Loading...
2005-10-24 SP MTG48 44 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 10-24-2005 MTG.#48 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING MTG. #48 OCTOBER 24, 2005 RES. 503-504 7:00 p.m. Town Board Members Present Supervisor Daniel Stec Councilman Roger Boor Councilman Theodore Turner Councilman John Strough Councilman Tim Brewer TOWN AND COUNTY OFFICIALS TOWN ASSESSOR HELEN OTTE WARREN CO. DIRECTOR OF REAL PROPERTY MIKE SWAN SENIOR PLANNER STU BAKER EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR MARILYN RYBA Supervisor Stec-Opened the Meeting Councilman Tim Brewer has been detained and will be at the meeting shortly. 1.0RESOLUTIONS 1.1Audit of Bills RESOLUTION APPROVING AUDIT OF BILLS RESOLUTION NO.: 503, 2005 INTRODUCED BY: Mr. Roger Boor WHO MOVED ITS ADOPTION SECONDED BY: Mr. John Strough WHEREAS, the Queensbury Town Board wishes to approve the audit of bills th presented as the Abstract with a run date of October 20, 2005 and a pay due date of th October 24, 2005, NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the Queensbury Town Board hereby approves the Abstract with a thth run date of October 20, 2005 and pay due date of October 24, 2005 numbering 25-477500 through 25-495200 and totaling $334,108.80, and BE IT FURTHER, 45 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 10-24-2005 MTG.#48 RESOLVED, that the Town Board further authorizes and directs the Budget Officer and/or Town Supervisor to take such other and further action as may be necessary to effectuate the terms of this Resolution. th Duly adopted this 24 day of October, 2005, by the following vote: AYES : Mr. Boor, Mr. Turner, Mr. Strough, Mr. Stec NOES : None ABSENT: Mr. Brewer (Councilman Brewer entered the meeting) 2.0 Discussion Empire Zone Changes – WCEDC Introduced: Maureen Donovan and John Michaels Board of Directors Member is present Ms. Maureen Donovan-Spoke to the Board regarding the legislative changes to the Empire Zone, with those changes we needed to rework all the areas of the Empire Zone in Warren County. All twelve hundred and eighty acres in the Empire Zone have to be allotted into six separate but contiguous areas. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Councilman Strough-On page 2 Purpose and Intent – ensure that the target population will benefit from the new jobs created..I read in that, that the Empire Zone intent is to create jobs that would not have otherwise existed, but are going to exist because of the Empire Zone. Ms. Donovan-The way they have interpreted the legislation to us they want it to be at a more targeted area. Six years ago Warren Co. applied for an Empire Zone and received it for the whole County because it met specific poverty criteria, what they are saying now is instead of being able to put the land everywhere there are specific areas where census tracks meet specific poverty criteria, they would like to make sure that it is over laid on that area and on an area where we have targeted employment. Councilman Strough-There are two types of zoning, investment zoning and development zoning. Ms. Donovan-We are in development zoning. Councilman Strough-Do we have any investment zones? Ms. Donovan-No, the investment zones are tied directly, you have to have double the unemployment rate, we do not have any sites that meet that. Councilman Strough-There are exceptions, with over fifty employees you can declare that as an investment zone. The intent and creation of the Empire Zoning is to create jobs that may not have previously existed with the exception of creating this incentive program. Ms. Donovan-That is correct, in this legislation they have made the clear. Supervisor Stec-Noted due to the change in the legislation there will be towns that will not have an Empire Zone in them. 46 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 10-24-2005 MTG.#48 Councilman Strough-Questioned the Zone Development Plan. Ms. Donovan-We have it per town, I have a draft the Zone Development Plan. Reviewed the areas in the Town of Queensbury. Noted there will be needed a resolution of concurrence to change a local law at Warren County to reflect the new boundaries on the Empire Zone. Spoke on the grandfathered properties such as CR Bard, they are a certified zone business the life of the zone is ten years for any certified business under the new legislation they would not be able to reapply for new benefits after the ten years. The only communities that will have Empire Zone Status will be Glens Falls, Queensbury, Chester and Johnsburg. Reviewed for the Board the various maps, first Area One Map- Contiguous area, encompasses all the downtown commercial districts for the City of Glens Falls as well as major industrial parcels on Pruyn’s Island and the Queensbury Industrial Park and some other sites along Quaker Road for industrial and light industrial development. The Ciba Geigy site is not included, we believe that because it is a large site it is one of the sites that we would be able to get a regionally significant project too. Councilman Strough-Questioned if there is a plan for that site? Ms. Donovan-We are working on that right now with the Warren Washington IDA. Noted that the EPA has not given the final clean bill of health to the Ciba site. Area 2 – Carey Industrial Park areas noted Northern Dist. was recently sold and the