A friend attended the meeting at this is their take of what happened.
Big crowd, we had to move to the high school. It began at 4:30 there and I left at 6:30. The jist is that the town has "adjusted" a number of valuations down (150 or so) and people will be getting letters after the selectmen approve the move. Everyone wanted to know if THEIRS was going down or remaining the same. I'd like to know as well. Lots of complaints about the lack of data and increases in a bad economy being ridiculous. Average increases for lake people was 25-29% although some were even more. Severe criticism of Vision Appraisal. Town assessor claims the lake house sales support their actions but the "comps" and examples seemed very weak indeed and they did not have the data for the crowd as previously promised. Selectmen didn't say a word. It got a little bit heated. The question of quasi-redlining also brought up as your neighborhood is catagorized according to various factors such as your direct access to the main part of the lake. (A "view tax"). These neighborhood codes are supposedly on line but difficult to find under the town site. I would like to know why my small parcel is so close in valuation to lots 2, 3, or 4 times my size. No good explanation for how the lot itself is valued. The donor town issue is looming with a first payment of around 10 million due Jan. 2011 and that's before you add in the "special needs asssessments" which is a very big additional chunk of change. It could end up $10.00 per 1000. That's big. Did you know the lake people account for 70% of total tax income for the town? I'll be asking others what happened after I left and will let you know.
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