's $357,700. That's an appreciation of 6.7%. But at a 170% shift, the tax rate is reduced versus the residential rate last year 8.5%. So the rate is going down percentage-wise more than that median value went up.

[Speaker 3] (1:33:16 - 1:33:18)
The variance of that.

[Speaker 8] (1:33:18 - 1:33:32)
Right. The difference is the net reduction. The flip side, the single-family home, the median single-family home appreciated 16.3%. So that's more than the rate is being reduced. That's why there's an increase in that measurement.

[Speaker 4] (1:33:41 - 1:33:41)
Okay.

[Speaker 1] (1:33:41 - 1:33:41)
Thank you.

[Speaker 4] (1:33:42 - 1:33:48)
Yep. Thank you. Math was not my fortune in college.

No, it's not.

[Speaker 1] (1:33:48 - 1:34:00)
It's no. You guys, this is not. Don't dismiss yourself in any possible way.

What you do is great. It's more just every now and then a fact intuitively doesn't hit my head and so it's I'm the one asking the question.

[Speaker 4] (1:34:01 - 1:34:51)
The one thing I've encountered most of my professional career as an assessor is that there's constantly a shift of levy off of residential onto commercial. Particularly when the, I'm sorry, the other way around, off commercial on residential. Particularly when you're dealing with an appreciating market for residential properties and it's disproportionate and that happens not only between commercial and residential, but it can happen within residential classes, between condos and residential and in multi-families and single families.

So it's it's it's a matter of the market appreciating at different rates and the levy shifting off of one property type of property onto another because there's such a disparity in change.

[Speaker 3] (1:34:52 - 1:36:36)
The other thing I think it's important for us to just recognize, Dick you can share a perspective about this, for those of us that remember the Great Recession, the 2008-2010 economy. We saw commercial properties retain value while residentials plummeted and so while it's frustrating to think, oh geez, you know the commercials only went up less than a percent right now, the market is completely different for commercial properties than it is for resident. Residentials are the bellwether for what's happening in the economy and they'll react a lot faster.

Commercials will just, they'll slowly react to changes in the economic trend. So there there will be a time where we see an economic downturn and residential values will drop and you can probably rest assured that commercial will sustain and you'll shift a little bit back on to the commercial piece of the pie over a couple of years and and that's where the back-and-forth happens with the the tax rate shift and and that's why it's important for us to think about how do we stabilize that? How do we use the town's financial position and reserves to ensure that we're we're tethering a little bit of that back-and-forth shift of the market with the town's financial reserves? We've been trying to, you know, surgically apply a piece of reserve here and there to, you know, balance the levy with the school but also with with some of the shifts in the market.

[Speaker 1] (1:36:38 - 1:36:55)
I have one more assessment, I'm sorry, I have one more assessment question. No, I'm gonna get off assessment. Can you help me understand property type of 111 to 125 apartments?

19 parcel counts, we went down to 18 parcel counts, which we had a negative value of six.

[Speaker 4] (1:36:55 - 1:36:58)
We lost White Court, it went to condos.

[Speaker 1] (1:36:59 - 1:37:01)
I got you, so you had assessed it as apartments got it?

[Speaker 4] (1:37:01 - 1:37:02)
We had been assessed as apartments.

[Speaker 1] (1:37:03 - 1:37:08)
I got you, so there's a corresponding increase in condos, well not a corresponding, a bigger increase actually in condos, much bigger.

[Speaker 7] (1:37:10 - 1:37:31)
So I have to rely on what you and Patrick are saying because I have to tell you it's very hard to understand how values go up and on both condos and single-family and multi-family, how their values go up and how the tax levy goes down.

[Speaker 4] (1:37:32 - 1:38:55)
It does look a lot like smoke and mirrors and magic and playing with the bones to come out with answers, which is what appraisers do, what I always tell people appraisers do, but it is, the markets are idiosyncratic, they don't go up together. We all think that a rising market raises all boats the same, just like the tide, and that's not the case. And so you'll have condos that may, in the early 90s, we had the tax reform law of 1986, which took all investments out of condominium projects.

The Revere market, which I was asked by Magic to look at, MGIC insurers condo projects, to see what the market was doing, the market was in suspension and it was in suspension for two or three years, where no condos sold at all, and you couldn't tell whether condos were appreciating or depreciating. You could assume they were probably going down because nobody was buying them, there was a very high supply and extraordinarily low demand. At the same time, single-family homes were increasing in value, not at a great rate, but at a better rate, because that force imposed by the legislature wasn't put on single families, just put on condo projects.

[Speaker 1] (1:38:55 - 1:39:39)
So can I add, there's a form that you create, that you populate for your DOR submission that has all the classifications and it actually walks through all the math. But anyways, I'm just saying that it's brain surgery, but it does, if you can sit with it, you put in a number, if you can sit with it, it kind of put in something, pops out, and then that's what DOR ultimately is going to confirm all this stuff. But I'm saying there is a form, I've just forgotten it and it's not intuitive to me anymore, so maybe if you wouldn't mind sharing that with the board and maybe everybody after tonight so that we can look at it, because you're sharing mine.

It'll help. It's gonna help, I don't know how much.

[Speaker 4] (1:39:40 - 1:39:45)
Anything that helps is good, anything that makes you feel more comfortable with your decisions is important for us to do.

[Speaker 7] (1:39:46 - 1:40:11)
Well I'm just saying, it's very hard to understand, I mean I'm gonna benefit on one of my properties from this, but you look at everything and you're thinking, how is it possible that a home goes up in value, two family goes up in value, and yet the taxes are gonna come down? But that's where I'm being really clear, because I don't want anybody calling me tomorrow asking me to explain this. I want them to call you guys.

[Speaker 4] (1:40:11 - 1:40:22)
Yeah, tell them to call us. It'll be at our door on January 1st after they get their tax bill. We'll get abatement filings based on the increase in taxes on properties.

[Speaker 7] (1:40:24 - 1:40:43)
Well these increases are, I don't think are really, to be honest with you, are not gonna be a surprise. I think the community as a whole, we've known, you know, we're paying for our new school, we're taking care of, you know, our government. I honestly don't think, I don't anticipate it's going to be as surprising.

[Speaker 4] (1:40:43 - 1:40:48)
Okay, that's good news. I mean, I'll have a nicer January because of that.

[Speaker 1] (1:40:48 - 1:40:49)
It doesn't mean they're not gonna.

[Speaker 3] (1:40:50 - 1:42:09)
My experience is, you know, look, it's clear over the last, in the prior presentations, you know, we've had a pretty good run of modest increase in the average single-family tax over the last five years. It really has been a historic, you know, effort to try to, you know, mitigate the increase. But we still have a relatively high median in average single-family tax bill, and any kind of increase is going to affect a group of property owners that are financially on a fixed income or facing, you know, a significant increase.

This is not a, you know, this is a very reasonable increase for the magnitude of the investments that we're making. Certainly an investment that, you know, the town could have been making a decade or two ago. But we're finally catching up, and we're in a good position.

We've got financial reserves to help balance that. Even with this increase over the last five years, the average increase is a little over $80 if you take into consideration all of those years that we didn't have an increase in the average single-family tax bill.

[Speaker 5] (1:42:10 - 1:43:27)
So I have a question about the shift in our ability to shift. I emailed about this today, but I still don't quite understand it, because I think Peter asked about it when we first met a couple of meetings ago. But so last year, my recollection is we couldn't, we could not shift more than 170.

And then this year, it seems like we are able to. But the way I understand it, in a very simple way, is that I thought that was a contingent on the residential, maybe it's not the value, but the percentage of the residential, I'm not going to use the right terminology, but the proportionally what the residential was paying compared to commercial. And it seems like proportionally it's more.

And so that's counter to how I understood it. I thought if residents were more, then you could not shift as much. And so it's really like totally self-serving, but I just, I don't understand how we're able to shift this year, and we weren't able to shift more last year.

[Speaker 4] (1:43:27 - 1:45:16)
And again, it's not that I don't trust that we can't. It was to me last night, and I got, I emailed Steve Sullivan, who's our rep for local assessments, and asked him who our contact was, because I'm new to this. The last contact I had was Maura O'Neill, and that was seven years ago, and she's retired.

So I found out that who our contact was for the Division of Local Services, but she's on vacation until January, or away from until January on something. And so I talked to Tony Rashes, who's the head of the department, who I know fairly well. He said that he had me go through the form with him, and he said because we are not above, and I really want to look at the form, because I'm not sure, but he said because we're not above where we were, I am looking at the Department of Revenue form regarding this with a rate.

He said the lowest historical residential percentage since the first certification, or the last certification, was 87.0165 percent, and this year, because our rate at 1.7 would be 87.889.91 percent, we're above the minimum.

[Speaker 3] (1:45:16 - 1:45:32)
So we can shift down, we can shift up to the 1.75. Because, you know, commercial, the burden on commercial is shifting to residential. Right. We've been able to, like over the last few years, we've been actually reducing.

[Speaker 1] (1:45:32 - 1:45:46)
Yeah, so the fact that commercial went down, actually it's allowing us to put more on commercial. If commercial had gone up, well, disproportionate. Right, right.

Whatever that means at this point. But that's, again, totally counterintuitive.

[Speaker 5] (1:45:47 - 1:45:48)
I think I understand it enough.

[Speaker 1] (1:45:48 - 1:45:51)
Just turn your computer upside down.

[Speaker 5] (1:45:52 - 1:45:55)
I'm sure it'll disappear, but thanks. I appreciate it.

[Speaker 7] (1:45:56 - 1:46:16)
Patrick, when you're putting these slides together, things that would be really helpful would be to show what the tax burden is per thousand or per hundred thousand versus median and average. I mean, if you put median average, that's fine, but if you could also put either a thousand or a hundred thousand, so people could just sit and calculate on their own.

[Speaker 8] (1:46:16 - 1:46:25)
Yeah, I would say the slides didn't have the tax rate, which is per thousand. Okay.

[Speaker 4] (1:46:28 - 1:46:52)
Okay. Next slide. Yeah, my slide.

My first slide, I think, is that the effects of the shift in the individual tax bill for commercial residential properties. I'm dealing with averages here, so we're switching point of reference. That's the presidential exemption.

[Speaker 1] (1:46:52 - 1:47:13)
That's not the one. You have the one he wants on the screen behind it. Now, go to screen share first, and then right there.

Nope, nope. Go the other way. To the right.

I think that's that one right there. I think so. No, that was already forwarded on, though.

[Speaker 16] (1:47:24 - 1:47:25)
Is it in that package?

[Speaker 4] (1:47:28 - 1:47:41)
I don't think it's in that one, Diane.

[Speaker 7] (1:47:41 - 1:47:45)
Do you want to tell us about it?

[Speaker 4] (1:47:46 - 1:48:15)
Sure. I looked at Whole Foods and what was happening to Whole Foods. It's one of the biggest retailers in town, one of the biggest commercial buildings we have in town, and with a 170 shift, the taxes compared from last year to this year would be $13,506.37 less, and that's the shift that's occurring.

[Speaker 10] (1:48:16 - 1:48:18)
At 170 or 175?

[Speaker 4] (1:48:18 - 1:49:19)
170. At 175, the shift would be a negative $2,636.65, so there would be less of a benefit. Right.

And if we do that with the residential properties with the average single-family home, the increase would be $373.73 for 1.7, and the increase would be $339.59 for 1.75, so it would benefit the residential properties in that they would be paying less in taxes. It would have less of an increase in taxes. Residential, not single-family.

Less of an, you're right, right, right, right, right. I didn't anticipate your question this afternoon, so I didn't do anything with condos at all. That's okay.

[Speaker 1] (1:49:20 - 1:49:22)
Well, condos are in that number.

[Speaker 4] (1:49:24 - 1:50:44)
And I did an analysis, and it's off-screen, and I just, I had it with me. I just wanted to reference it. If we go with a 1.75, 175 percent shift, I looked at about 28 commercial properties in town, randomly. Nine would increase between $3.34 per year in taxes, and $1,945.16 per, in taxes. High to low. And a majority, a vast majority, the other 19 would decrease in taxes.

And I'm just looking down the line here. Decrease would be as little as $262.50 and as great as $22,752.35. So, you're dealing with a shift. You're dealing with a shift off of commercial onto residential.

And I think the point here is to make it as painless as possible for the residential properties. That's why we're presenting this, and that's why we're bringing this up at this juncture.

[Speaker 5] (1:50:44 - 1:50:55)
And that scenario you just gave, was that when you said there are nine that would have that, you know, $3 increase to $1,900, that's with the 1.75 shift?

[Speaker 4] (1:50:55 - 1:51:07)
It's 1.75. I was scribbling notes when I was waiting to come on, and I was just playing with those figures. I didn't look at the 1.7. I can do the 1.7. No, no, that's helpful.

[Speaker 5] (1:51:07 - 1:51:21)
That's just helpful to understand. So it's not, it wouldn't be every commercial property would be experiencing, would be paying less. Some would be paying a nominal amount more.

[Speaker 4] (1:51:21 - 1:51:34)
And actually, interestingly enough, service stations went up more in taxes than supermarkets and malls. Shopping centers.

[Speaker 1] (1:51:34 - 1:51:38)
I don't know why. Wait, you said supermarkets more than malls?

[Speaker 4] (1:51:39 - 1:51:54)
I wonder if the price of gas affects the overall price. That was post this. That happened this year, not last.

So I think, Naomi, you have a question?

[Speaker 17] (1:51:55 - 1:52:13)
Yes. Just the way we separated out the single-family homes from the condos, has there been some analysis on the small businesses versus the large ones, like the supermarkets? Like I'm thinking of the along Humphrey Street and what their burden is.

[Speaker 4] (1:52:14 - 1:52:52)
It's difficult along Humphrey Street because most of those businesses are in mixed-use buildings, and so it gets a little bit more convoluted because you're dealing with a residential factor, and you're dealing with a commercial factor on a weighted. One part of the building is going to have more residential and less commercial and vice versa. I did look at the new restaurant.

It used to be a Vietnam restaurant near where I live. Let me see if I can just pull that up. Titanic?

No, no, no, no. They're in a mixed-use building, so I couldn't do that.

[Speaker 1] (1:52:52 - 1:52:54)
They have very good Thai food.

[Speaker 4] (1:52:54 - 1:53:26)
So I think it's 286 Humphrey Street because I'm at 432. Okay, so their taxes are going to increase slightly, $370.64. And are they a standalone? They're a standalone.

So would that small Vietnam-based restaurant that's just been purchased and been converted to more of a pastry and mixed-use? Zest Friends. Zest Friends, right.

[Speaker 7] (1:53:27 - 1:53:32)
And then they would also, because it's a standalone, would they also benefit under the business exemption?

[Speaker 4] (1:53:33 - 1:54:10)
The small business exemption, if they have fewer than 10 employees, and let me look here. They're in their assessments under. It had to be assessed less than a million dollars in value and have fewer than 10 employees.

And then they would get, if they were worth a million dollars, they would get the great exemption of 10%, which would give them about $2,166 a year in shift of levy off of their property, the savings. It's not much. It's just 10%.

[Speaker 3] (1:54:10 - 1:54:27)
Then that potentially could shift an additional burden on another small business that has a triple net lease in another building, and it's really hard for us to get a sense of whether or not that really is going to have a meaningful benefit for those properties.

[Speaker 4] (1:54:28 - 1:54:40)
The thing is, it goes to the owner, and whether the owner decides to pass it through to the tenant or not is another issue. The owner may say, oh, this is good for me. I'm keeping it all for myself.

[Speaker 7] (1:54:40 - 1:54:44)
Well, if it's a triple net, it gets passed through automatically.

[Speaker 4] (1:54:45 - 1:55:03)
But sometimes they're gross leases, and so they don't have that capacity. The landlord gets all the benefit. Or all the burden.

All the burden. Oh, yeah. You know commercial properties.

I used to appraise them, so I know them fairly well myself.

[Speaker 7] (1:55:03 - 1:55:07)
Which would mean that the business necessarily isn't taking the hit. The landlord is taking the hit.

[Speaker 4] (1:55:07 - 1:55:08)
Right.

[Speaker 7] (1:55:09 - 1:55:10)
To answer Naomi's question.