property was not part of that deal, remarketing that site is something that may happen in the future. Councilman Strough-Is part of the draft development plan for this is to bring sewer to Carey? Ms. Donovan-We are working with the Town right now for an EDA Grant for sewer extension study out to Carey. Area 3- Northway Business Park noted the Dome is a certified zone business as is Arrowhead Equipment. Area 4 – sites by the Warren Washington Industrial Park - sites on the internal area are part of the runway protection zones which will not be developed. Spoke on targeted businesses for each community in Queensbury it targets new and existing businesses located in the Town that are going to make a capital investment and create jobs. Development Goals-Develop all the vacant industrial parks with appropriate light industrial; manufacturing and office based business in particular the Queensbury Industrial Park the Airport Industrial Park particular sites off Quaker Road, Carey Industrial Park the Exit 18 connector road sites and development of the Ciba Geigy sites with Heavy Industrial Business, even though the Ciba site is not in we put it in there as a caveat in case we want to do one of the regionally significant project there. It is a target to do private sector development at the Warren County Airport and then to work with all existing manufacturing industrial and office space business to retain full scale operations and grow quality jobs. Any business that wants to apply that is an existing business must make a capital investment of at least fifty thousand dollars to be eligible for even an application to come before the zone board, unless the business is located in a business escalator, incubator or educational institution. Business clusters that we are seeking are medical device, paper manufacturing, nano technology, initiative business to locate in this park. Page 17 of the Plan-Town of Queensbury-target manufacturing and light industrial, industrial and office space businesses on lands that are located in the Warren County Empire zone in the Town of Queensbury. Spoke on how the Empire Zone is monitored We will go to the County on Wednesday and share this information with the County standing committee and they will have to pass a resolution in favor of it, then I will present a draft of a resolution for the Town of Queensbury’s st changes. Will need everything to the State of New York by December 31. thst Supervisor Stec-Will try and have a resolution for either the 7 or the 21 of November. 3.0 Discussion – Bay Meadows PUD Present 47 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 10-24-2005 MTG.#48 Attorney John Lapper Mr. John Michaels Mr. Garth Allen Supervisor Stec-Three items to be worked out – 1. Access Road issue 2. Issue of parking for the off street vs on street access to wetlands 3. Conservation Easement for Golf Course Attorney John Lapper-We have been fine tuning the conservation easement with Cathy Radner which is close to being done. Revised the plan to show office rather than residential as Councilman Strough and Boor requested. Re: access road anticipating before Garth develops the building that somebody will develop on the adjacent subdivision and under the Towns Zoning Code it is required for access management that when you go through site plan that you have to grant access to the adjacent neighbor, to reduce curb cuts. Re: Stream access - last meeting was left with parking six on the side of the road for access to the wetland, Highway Supt. had pointed out issues with snow storage, I did not think it was a winter issue, fishing would be a spring issue, it is also not cleared to do cross country skiing it is dense in there… noted the developer does not have the ability to dedicate a piece of land for parking because it is all wetlands here. We are proposing to dedicate the four acres you want so that you have a connection to the stream and ultimately all of Half Way Brook can be publicly owned. Noted the recreation fee will be paid… Councilman Brewer-Questioned if the town could put in a parking lot on the property previously owned by Danny Girard? Councilman Boor-Noted that would be across the street. Sr. Planner Stu Baker-Raised the question do we want to create on street parking? Noted that area is high traffic, will require a culvert and fill work to create the parking spaces. Supervisor Stec-Noted that on one side or the other we can find a spot for three vehicles. If you give us the land then we will work on the parking. Councilman Strough-Requested clarification in the PUD agreement, it speaks to a total of 97.3 acres and 23.06 thirty nine unit with driving range and it speaks to the professional office 5.42 acres, it speaks to the 4 acres the land to be dedicated to the town, and 60.88 acres golf course and it includes this, I do not think the easement language really applies nor did we want it to this parcel, the agreement doesn’t take that out it includes that in with the rest of this. I do not think any of us intended to do. The 3.28 acres should be withdrawn from the conservation agreement. Requested that the leg be put back into the easement. Attorney Lapper-We will call that the alternative access area. Sr. Planner Baker-The Dreps Subdivision has shared access with the Stewarts property here, these lots could be consolidated and developed as one lot using on the shared access. Supervisor Stec-Questioned the conservation easement. Councilman Boor-We do not want to be in control of this easement we do not want to bear the cost of maintaining. Sr. Planner Baker-If the Town is going to accept an easement, the intent of the easement is to protect open space with that comes the obligation to make sure that the land is basically retained in the condition the easement states it is. The language offered in the easement right now includes areas of wetlands to be maintained in their undisturbed natural state and preclude from further development by clearing of trees or vegetation. The plans right now does not show the wetland areas on the golf course, they do not show the areas of vegetation we have not documentation of what is there. How do we maintain an easement of what we do not know. 48 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 10-24-2005 MTG.#48 Attorney Lapper-What we are saying is there can not be buildings that is what you want. The PUD agreements says all the developments can happen where it is going to happen and this is not going to be developed and everyone agreed to that. We also agreed that we would do a conservation easement which means if anybody owns this it is a document of record in the County Clerk’s office that says you cannot do anything unless you ask the town if it is ok to do it because the town controls the easement. If you disturb any wetlands you need permits from State, Federal, Town Planning Board. Councilman Brewer-You would come to the Town Board not the Planning Board. Councilman Boor-We do not want the enforcement issue. I do not want the Town to be over there walking it every month, it is not in our backyard every day. Attorney Lapper-Any change of use you would have to go to the Town. Unknown-Make a simple easement that is recorded that this property is subject to PUD agreement. Sr. Planner Baker-I am not opposed to a conservation easement I am not convinced that it is the right thing for the Town to be responsible for. Councilman Brewer-What is the way to go? Sr. Planner Baker-Find a third party to hold it. Executive Director Ryba-There are two concerns, one is a planning concern another a legal concern, what I am hearing is a concern about wetlands but yet earlier it was stated that if you go beyond the half acre that you are already allowed under the national permit that you have to go to the army corp. which would take a year or so, it could be done but it isn’t something that would be done easily. Councilman Brewer-Would the Town be notified if they went to the Army Corp.? Executive Director Ryba-Not necessarily. Unknown-We are saying the PUD agreement is really all that is needed, the town wants the extra protection of an easement, tell us how you want it we will deliver it anyway you want it. Councilman Boor-We want a third party responsible for the maintenance of the conservation easement. Councilman Brewer-What you are talking about is someone to inspect it to make sure it is maintained the way… Councilman Boor-What we are talking about is the unusual, the standard is that there are agencies that specifically do this type of thing. It is unusual for a municipality to accept private property management. Attorney Lapper-This is a restrictive covenant not a conservation easement, it says what you can’t do, when Nature Conservancy takes something like Hudson Pointe they have trials they have access so in that case you have to brush hog it you have to maintain the trails you have affirmative obligations, here there is nothing you have to do all you are doing you are being the party that someone has to go and ask permission. Councilman Brewer-We want assurance that it will be nothing other than a golf course forever. Unknown-Land Conservancy is not going to be interested in helping us make sure it is a golf course for the rest of its life, that is a problem. 49 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 10-24-2005 MTG.#48 Councilman Strough-Don’t we have the right if they did do something that was not in accord with the easement to sue them? Attorney Lapper-Absolutely. Executive Director Ryba-The easement details what the builder or owner can or cannot do and what you are asking for is additional layer for maintenance costs or for at least a review of inspections. Councilman Strough-Any owner of the land has to be servant to the easements. If they don’t it is like a breach of contract and they can be sued for all costs incurred, I could argue that the Town Board would be the best to operate under those conditions. Councilman Brewer-I think the only assurance we want is it is going to maintain and be a golf course. Unknown-An easement is too specific, getting into details about maintenance of wetlands and other things, we could get rid of that, your main thing is you do not want any building there. Councilman Brewer-We do not want five acres chopped up and somebody build a house there. Unknown-We could make that simpler and reference the PUD agreement on easement. Councilman Strough-We will have three references, a reference to the easement in the PUD agreement, a reference to the easement in the easement itself and the filed map. Supervisor Stec-What we need to act is to have this reviewed by our Town Counsel. The three items, we want the land down there we will figure out the access for parking, want our Town Counsel to review access management, and third the Conservation easement, this is an extra layer of protection, what the town is looking for is simpler, easier and cheaper to enforce and maintain. I think we have resolved the three issues. Supervisor Stec-Item 5.0 Discussion on West Glens Falls EMS Building – at their request has been withdrawn they are awaiting more information. 4.0Discussion – F.O.I.L. Request – Comparable Sheets – Helen Otte Town Assessor Helen Otte Warren County Director of Real Property – Mike Swan Supervisor Stec-The code book states that if something is not subject to F.O.I.L. then it cannot be released unless there is a written appeal to the Town Board and then the Town Board can choose to release it. This is in regard to a F.O.I.L. request made by Mr. Peter Brothers. Our Attorneys spoke with Bob Freeman and Mr. Freeman confirmed to Mike Hill that this information that we are discussing is not subject to F.O.I.L. We do not as of yet have a written appeal on this F.O.I.L. Town Assessor Helen Otte-Noted she had spoken on the process of revaluation and the use of these comparable sheets in that process, presented the Board with a written schedule of what happens in a revaluation. In part two of this particularly we have had hundreds and hundreds of meetings with the public and I brought these just as a visual display, these are the sheets that we used to schedule appointments with people who came in, looked at their comp sheets had at least a fifteen minute education as to what the comp sheets were about. We looked at other properties in their neighborhoods to look at equity with neighboring properties. This can hardly be described as being secretive with a process, these are hundreds of people that came in March and April and throughout the 50 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 10-24-2005 MTG.#48 month of May if you skip down to number 3 we have another opportunity for people to come in and have more explanation more information given to them, again, with proper education and complete facts. Now, in each one of these processes there are decisions made, that may have changed the assessed value from the original comp sheet that st produced prior to March 1. There were at least two more opportunities for revisions to those numbers so that those sheets no longer show the assessed value either the tentative stst one on May 1 or the final one from July 1 or the small claims decisions that have st occurred in August and September. So, the original March 1 comp sheets that I believe are the ones being asked for do not have the complete information as to the assessed value and the various steps along the way. Councilman Boor-After March, how much more is done by Appraisal Consultants? Assessor Otte-They hand over the information to me at the end of March, middle of April. Councilman Boor-One of the curiosities I have is why we don’t know what we purchased? I understand that Appraisal Consultants went out and did the work and they gave you this information and it says it was run on a computer program and yet at this point in time I could not go into you and say what did they come up with on this property, you could not tell me because it had been changed by either you or somebody else later on. Just as a curiosity when your car stops working and it is towed to a shop and they call and say your car is ready, and they say it is seven hundred dollars what did you replace and they say we can’t tell you. It is not the best analogy but I guess it is like you want to know what was fixed, what was looked at. Assessor Otte-That is available because there are three rolls that were published and they are noted on here, the first roll is the initial work by the appraisal consultants with my stst review that was published March 1. the second roll published May 1 with tentative values that are a result of many, many public hearings and exchanges of ideas and opinions between the contractor and me which is my responsibility and the third roll is st July 1. If you look at all three of those assessment rolls which have been out in the hall, in a timely manner since March then you have the picture of where in the project the contractors work appeared where the combination of the contractor and my worked appeared and where the final roll is filed with the decisions by the Board of Assessment Review in Town. st Director Mike Sawn-That initial period prior to March 1 and I do revaluation projects for the County and what that is we run a valuation sheet that comes up I would not even call it a tentative value, it is called a working value. Then you do a field review, in other words you take that computer generated piece of paper and you sit in front of the house and you sit there and you say does this figure match what that house should go for and that is done on everyone. Those sheets that she is talking about those are the ones that may have something written on the side or may have a figured crossed out on them or something else. When I do field review I will make a notation on there if it is out of whack and I will cross out that figure and put down maybe a suggested figure or run another set of comps and do this, look at this because I will know all the sales and these people that are out doing the field review know the sales in the area that they are working in and they will say ok no, the sale at Smith Street is a better comparable than the one the computer picked and we will go and do that. That is what the whole field review process is all about. This is not a science. Councilman Boor-I think what happens is you have the public and the constituents coming to you and asking you and you cannot answer their questions, that is where the level of frustration begins. The more you do not have the information to answer the more suspect the information becomes, so it kinds of feeds itself when all is said and done I think some are probably right on some maybe a little high, some a little low I do not really know. Councilman Brewer-How many properties did you do? Assessor Otte-Thirteen thousand. 51 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 10-24-2005 MTG.#48 Councilman Brewer-There has got to be mistakes. Director Swan-That is what that is about the informal reviews are for, to try and pickup those mistakes, that is what grievance day and small claims and the law suit that is what those are all for is to try and weed out the mistakes. There is going to be mistakes it is impossible not to. Councilman Boor-I do not think anybody thinks that there isn’t going to be here again we are the first, well unless they come and talk to Helen. Assessor Otte-Which is where they should come, this is where they came and many, many people did come in. Supervisor Stec-I have been talking to Helen about this process for a long time this year and certainly everyone is looking for what did we get, how good is the product that we got, understanding no product in the world is perfect. The two things that jump off the page, there is one argument about how did we select the company we did select, there have been things said about that. The Board will remember there were three finalists that the Town and the City both considered and when we picked Appraisal Consultants I think their up front price was the middle of the road, they were not the highest or the lowest they were the middle of the three. The City and the Town both everyone has been on the Board long enough to know that the City and the Town agreeing on things doesn’t happen very easily, very quickly, that often, but without any hand wrangling both the Town and the City selected the same company because the back end, that they had a statistical track record of the end game. At the end of the day you are going to have X percent grievances and Y percent are going to go to small claims and Z percent are going to go Article 7s and all of those cost a municipality money. So, we looked at and the company we selected if you guys recall had a much better track record in previous assessments than the other two that we didn’t. So, we figured that the sum total cost of the reval the up front. Councilman Boor-They had less grievances. Supervisor Stec-We hoped that would translate to less money spent by the municipality, less aggravation on all of our constituents. So, the first number that I think is important for us to look at is certainly, right now where we are, what is that percentage of people that were so dissatisfied that they filed some sort of action on the town. Where does that stack up, is that good or bad? The other one which of course is a subject of one of the article 7’s and a lot of talk in the newspapers is the statistics that a year after cut off date for the data used in the re-val we have a years worth of sales data that in the town there is over four hundred residential sales that have occurred thorough out the town some on the lake, some not on the lake and so you can calculate for each neighborhood area and Helen has done this and she has got it with her tonight. The ratio of what is your assessed value vs sales data and there has been a lot of those number thrown around, Helen has all the data and the State has reviewed this data, those are the two numbers that I think you could say, more so than saying I want to see somebody’s chicken scratch on a piece of paper and I don’t know if it is Mike’s, is it Tims or is it Helen’s chicken scratch and who wrote first and who was what color and what does it mean. Maybe Mike is new on the job and he is not very qualified so he throws a number out there that Helen say oh my God I got to think about whether of not I want to keep Mike on as an employee and she lines that out and draws in another number. So, I really think those are statistically the two best ways to try and say is this re-val good and understanding that on thirteen thousand properties you are going to have the ones zees two zees. Councilman Brewer-When we were selecting the company and we had the three and we looked at the percentage rates do you know the answer to, can we compare the percentage of article 7’s and grievances and law suits compared to the numbers that we looked at when we hired the company, is it similar? 52 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 10-24-2005 MTG.#48 Assessor Otte-They are lower if anything. On thousands of reviews we had small claims filed 72, those have been disposed of with mixed results, we won some, we lost some, were split down the middle but that is normal. Councilman Brewer-So 72 out of 13,000 in the Article 7’s 62 out of 13,000 that is a pretty low percentage. Councilman Strough-I think your question was you wanted the total number of grievances compare it to the previous, percentage wise. Supervisor Stec-When we hired appraisal consultants we were impressed that had a four percent claim rate…our re-val came in at only two percent Councilman Boor-I am not saying that this was done badly, I am not saying it was done well, don’t know. Assessor Otte-I think we are trying to give some facts to Councilman Strough-What kind of subjectivness goes into determining the appropriate comps for a particular parcel of property? Assessor Otte-All assessments are opinion. Councilman Strough-So there is a lot of subjectivity. Assessor Otte-Absolutely. Councilman Strough-I did not say capriciousness but a lot of arbitrariness. Assessor Otte-It is not arbitrary. Councilman Strough-What I am gathering, from what I am seeing, and I mentioned this to you, the scope is too large. I think what some people are trying to determine is that they do want to look at some other properties to get a reliability index. They maybe satisfied that over all understanding human nature and you know the magnitude of the process that there is going to be some variations and some disagreements and some properties may not be in align of what they should be. What people are trying to determine is they want to look at a small pool and they want to look at the comps and they want to determine if there was a reliability index that they are fairly comfortable with. That is kind of what I get the feel for when I read in the paper and everything and from what I hear on the phone calls, what I am going to hear are the ones that are most dissatisfied, the people that are satisfied or under assessed I am not going to get these people. It is not out of line to allow some pool a managed pool a reasonable amount of comps to give to interested parties so they could determine the reliability index and if they were not comfortable with it maybe explain to us why. It is entirely possible that they could look at it and be comfortable with it, I do not know. Assessor Otte-The main point is that the sheets that I understand that are being requested st do not have July 1 assessments on them so the numbers that are projected on those st sheets from March 1 are not necessarily the final… Councilman Strough-I think that has to be made clear there is only one component … for some reason people have focused on the comp sheets. There might be other components that maybe they should be focusing on I do not know. I think they are trying to get it clear in their mind that there is some kind of reliability to what we did. Supervisor Stec-I like the term reliability index, and certainly throwing someone some information that may or may not give them the comfort that hey I am comfortable with the job that was done and that is comforting to hear a lot of people at the table saying there is a lot more than just these comparable sheets from one part of a six month or a multi month process. But, I a numbers guy the comparable are very subjective I think when you start compiling stuff into data and regardless of what we do Helen outside of 53 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 10-24-2005 MTG.#48 this I would like to see a percent break down from you, if you could give us, these are the three companies that we looked at, this was their claim rate, this is the percent that went to an article 7…refresh our memory, we finished our re-val, take our numbers and put them next to those numbers so that we can say that is another measure of reliability. Councilman Boor-That is why we chose the company we chose, we know that it is the public. Supervisor Stec-I think one of Helen’s issues is that the ball park number she had, she is saying it is a request for a thousand properties. I heard John specifically tonight said maybe that it too much and you are saying maybe a pool, I think the board would be open to that. I guess what I am hearing you argument is that you have got three preliminary or tentative rolls that are, you have three different rolls that are printed plus these comp sheets, plus statistics, plus the law in your own experience of doing your job that no one in this room except for Mike is qualified to do and that somebody is saying we want to pass judgment on your process based on this snippet. I think that the concern that you have is a context concern. Councilman Boor-Being the devils advocate here, Helen it is a no brainier context. What is the concern. Obviously, if you have a snippet out of context it is not going to have any merit as trying to pass judgment on an over all product. So, the notion that there is a problem, I do not see what the fear is. It is, there is a lot involved in this and apparently you say that the large F.O.I.L. request was for the first one of these, so that is going to be the most. The fact that you did others means it is obviously very preliminary and very, you know, so I do not understand the concern. Assessor Otte-Let me make something clear, in answer to your question, I have never been the one that took the stand whether or not these should be released. This has a different life than what is being construed here. The Town checked to see if these were foilable the records officer in the Town wrote to the applicant and said no these are not foilable and I have been waiting word as to how this… