Seven Villages, Janet Joakim

AAA – AA1 = an excellent report card for Barnstable! 

This town can now boast yet recognition of our secure financial condition.  Moody’s has now given Barnstable an AA1 rating, (see the story in the Barnstable Patriot)  one step below their AAA; there are only 7 other Massachusetts municipalities communities that rated AA1 by Moody’s — Acton, Bedford, Boston, Lincoln, Sudbury, Waltham, and Westwood. Considering the wealth in some of those communities and the financial struggles we face, this is good company and we should all be proud.  We will hear more about this at our next town council meeting. So we can now add this to the AAA bond rating given to this town by Standard and Poor’s.

This is yet another feather in our cap that recognizes the work of Mark Milne, John Klimm many other staff members, and political decisions that effect our finanical managment.

Town Council meetings and important agenda items

This coming Thursday evening is the first of three September town council meetings, each bringing us busy agendas.One of the items on the September 6th agenda, 2007-020, is an appropriation that will allow the assessing department to refund residents who were not given the residential exemption.The assessing department has been faced with the challenge of determining if a house is a resident’s primary or secondary home.  Originally all they have had to work with was the address given by the resident to the town for the purposes of mailing tax bills.

In the case of one of my own constituents, the bill was sent to his bank, which was in North Carolina.  He was not given the residential exemption, and was charged the percentage that is charged a second home owner. The error was discovered when it was too late to file an appeal or abatement.  He is not alone, and the assessor’s office and town manager have put together a request to appropriate money to provide the refunds for him and others like him.

Unfortunately, the issue also works in reverse.

There have been second home owners who receive tax bills at their second home address, so the assessor’s office has no way of knowing if this is actually their second home.  The office is looking into services that will allow them to do further research into the homes in question. 

 But, there is no way to recoup the money the town lost when these people were GIVEN the residential exemption, despite the fact that their house in Barnstable is actually their second home or is not their primary residence. And, like the COG member who is a candidate in precinct three, there are some who will change their voter’s registration (two years after the tax shift was implemented) and declare that suddenly, their home in Barnstable IS now their primary residence.

Perhaps Mr. Schwaab can pay one of the residents who didn’t get the residential exemption for the two years that he benefited from the residential exemption while his primary residence was his home in Brighton, the town where he was also registered to vote and so on.  There are so many hypocrisies in that situation….. There is a previous post on this blog that discusses this. 

 Speaking at public comments or public hearings

There are several other items on our agenda that will bring out groups to speak for, against or both.  I will not be taking items out of order.  If you are planning to come to speak about a particular item, (it would be nice to see more people, and we would welcome new faces!) please note if the item you are speaking to has a public hearing that night.

Some items are not required to have a public hearing, and we welcome input on those items during the public comment section of our meetings.

We limit public comment as a general rule to 3 minutes, but on nights when we have a busy agenda with lots of public hearings, like the September 6th meeting, we will be putting a limit of 2 minutes on comments.

We have rules regarding public comment which can be found here:  http://www.janetjoakim.org/rulesforpubliccommet.html

I will put these rules up as a separate post tomorrow.  If you prepare your remarks ahead of time, either with bullets or a fully prepared statement, you should be able to say what you need to say in two minutes. 

 You can also watch past meeting of the council or any other board or commission here online, either by streaming video, or downloading it.

Get involved!

Come to a meeting!