[Speaker 4] (1:55:12 - 1:55:18)
And I don't know whether these people own their building or not. I think they might. I know it's sold.

[Speaker 5] (1:55:28 - 1:55:33)
Any other questions from folks on Zoom?

[Speaker 15] (1:55:34 - 1:55:53)
Just some historical context. I mean, you said we kind of do this every year, but in the last year we're kind of limited. But do we have any history of kind of going back and forth just based on what happens in the market?

Is that a standard thing that we do? The 170 or 175? And are we limited to 175?

I thought I heard that, but I wasn't sure.

[Speaker 4] (1:55:55 - 1:56:11)
That is the max that you can shift to. You can't go above 175. Okay.

And so that's kind of a ceiling. And you can, if it's appropriate, you can always shift it. You can always bring it down.

[Speaker 3] (1:56:12 - 1:56:51)
Based on historic recollection, I think, you know, prior to five years ago, I think the town had kept it at a 175 shift for years. A long time. So, you know, I know we changed it a few years ago.

And we wanted to see if there were small businesses that really would benefit. We did reach out to a number of small businesses, asked them to apply and or try to, you know, get some support for this shift. And we really heard very little from the business community.

[Speaker 15] (1:56:55 - 1:57:07)
So Sean, you're saying we made a conscious decision a few years ago to reduce the burden, in theory, on small businesses, and it hasn't necessarily played out to give the desired effect?

[Speaker 3] (1:57:07 - 1:58:26)
Yeah, I don't think it has. And it's the reason why I'm recommending we move back up to the 175. I think it's more important for us to really invest in community and economic development, and really think about ways that we can really help small businesses by offering more advocacy and more support for these small businesses, connecting them to the Enterprise Center over at Salem State, really working with them to really, you know, help them get more support from our community and economic development office. Unfortunately, I just, I worry that, you know, while our intentions to help a few of these businesses are superlative, we may unintentionally hurt a few businesses as well.

We're shifting a burden to other businesses. We're not just saving a business, you know, a few dollars. We're shifting that within the category of property, commercial properties, and that could unintentionally harm another struggling small business.

I think we have to, we have to just be mindful of that, and I prefer to cause no harm and do our best to really give them all a little bit of support.

[Speaker 5] (1:58:30 - 1:59:03)
Okay. Are we, I mean, I don't, I guess my question on this is what are we missing? Like, it seems pretty obvious.

I think going to a 175 shift with the current conditions seem like an obvious choice to me this year, so I don't know if we're missing anything. I mean, we're gonna do all of our votes after we close this hearing, so we wouldn't vote on it now, but I don't, we can move on to the exemptions if people want.

[Speaker 4] (1:59:22 - 2:02:10)
This is, you have to consider two options tonight. Pass the rate, setting the rate, you need to consider the residential exemption. This is required for every classification hearing is you have to consider these exemptions.

Residential exemption option, residential exemption may be granted up to 35% of the discount on the average property. The exemption is paid for by shifting a higher burden onto non-owner occupied and, my slide ended prematurely, and onto the higher-end properties in town. Anything above the average gets an increase in taxation, anything below the average gets a decrease, and anything that's non-owner occupied always gets an increase.

The next slide, I've done a breakdown of the shift, and if you grant a 35% exemption, which is the high-end, it can be anything from, you know, like 5% up to 35%. It's at the town's discretion. The residential rate would, which is $12.83, would increase to $19.74, and the values are recalculated after the, with the exemption and the new rate applied, and so for a property that's worth, assessed for $210,000, with the, with value with the exemption, without the exemption, I'm sorry, wrong column, $1,522, and I'm sorry, no, value with the exemption is $1,522, and without the exemption is $2,694.30, and so the change in taxation would be $2,664.26. So that would be at the low-end. At the high-end, a property worth $1,240,000 would have, with the exemption, would be taxed, would be valued at $1,031,522.

Without the exemption, it would be $15,909, and with the exemption would be $20,362.24, or increase in taxation of $4,453.04. Well. That was a groan or a question?

[Speaker 7] (2:02:10 - 2:02:11)
Yeah, that's not good.

[Speaker 4] (2:02:12 - 2:04:08)
No, that's not good. And just to, the property that's valued at an average value would have no change, and so there's a increase, gradual increase, as you go up to the higher end of the scale, and a gradual decrease as you go down the lower end of the scale. Yeah.

The towns, and this is, the towns that are most interested in doing this tend to be resort communities, where you have a lot of non-owner-occupied homes that are seasonally occupied, and a lot of communities that are very heavy with multifamily dwellings, apartment buildings, and three, four, six family dwellings. And so the Cape Cod communities or vacation communities that do have, currently have a residential extension, Braunstable, Nashville, Nantucket, Oak Bluffs, Provincetown, Tisbury, and Truro, and the ones that are non-vacation-based communities that have the exemption are Boston, Brookline, Cambridge, Chelsea, Everett, Malden, Somerville, Waltham, Waltham, and Watertown. Sorry, I mispronounced that.

So it's, it's whether you feel that this, that Swampskin is like one of those communities. We haven't done it. Pardon?

We've never done it. No, no community that I've ever worked in has done it, and I was in Belmont, which is right in between Cambridge and Waltham. Right.

And, you know, we're all constantly getting flack about, well, their taxes are so down, and we get a lot of people moving out of Belmont into Waltham and Cambridge because the taxes were cheap.

[Speaker 5] (2:04:10 - 2:04:18)
Any questions on, on that from anyone on Zoom? Anyone on Zoom have a question about that?

[Speaker 14] (2:04:20 - 2:04:21)
Yeah, I have a couple questions.

[Speaker 5] (2:04:22 - 2:04:22)
Okay.

[Speaker 14] (2:04:24 - 2:04:37)
So this shows the, the maximum exemption, but what would it be if it were in, like, five percent, or, I mean, does it have to be about five numbers? Could it be, I mean?

[Speaker 4] (2:04:37 - 2:04:45)
I was afraid somebody was going to ask, ask that question, and I, quite frankly, didn't do the calculations. But it's going to be, it's going to be a proportioning amount.

[Speaker 1] (2:04:45 - 2:04:50)
It's proportioning. Yeah. So you can take one seventh of the differential.

Right.

[Speaker 14] (2:04:53 - 2:05:29)
Because I know there's been a lot of talk about being cognizant of, you know, the inflationary environment that we're in, and it seemed like this would maybe be one way to shift some of the burden, and you can only use the value of the, the property as a proxy, but shifting it from the, a little bit from the lower value properties to the higher value properties. And, I mean, that's, it's a policy point, but it's just a thought.

[Speaker 3] (2:05:33 - 2:06:25)
We have looked at it over the last few years, and, and it, you know, it, it really, when you look at just the number of properties that are above, you know, the, median, and the number of properties that will benefit, it would create quite a stratification in Swampton. The folks that are right, you know, in the middle, that are just slightly above, are going to see a, a significant increase. And that, that's really where we have to, you know, understand just how, how impactful it could be.

Yes, it, it's worth understanding, but it, it could really create quite a tale of two communities in Swampscot, and, you know, I've, I think it's the reason why, you know, so few communities in the Commonwealth actually select this.

[Speaker 1] (2:06:26 - 2:08:22)
But, so, is this done on average or median? Average. So, why is 595, oh, it's, that's because it's residential average.

That's because I did all residential properties. Single family and residential, gotcha, okay. I will say this as the one three years ago that asked us to start looking at this.

I think in many respects there are people in Swampscot that say we already do live in two different communities. And I think in a community that's so, has such tremendous economic disparity on the spectrum, I, I, every year we keep on saying, well, that would be tough for someone to have an increase of 2700. But what, we speak so eloquently about relieving the tax burden on people.

And, I mean, I don't know. At some point, it's not zero or 35. It's anything in between percentages.

And at some point it might be interesting to just get into the granular of the properties, not the people, the properties. For the record, I'm above the, the average. So, I would be taxing myself here.

So, but it's, it's just interesting. I think it's just interesting. I mean, I think as though we're, we have very few tools for tax relief.

For senior citizens, there's other relief tools. So, if they're land rich and cash poor, there's other tools that might be able to help them. But I'm just saying, I just, I'm not saying do anything tonight.

We haven't gotten nearly granular in the detail. I just say, I wouldn't discount it as, I wouldn't just say create student communities. I believe we, through many people in this town, we do live in two totally different economic worlds.

And that we, it's, that is increasing. That's not decreasing. When I raised it three years ago, it was less, you know, spread as it is now.

It's, it's more dramatic, right? The richer, richer and the poorer, poorer demographically, if you look at our community over the last decade.

[Speaker 3] (2:08:23 - 2:09:36)
Peter, I really appreciate, you know, the sentiment here about trying to make Swanscot more affordable and trying to really understand, you know, what, what makes it really almost impossible for folks on fixed incomes to really continue to enjoy a quality of life that, you know, is ever more difficult. So, given, given the complexities of this year's tax levy with the new projects that were taken on, I, I do think it's worth us studying this more and having more conversations, perhaps as part of the Land Use Board Summit or perhaps as part of a financial summit that really gives us a focus on where do we, how can we, you know, become more affordable for some residents and where, where do we really focus on, on affordable housing strategies. I just think right now we need a little bit more of a runway to have this conversation and give everybody a sense of how impactful this can be, both positively and perhaps not so positively, in terms of how other properties might have to carry a much more significant financial burden.

[Speaker 5] (2:09:37 - 2:09:38)
Yeah, I think that, I think that's the suggestion.

[Speaker 1] (2:09:38 - 2:09:47)
Agree. Yeah. Like, let's not start this conversation a month ahead of time.

You come to us six months ahead of time and say, we're looking ahead and this is what it is. And, and. Then we can have that conversation.

[Speaker 5] (2:09:47 - 2:09:59)
To Peter's point. Totally, totally agree that we're not. Not the difference between Eric, Eric's question, you know, not just looking at nothing and the max.

Yep. And then we can get into it.

[Speaker 4] (2:09:59 - 2:11:06)
The other, other piece of the apple that isn't looked at in this, I don't want to interject myself too much, but the, the other thing I think that should be looked at are the individual exemptions, senior exemptions, blind exemptions, because particularly the senior exemptions based on income are so draconian and so minimalist that they, a lot of people don't qualify. And I think if you, if I would encourage discussion with legislatures, legislators to see if that can be changed and amended and increased, because it's been in those, in those levels for a long time. And there doesn't seem to be any movement in the direction that would favor the seniors.

I'm a senior, but I can afford Smotsky luckily. But at the same time, it's, it's, it's, I think it's something worth considering. We do have people coming into our office every day, this time of year who are, who could, who probably should qualify for an exemption, but they just earn too much money.

They get too much in their retirement and they don't qualify. And yet they're still living hand to mouth.

[Speaker 1] (2:11:07 - 2:11:11)
Yeah, great point. Eric, thanks for raising that.

[Speaker 5] (2:11:12 - 2:11:23)
Any other questions? I can't see if people are raising their hands. I, you can, if you can unmute yourself and you have a question, you can go ahead.

If not, we can move on to commercial if there's not more to speak on this.

[Speaker 4] (2:11:26 - 2:14:51)
All right, moving on. Okay, next slide. Small business exemption.

Next slide. Okay, small commercial exemption is, is an exemption that's a flat exemption. It's 10%, up to 10% of value on commercial properties.

And it shifts the levy within the commercial classification, 300, 400 classified properties. The annual, it's actually just 300. I'm sorry, past 300.

Annual employment for everybody in the building, every company in the building must be fewer than 10 employees. And so if you have a strip mall and that has 10 tenants and nine tenants are under 10 employees and one has 11, discount's gone. The annual, and then the property must be less than, must be worth less than a million dollars.

It's the same a million. And so the levy shifted, I said that already. On to the next slide.

It's only granted to commercial buildings that house businesses with fewer than 10 employees. That's the drawback. If one tenant, and I've said that before.

And then I said this initially, the exemption goes to the building owner, not necessarily the tenants. So if it's not a triple net or a net rent, there may be, in fact, no benefit to the tenants. So again, if you're thinking you're benefiting mom and pops, this may not really benefit them in the way you want it to.

The exemption maxes out at 10%. I've said that. And two years ago, I didn't do the math this year, but only 27 buildings would technically qualify for this type of exemption in town.

Ben did the breakdown of the buildings in that juncture and the file got corrupted and I couldn't fix it this afternoon as much as, I had a foreheaded hair at the beginning of the afternoon. Okay, and that's basically it on the commercial, small commercial exemption. Again, you know, just to interject, if there's some way we could figure out a local option that was different than this and better, it would be beneficial to the small companies in town and the mom and pops.

But this really isn't that, in my mind. And I've given this speech over a 20-year period, 21-year period. This will be my 21st time, I think.

It just doesn't, in my mind, make sense. Now, there are towns that offer a small commercial exemption. There are four in Norfolk County, three in Middlesex, three in Bristol, one in Worcester, one in Franklin, and one in Berkshire.

As for a total, I think of 13. Four percent communities have adopted the small commercial exemption. And I think my sense is a lot of the communities have a very small commercial base, probably have a lot of freestanding commercial buildings, where that's the easier thing to apply and where it makes more sense.

[Speaker 5] (2:14:55 - 2:15:10)
Questions about that? Anyone on Zoom have a question, comment? All right.

Is that the end?

[Speaker 4] (2:15:11 - 2:15:12)
That's all I got.

[Speaker 5] (2:15:12 - 2:15:36)
Okay. Maybe if we stop sharing. So if people on Zoom, FinCom, or Board of Assessors have anything else, don't have anything else to add, then you can adjourn your meetings, and then we can close the hearing, and then we can discuss and vote on all of the matters that we need to vote on.

[Speaker 16] (2:15:38 - 2:15:45)
Pass your motion to adjourn. House so moved. All in favor, aye.

Aye.

[Speaker 5] (2:15:47 - 2:15:48)
Okay, Eric.

[Speaker 19] (2:15:49 - 2:15:58)
Can I get a motion? Second. Who made the motion?

I didn't get it.

[Speaker 18] (2:15:59 - 2:16:03)
Nobody. I'll make a motion to adjourn. Thank you.

[Speaker 19] (2:16:03 - 2:16:08)
Thank you. Second, please. Naomi.

[Speaker 15] (2:16:09 - 2:16:10)
Sumit.

[Speaker 18] (2:16:11 - 2:16:11)
Yes.

[Speaker 15] (2:16:12 - 2:16:15)
Eric. Aye. And I'm an aye.

Thank you.

[Speaker 5] (2:16:16 - 2:16:28)
Thank you all for joining us. I know it's been a busy couple months, and especially the last couple weeks, so I really appreciate you coming after a special town meeting on Monday. Thanks very much.

[Speaker 15] (2:16:29 - 2:16:31)
No problem. Thanks, everybody. Have a good night.

[Speaker 5] (2:16:32 - 2:17:47)
Thank you. So with that, I think we need a motion to close our hearing. I don't see Diana.

Can you just put up the Zoom? Is there any comments from attendees before we close the public hearing? Not seeing any.

All right, is there a motion to close the public hearing? Second. All those in favor?

Aye. All right. So that brings us to discussing what we just discussed.

So we have the shift and the residential exemption and the small commercial exemption. I think it seems I favor the shift to 175, and I would favor not adopting either of the exemptions, which is similar to what we did last year, except for the shift is different. Yeah, I agree with you there.

[Speaker 7] (2:17:52 - 2:18:01)
My only concern is the small business exemption. Do you happen to know how many people actually took advantage of that last year, Sean?

[Speaker 3] (2:18:04 - 2:18:10)
No, we had no. You didn't have it, did we? Yeah, we did not have it.

I think it was two years ago you adopted it.

[Speaker 1] (2:18:10 - 2:18:52)
What are you talking about? Nobody took it. Did we have it?

No one. Yes, we've had it. We had it.

We have had no businesses. Yeah, so it's not the small business. I mean, I'll just give you a minute to take the small business one.

Small commercial, that's an easy decision. This going back to 175 is the hard one, because if you're concerned about small businesses, they're going to be more impacted in total by the shift back to 175 than 17, then the small commercial would have ever touched, because that's just 28 parcels, maybe. 27 parcels.

27 parcels, all five, whereas we are taking tax, not personalizing, we would be taking tax savings away from every commercial, big and small. That's the bigger.

[Speaker 9] (2:18:53 - 2:19:27)
It seems that the tools that we have at our disposal, I mean, certainly the small commercial exemption is something, but it might not go to the small businesses. The only thing that the tools that we have in our toolbox, it would appear to me, would be the fees that are charged. So if there was some fee relief, that would get funds directly in the pockets of the small business owners, rather than in the landlord.

The landlord could simply just suck up this small business exemption, as small as it is.

[Speaker 7] (2:19:27 - 2:19:35)
Right, but I'm talking about the 27 properties that do qualify for it. Out of those 27 properties that did qualify, how many actually did apply?

[Speaker 4] (2:19:36 - 2:19:45)
Zero. And it was after an effort to promote it, too. I think, Sean, you told me this afternoon that Ben had gone out to promote it.

[Speaker 3] (2:19:45 - 2:20:22)
Ben did, but also Margie has gone and reached out and tried to encourage. But you have to apply for it. And it's another burden.

It's another level of effort to document filings. And again, when we think about ways to help small businesses, it might be more important for us to really look at ways that we could budget for things that would help enhance the viability of some of our small businesses, as opposed to taking a blunt instrument with our tax setting policy and trying to apply that.

[Speaker 1] (2:20:25 - 2:21:36)
So my concern with going in the first year, the first time that we have a bigger number going to the residential side, we are using the only tool we have to shift back to the residential. We still have free cash. We still have reserves.

And the town meeting generously shared those and used those. In future years, we may not have those numbers to be able to offset tax rate. But we'll have already used this split, right?

Whereas this year, we went to town meeting and appropriated a lot of money to offset tax rate. And so I'm just saying, next year, we may not have that much money to offset tax rate. Or the year after, we may not have that much money to offset tax rate.

And you're not going to have, you'll be at 175. So you'll already have stressed that. So we can't do it in the future.

So I'm just, much like when we were talking about the guidelines in the first year that we are dealing with something like this, it doesn't seem we're throwing all the tools back to just take care of the residential rate. We're going to get rid of the small commercial. We're going to go to 175.

And we're also very robustly subsidizing the tax rate with free cash and stabilization. I'm just saying it. I'm not, it's a very subjective thing.

It's just that we, that's all our tools.

[Speaker 5] (2:21:36 - 2:21:45)
But I think, I mean, so help me understand, like the tool would still exist. Like we could stay at, well, no, we don't know.

[Speaker 1] (2:21:46 - 2:22:25)
You'd stay at 175, right? But you can never better your position from that. So meaning, if next year, let's just hypothetically said next year, you didn't have as much free cash or reserves to put towards the tax rate.

Let's assume same dollars, dollars denotes here, same thing, right? And the same, we were facing the same increases. But let's just say we didn't have as much free cash available for us to subsidize, to offset, shall we say, the tax rate, right?

This year, we're using both that additional free cash and we're using the split change to 175 to help the residents. Next year, we're going to have the split change will already happen. So it's not going to be additional relief.

I'm just saying that it's a tool that in.

[Speaker 5] (2:22:26 - 2:22:30)
But I guess I just don't see it as a parallel to the reserve because it's there.

[Speaker 1] (2:22:31 - 2:22:56)
No, no. It's there, but this year, but in next year, you're going to, if you need more. Look, I think this year's was small compared to next year's.

Let me be clear what I think is going to happen with taxes, right? I mean, just we signed the richest contract that the town's done in a decade. We are buying properties, which is awesome.

Great stuff, right? But next year's discussion is going to be bigger.

[Speaker 3] (2:22:56 - 2:23:00)
Let's be clear. The contract we signed recently is less than.

[Speaker 1] (2:23:00 - 2:23:29)
I don't want to date the contract. I want to say that the pressure is on your budget because you've been doing zero based budget and it'll be greater and greater each year. And the amount of free cash that we have to subsidize is going down.

It is. And the amount of debt service that we're putting in the budget for land, for schools and whatnot, it is what it is. It's the reality.

No, it's reality. But I'm just saying next year's number is going to be bigger than this year's. The median increase of single family tax bill is going to be bigger next year.

Hard stop than this, right? And so I'm just.

[Speaker 10] (2:23:29 - 2:23:44)
You know, to your point, the benefit is still there next year. It is the benefit still there. But but using the benefit this year instead of next year means we can't have it.

We can't reserve the benefit for a year that's going to potentially hurt more.

[Speaker 7] (2:23:46 - 2:24:30)
I have to be honest, I'm I don't support reserving a benefit for for the future, not knowing what the future is going to have, because we do have we do have we do have our reserves. We do have our our capital stabilization, our general stabilization. And if we if we have to, we could turn around and change some of our policies and make adjustments into our stabilization accounts.

I think for something like this, we were at 175 for a very long time, and I don't see any problem with going back to the 175. And then we have we do have two tools. Number one is we could tighten up the budget.

You know, if we have tightened up the budget, we could go back and use some of our reserves. There are things that we can we can do.

[Speaker 1] (2:24:31 - 2:24:37)
So, Richard, is there any risk that that we will next year go below our lowest residential factor?

[Speaker 4] (2:24:38 - 2:24:40)
There's always that risk. Right.

[Speaker 1] (2:24:40 - 2:24:44)
So that's that's the other consideration here, right? Next year, DOR can go back and say, you have to do one seven, because.

[Speaker 5] (2:24:46 - 2:24:48)
So it might not. So it might not exist.

[Speaker 1] (2:24:48 - 2:24:59)
Yeah. I just put it right. Seven, one or one, seven, two.

Right. Or one, six, nine or one, six, eight. Right.

And I don't. I don't put that risk to be huge, but it's definitely a risk.

[Speaker 3] (2:24:59 - 2:25:16)
Look, I look at this is the board's prerogative. You've got a lot of good points to consider. You know, we still have an inflationary economy.

You know, we still have to think about, you know, other impacts right now that are affecting people. And and we know that. I know.

[Speaker 1] (2:25:16 - 2:26:19)
I know. But we're not just I appreciate what you're saying. We're having a discussion as a board to just try and figure out our own views.

I got to hear you on the policy. We really do. And you're you're spot on with that.

But if that being said, we could have used more free cash last night. And if you want to follow that same policy, we reserved a benefit. Reserved about 10 million dollars of benefits, technically.

I made the same as we made. No, no. Well, you have.

You've been consistent with that. I'm just I'm just pointing it out. And again, I don't I'm not hardlined at any of this.

I truly I'm not feeling so intensely the way I'm just airing it out. Sure. Because I do think twenty three sorry fiscal year twenty four fiscal year twenty five.

I believe we're on a trajectory that is more like other communities, right? We haven't been liking other communities because we've been able to take full advantage of the zero based budgeting and and really and getting our budget to exactly where it needed to be. We were very smart with contracts.

We just spent money extremely well and we reserved. And so we have reserves. Great.

But the reality is we are like other communities at the end of the day, right? We're not that different.

[Speaker 3] (2:26:20 - 2:27:30)
Well, you know, there's one thing that frankly, nobody likes to talk about that. I've said a few times in a number of our presentations and that's we're not going to cut our way out of this problem. You're going to have to grow your way out of this problem.

And until Swampstead kind of recognizes that Venin Square can't just be a strip mall from the 1950s. And, you know, Humphrey Street just can't be, you know, underdeveloped. You know, your zoning calls for a lot and and we're missing opportunities.

And so from my perspective, look, the pressure will cause us to face reality. Put put some pressure on Swampstead and see what can happen. I this is a challenge, but it's also an opportunity.

And for me, I'm not dissuaded by it. I think Swampstead is a remarkable place, but reality is going to force us to think hard about, you know, where we apply our attention. It it probably isn't going to be in everybody's best interest to just look at solving this problem by cutting this budget.

No, no, I think so.

[Speaker 5] (2:27:30 - 2:27:42)
And I appreciate the point. You know, I mean, I had said sort of like, well, I don't know what I'm missing. Right.

So I appreciate that's something I was missing and not just I just did gave us great information.

[Speaker 1] (2:27:42 - 2:27:49)
The whole foods example to me, though, is the worst example, right? Because I did, but to me, it's the actual worst.

[Speaker 17] (2:27:50 - 2:27:51)
It's the worst example.

[Speaker 1] (2:27:51 - 2:28:46)
I think what they should do is take an owner occupied building that is operated by a new restaurant in our town and tell me what the shift differential does. Yeah, I asked him to think what we're going to see. Well, but I'm not I'm not.

We are where we are. That wasn't my point. My point is, we would see a 300.

I'm making up a number of $300 less tax savings for them. And what does that $300 mean to them versus the $11,000 to Whole Foods? I don't care.

You know, I mean, so Whole Foods not where my sensitivity is. And that was the only point I was just making to you, which is every commercial property is going to be impacted by the shift and negative. So every single small business is getting impacted by the shift change back to 175.

Right. Whereas a small commercial 28 had the possibility. Instead, everyone's going to get hit.

And that's what I I don't fully appreciate what that looks like, because we haven't seen the breakdown to know exactly what that means. But every single commercial property, big and small, is going to get hit by this. And I know you all know that.

I'm just saying I'm having problems digesting that.

[Speaker 9] (2:28:47 - 2:29:17)
You know, but let's talk about the growing, the growing of the pie, the expansion of the pie. I think that's important. Well, residential and commercial.

So this, you know, it's going to be mixed use in the square. It's going to be residential. It's going to be commercial.

What message are we sending to commercial real estate investors and developers and folks that are going to come in if we're shifting to 175? The economics, the economics may not work for them to come in.

[Speaker 3] (2:29:18 - 2:30:05)
I think, you know, I think we can send a message that shows them that we have the strength of financial prudence and we're making careful investments. We grow the budget in a very, you know, tight manner. We look at every nickel and dime.

And, you know, we mean business. We're going to have to look at, you know, do we have the right zoning for, you know, small businesses that want to invest on Humphrey Street? Do we have the right investment zoning for Vennon Square?

I mean, there's a lot of good conversations that we could have that would really signal to small businesses that we can be a wonderful community to invest in. We've got liquor licenses. We've got the ability to kind of incentivize some significant opportunities.

[Speaker 9] (2:30:05 - 2:30:24)
We're also well over the tax burden for the commercial tax base. The commercial property owners is well in excess of Essex County. So why would, you know, why would someone who's looking to do something in Essex, looking to build in Essex, come to Swampscott?

[Speaker 7] (2:30:24 - 2:30:50)
Well, if you look at, hold on a minute. If you look at our average income, if you look at how we spend money, if you look at our traffic patterns, there's so many reasons where a business wants to be here. And I don't think that the tax rate is as big a burden when somebody's looking at moving in here.

You look at Whole Foods, Stop and Shop, look at all of them. They're here for a specific reason.

[Speaker 9] (2:30:50 - 2:30:56)
But there are literally commercial landlords that are receiving less money today than they were 30 years ago.

[Speaker 1] (2:30:56 - 2:31:25)
Yeah, their rent is less perfect than it was 20 years ago because any increase in real estate taxes, a dollar less they're going to pay and someone's going to get rent. And so I hear what you're saying. There are some core groups that will come here, but we're hampered by the fact that one half of our radius is the Atlantic Ocean.

Right. So retail, our density, while we're dense within our own thing, from the retail perspective, we don't have good density. Because fish don't shop.

Exactly, fish don't shop. And so that's why Linfield is different.

[Speaker 18] (2:31:25 - 2:31:25)
Right.

[Speaker 1] (2:31:26 - 2:31:27)
Linfield's five mile radius.

[Speaker 18] (2:31:28 - 2:31:30)
Their five mile radius is interstate access.

[Speaker 1] (2:31:30 - 2:33:11)
But the truth is our commercial base hasn't increased. So as desirable as we may think it is for our purposes, it just hasn't happened and I don't think it's zoning. To be honest with you, I think we can make things easier and better, stuff like that.

But I'm just saying that there's some realities of what commercial we're going to be getting here. You know, I do say that without trying to be dour about the future. I do believe I agree with you about revenue.

It's you and I have been on the same page since day one on that. So anyways, going back to the tax thing, I'm just... I feel the answer that I've given you, David, to your question is what message would have been?

It would have been the message is the same headline that so many communities get stuck with. We're at the highest possible split. Yeah.

For commercial. That's the headline. And you don't get past the headline, right?

And I know it's just a headline. At 1-7, we were still pretty damn close to it. But still, we were showing that we were trying to do something because it is true.

Every dollar of taxes that someone pays is a dollar less in rent they pay because that's just the market. The market in the market is net dollars, like gross dollars. What's the total amount you'll pay per month to occupy this space?

Whether it's rent or real estate taxes, it doesn't matter to the tenant. They're only going to pay so much. So the landlord ultimately bounces out.

And I think if I'd been in a mall where we're here now, they would say 20 years ago, I was getting a per square rent greater than the per square rent I get today because there's so many reasons. But one of the reasons is where taxes are relative to where they were. So it's just a reality.

Again, we're not on so many communities. It's just our community. I love this discussion.

This is great. This is honestly, every year we have the tax discussion. It's the best discussion of the year.

[Speaker 7] (2:33:11 - 2:33:13)
It's your favorite discussion?

[Speaker 1] (2:33:13 - 2:33:23)
Now it's the best one because it actually touches, even though we're not talking about everything we talk about during the year right now, it touches upon every single thing that we do during the year. And it's the biggest policy decision we make.

[Speaker 3] (2:33:23 - 2:34:10)
Look, what impresses me about the board's conversations at this juncture is that you've made decisions in the past to drop the rate from 175 to 165 because you really do care about your small businesses. And you've demonstrated time and time again throughout the year that you want to make sure these small businesses can survive and thrive. There will be opportunities to go up and down.

And hopefully in future discussions, boards will be as diligent about thinking critically about these decisions because it does have a meaningful impact on both residential and small businesses.

[Speaker 5] (2:34:13 - 2:34:53)
So we need a motion. It has to be read. You know, it's a certain language.

Diane has the slide. And we can do it with the exemptions or we can take these one at a time. I don't know if the exemption conversation is a long one or not.

[Speaker 1] (2:34:56 - 2:35:05)
Hey, I'm going to do the easy ones. I move that the board choose not to adopt the residential exemption for fiscal year. This says 2019.

I assume we mean fiscal year 2023. Yeah.

[Speaker 5] (2:35:07 - 2:35:11)
All right. Any further discussion on that? All those in favor?

[Speaker 1] (2:35:11 - 2:35:21)
Aye. All right. The second one.

Number three, I'll do. I move that the board not adopt the small commercial exemption for fiscal year 2023.

[Speaker 5] (2:35:23 - 2:35:30)
Any further discussion on that? All those in favor? Aye.

Aye. All right. I'm out.

[Speaker 9] (2:35:36 - 2:36:02)
I did. I did. That's true leadership.

I'll move that the board select the residential factor of 0.9480, a CIP shift of 170 for the fiscal year 2023 tax levy. And in order to affect this policy, the board hereby authorizes Sean Fitzgerald, Town Administrator to electronically sign on behalf of the Board of Selectmen on the Massachusetts Department of Revenue's gateway system.

[Speaker 10] (2:36:02 - 2:36:04)
Wait, can you say that again? Because I.

[Speaker 9] (2:36:04 - 2:36:05)
He chose number one.

[Speaker 10] (2:36:05 - 2:36:07)
He chose the 170 shift.

[Speaker 5] (2:36:08 - 2:36:22)
Is there a second? Yeah, I'll second that. All right.

Further discussion? So, I mean, I favor the 175 shift. So, I'll.

[Speaker 7] (2:36:24 - 2:36:24)
I'm in favor.

[Speaker 5] (2:36:25 - 2:36:34)
I'll vote no on that motion. Mr. Chair, you've got to call people.

[Speaker 10] (2:36:34 - 2:36:36)
Yeah, we have to. Yes. Are we voting or are you?

[Speaker 18] (2:36:36 - 2:36:37)
I guess we're voting.

[Speaker 5] (2:36:37 - 2:36:38)
Well, first of all, are we still in discussion?

[Speaker 10] (2:36:38 - 2:36:40)
Well, we're having further discussion. Are we having discussion?

[Speaker 7] (2:36:40 - 2:36:57)
You can discuss as much as you want. So, personally, I'm good with 175. I'm hearing Neil say 175.

And I'm seeing you squirm around in your chair. So, I'm just wondering, is, you know, should we be having a conversation of trying to get to the middle there?

[Speaker 1] (2:37:00 - 2:37:01)
David, do you want to change your motion?

[Speaker 10] (2:37:02 - 2:37:03)
No.

[Speaker 1] (2:37:05 - 2:37:09)
Okay. So, why don't you see how the vote goes on this one?

[Speaker 10] (2:37:09 - 2:37:10)
Yeah, let's just take the vote.

[Speaker 7] (2:37:11 - 2:37:17)
Okay. Oh, you mean the vote for David? Yeah.

[Speaker 1] (2:37:17 - 2:37:21)
David hasn't taken his motion off the table. Okay.

[Speaker 10] (2:37:21 - 2:37:22)
And you seconded it.

[Speaker 1] (2:37:23 - 2:37:23)
I seconded it.

[Speaker 5] (2:37:23 - 2:37:26)
So, no more discussion about the motion. No, I don't need to.

[Speaker 10] (2:37:26 - 2:37:26)
Okay.

[Speaker 5] (2:37:26 - 2:37:27)
So, all those in favor?

[Speaker 1] (2:37:27 - 2:37:28)
Aye. Aye.

[Speaker 10] (2:37:28 - 2:37:28)
Aye.

[Speaker 5] (2:37:29 - 2:37:37)
All those opposed? Opposed? All right.

Okay, motion passes. So, it's set at 170.

[Speaker 1] (2:37:38 - 2:37:38)
Mr. Chairman.

[Speaker 5] (2:37:39 - 2:37:39)
Thank you.

[Speaker 4] (2:37:39 - 2:37:47)
Thank you. Nice job. Thank you, Neil.

Thank you, Dick. It was one of the more intriguing, interesting discussions I've heard on the rate.

[Speaker 1] (2:37:47 - 2:38:02)
Thanks, Patrick, you guys. The financial team and Dick and everybody, this is the presentation, stuff leading to last night, getting us through last night. People was like, well, wow, things went really easy last night.

And it's preparation, preparation, preparation, preparation. And so, you guys.

[Speaker 16] (2:38:02 - 2:38:07)
Yeah, and Dick just stepping in new, less than three months.

[Speaker 1] (2:38:08 - 2:38:11)
This is like three months into a 25-year contract.

[Speaker 5] (2:38:12 - 2:38:15)
You got the first one out of your way.

[Speaker 1] (2:38:16 - 2:38:18)
Imagine how good he's going to be when you're 18.

[Speaker 4] (2:38:19 - 2:38:21)
I'm 75 now, guys, 25 years.

[Speaker 1] (2:38:21 - 2:38:25)
We embrace age. And I do more and more every year.

[Speaker 3] (2:38:25 - 2:38:29)
Every year, I embrace it more and more. Really, you've been terrific.

[Speaker 16] (2:38:29 - 2:38:33)
Yeah, no, Dick's done an outstanding job stepping in for the last three months.

[Speaker 4] (2:38:33 - 2:38:36)
It's been a pleasure at times. Yeah, always.

[Speaker 7] (2:38:38 - 2:38:52)
I'd like to say thank you to the Board of Assessors. So, I am the liaison, and you guys really worked really hard. And I appreciated everything you did and the back and forths and the pushing back to make sure that things were done the best they could be done.

[Speaker 16] (2:38:53 - 2:38:56)
Thank you. Thanks. Thanks, Neil.

Enjoy.

[Speaker 5] (2:38:57 - 2:39:00)
All right, Dick. All right, one more item.

[Speaker 9] (2:39:02 - 2:39:06)
Yeah, last but not least.

[Speaker 5] (2:39:06 - 2:39:41)
Exactly. Consideration and vote to approve and execute the deed acceptance and use and occupancy agreement for 149 to 169 Humphrey Street, the Athena's property, also known as the Hawthorne Restaurant. So, Peter, I don't know if you have any—the only—what I've noticed that's different from what we've originally had in our agreement is that the date is—I think it's December 8th—is the closing, which means that their use, I think, originally went to October 31st, and now they're— Yeah, we'll work with Council on that.

[Speaker 1] (2:39:42 - 2:40:13)
It may stay October 31st, and it may not close tomorrow. It may close Friday. I mean, these things, there's just some logistics going behind the scenes.

I mean, everything's in order, I think, to— Well, let me say, I know everything's in order to close. It's just logistics now, and the attorney's finishing paperwork and whatnot, and they obviously needed to wait for this vote tonight, but I do know that there's a flurry of back and forth going on with Council to have all the documents done, so it may fall to Friday, but everyone should be very excited because, as you announced last night at town meeting, this is happening.

[Speaker 7] (2:40:14 - 2:40:22)
I have a question on the deed. What about taxes? Because it's—the rent is $2,000 a month, so that's $24,000.

[Speaker 1] (2:40:22 - 2:40:27)
They will not be paying taxes. They will not be paying taxes starting the day they close on the property.

[Speaker 7] (2:40:28 - 2:40:29)
We talked about that.

[Speaker 1] (2:40:29 - 2:40:30)
It will fall off the tax roll.

[Speaker 16] (2:40:31 - 2:40:31)
That's right.

[Speaker 7] (2:40:31 - 2:40:33)
So it's $155 off the tax roll.

[Speaker 1] (2:40:33 - 2:40:34)
Yep.

[Speaker 7] (2:40:36 - 2:40:37)
I think you brought that up before.

[Speaker 10] (2:40:37 - 2:40:46)
Hmm? I think you brought that up before. I did?

You did. I think so. Having deja vu that we've had this conversation.

We're right here. I remember.

[Speaker 5] (2:40:47 - 2:41:01)
Yeah. Any other questions about this other—I mean, yeah, I don't know. I feel like it's hugely significant, but it's just us sitting in a room.

[Speaker 1] (2:41:02 - 2:41:04)
Town meeting was Monday.

[Speaker 5] (2:41:04 - 2:41:05)
Yeah, exactly.

[Speaker 1] (2:41:05 - 2:41:09)
And thank you for not correcting me, but make sure I get home safe.

[Speaker 5] (2:41:10 - 2:41:12)
Yeah, I was going to let you keep saying last night.

[Speaker 10] (2:41:13 - 2:41:15)
He also said he put gas in his car.

[Speaker 1] (2:41:15 - 2:41:22)
Yeah, he did say that. Metaphorical gas. Thank you for acknowledging that.

[Speaker 10] (2:41:22 - 2:41:22)
Yeah.

[Speaker 1] (2:41:23 - 2:41:27)
So I said squirming, and I was defending you. Literally two seconds ago, I was defending you.

[Speaker 10] (2:41:27 - 2:41:28)
You said squirming, you insulted me.

[Speaker 1] (2:41:28 - 2:41:29)
She said squirming.

[Speaker 10] (2:41:29 - 2:41:30)
Whatever, both of you.

[Speaker 1] (2:41:30 - 2:41:32)
She said you're squirming in your seat.

[Speaker 7] (2:41:32 - 2:41:32)
Is that an insult?

[Speaker 3] (2:41:33 - 2:41:37)
That was true. But they were both squirming. We all were squirming.

[Speaker 7] (2:41:37 - 2:41:39)
Regardless. All right.

[Speaker 5] (2:41:39 - 2:41:49)
So do we have a motion to accept the use and occupancy agreement and the deed for 149 to 169 Humphrey Street? So moved.

[Speaker 10] (2:41:49 - 2:41:51)
The only, I'm sorry.

[Speaker 5] (2:41:51 - 2:41:51)
Yeah.

[Speaker 10] (2:41:52 - 2:42:09)
I think after speaking with the folks, I need to sign this document as Catherine, not Katie. I think I should be signing anything that's recorded under my legal name. Yeah.

So it should be Catherine.

[Speaker 7] (2:42:09 - 2:42:11)
I think we've had that conversation before.

[Speaker 10] (2:42:11 - 2:42:14)
We have. So the deed says Katie, just.

[Speaker 1] (2:42:14 - 2:42:17)
That's fine. I think you can handwrite Catherine.

[Speaker 10] (2:42:17 - 2:42:18)
Yeah, no, no problem.

[Speaker 1] (2:42:18 - 2:42:19)
I'm just moving forward.

[Speaker 10] (2:42:20 - 2:42:23)
I'm not going to hold up the closing because my name's Katie.

[Speaker 5] (2:42:23 - 2:42:29)
Yeah, yeah. No, that's fine. All right.

Other than that, I need a second on the motion.

[Speaker 10] (2:42:29 - 2:42:30)
Second.

[Speaker 5] (2:42:31 - 2:42:59)
Any other discussion or questions on that? All right. All those in favor?

Aye. Awesome. Great.

Thanks, everybody. All right. Consent agenda is the minutes of our November 30th meeting.

Any motion to approve the consent agenda?

[Speaker 7] (2:43:01 - 2:43:01)
So moved.

[Speaker 5] (2:43:02 - 2:43:13)
Second. Any comments? All those in favor?

Aye. All right. Is there a town administrator report?

[Speaker 3] (2:43:13 - 2:46:37)
Just brief. This past Friday, I met with Mayor Nicholson from Lynn and the Lynn Water and Sewer Commission to give them an update on the select board's meeting that we had a few weeks ago regarding King's Beach. We did talk about the preferred design recommendation of an ultraviolet light treatment facility for disinfecting bacteria for King's Beach as the most cost effective alternative to alleviate the public health risk.

We talked a little bit about the site selection for looking at alternatives for where to locate this system. Just like every major project, we have a public engagement responsibility, and I know that folks that have been following this conversation know that we have to go through that due diligence. I talked with Mayor Nicholson about really our effort to reach out to our legislative delegation and Governor Baker and really give them an update and help our legislative team on a local and federal level understand that we've got a preferred design solution of an ultraviolet system, but we also want to look at the outfall extension as part of a phased approach.

The mayor was very supportive of this, and I expect over the next two weeks to really get up to see Governor Baker and really get his assistance with advocating for broader state and federal investment as we transition the governorship. We did receive a $19,000 hazardous mitigation grant to update our hazardous mitigation plan. The last time we updated this was in 2015.

We'll be working to update the risks and the hazards that we have in town and support some of those responsibilities. Having this plan will make us eligible for grants and other investments. We have absolutely some wonderful recreational programs.

Come to Town Hall and see the gingerbread houses. It's a magical time of year, and we have a lot of programs on swampsgetrec.com. Lastly, I'm just grateful for all those that came out to celebrate the life of Army Specialist Jared Raymond, who was killed in action in 2006.

Our veterans agent, Mike Sweeney, and his wife, Sarah, coordinated a really wonderful tribute to a family that really typifies the best of swampsget, but also America. Jackie Raymond and her family so gracefully reflect the burden that individuals carry on behalf of our nation and our community, and I just want to thank everybody that was involved in that program. There's a blood drive at the Italian Club on Friday, December 9th.

Anybody that wants to bring a friend can get two Celtics tickets, and there'll be a Care Dimension Tree of Light at Town Hall.

[Speaker 1] (2:46:38 - 2:46:39)
It's a raffle. It's a raffle.

[Speaker 3] (2:46:42 - 2:46:50)
You're not just giving away Celtics tickets. Yeah, I was trying to up the number of views. She certainly did.

[Speaker 10] (2:46:50 - 2:46:53)
We'll be calling you when there aren't enough tickets, Sean.

[Speaker 3] (2:46:54 - 2:46:56)
Each pint also gets you a pint. That's right.

[Speaker 10] (2:46:56 - 2:46:56)
There you go.

[Speaker 3] (2:46:56 - 2:47:32)
So Tree of Light, 5 o'clock tomorrow at Town Hall. That's a special program for anybody that has lost a loved one during the holiday season. We know that this time of year can be very, very difficult for individuals that are suffering through loss, so if you head down to Town Hall, you can have a really wonderful program that really will help you feel connected to a community of folks that are going through the same thing, but also sharing a fellowship.

That's my report.

[Speaker 5] (2:47:33 - 2:47:37)
Any questions for Sean? Select part time.

[Speaker 9] (2:47:40 - 2:48:42)
A few things. Definitely excited to go give blood on Friday. I'll be there right when it opens, and I challenge all of my colleagues to do so.

You're giving it the hard way? If you can. You give 100% all the time, except when you're giving blood.

And then we've talked a lot about small businesses and supporting small businesses tonight, and that's been a great conversation, and as we enter the holiday season, I think it's incredibly important that we support our local businesses, and we go out and we buy gift cards, and we shop local. So as folks are looking for those last minute holiday gifts, certainly consider walking down Humphrey Street, buying a gift card, going into our shops, and just spending your money locally. Pay attention to the Swampscot Nest, because there will likely be some videos about a gift card challenge that's going to be happening in town.

More information soon about that. Thanks, David.

[Speaker 10] (2:48:43 - 2:48:49)
Sounds lovely. My husband already bought me a pair of gloves that he doesn't know about from the hiccups.

[Speaker 5] (2:48:49 - 2:48:52)
Great idea. He's the best. He is the best.

[Speaker 10] (2:48:53 - 2:49:29)
I also wanted to mention a thank you to the Harbor and Waterfront Advisory Committee, who made a presentation at a special town meeting on Monday about the information that I have diligently been working on with regards to the harbor, and they have invited all of us and all of you folks at home to participate in open discussion about the future of our harbor and the plans that they've put forward. I encourage you all to attend the next Harbor and Waterfront Advisory Commission meeting and any open discussions about the future of the waterfront.

[Speaker 1] (2:49:32 - 2:50:05)
I want to thank the Swampscot Police Department for having the body cameras fully activated and worn. It's an initiative that started many, many, many years ago. Chief Madigan actually is the one that put it on the original capital plan where it first showed up, and I appreciated his vision, and I'm sorry it took as long as it did, but I'm very grateful that we are at a place now where we have those because I do believe that those just will instill greater trust in our community for those that live here and those that visit here.

So thank you for doing that. Thank you, Peter.

[Speaker 7] (2:50:06 - 2:51:06)
So I just want to remind everybody it is December 7th, which is when we lost 2,403 citizens and servicemen and women during the attack on Pearl Harbor. Also, I'd like to say thank you to the residents who provided that incredible memorial for Jared Raymond. That memorial is just gorgeous, and I know that the individual or the family that has put that there and the individuals who did all the work around that want to remain anonymous, and I really think that's pretty profound.

And that is pretty much it. The only question I have is we took care of the firefighters contract at town meeting, but do we have to finish it up with voting, and will we take care of it?

[Speaker 5] (2:51:06 - 2:51:11)
Well, we have to on the ARPA funds. Yeah, which will probably be our next meeting.

[Speaker 7] (2:51:12 - 2:51:17)
Yeah, we'll be all done with contracts for a couple years.

[Speaker 3] (2:51:19 - 2:51:30)
Yes, you will have five town contracts that will be all up in probably a year and a half. You'll have to start negotiating.

[Speaker 7] (2:51:30 - 2:51:32)
Does that include the school contract?

[Speaker 3] (2:51:33 - 2:51:41)
Teachers were settled last year, so yes, I believe the teachers, you know, they've got a 3-3-3 starting July 1st.

[Speaker 5] (2:51:44 - 2:52:25)
I have just one thing. I should have mentioned it when we accepted the deed, but just to remind people if they are watching this meeting that we announced at special town meeting that we will be having our kickoff event to have the community conversation about the Hawthorne property on Saturday January 28th. Details will be coming soon.

It'll be during the day, but other than that, more details to come, but just save the date, and hopefully we can get a lot of people there to provide their ideas and vision for that amazing property. With that, is there a motion to adjourn? So moved.

Second. All those in favor? Aye.

[Speaker 9] (2:52:26 - 2:52:27)
Hi, everybody.

[Speaker 5] (2:52:27 - 2:52:33)
Good night. Thanks, Diane. Thank you, Patrick.

Thanks, Jared. Thanks, Joe. Thank you, Patrick.

[Speaker 3] (2:52:33 - 2:52:34)
Thank you, Joe.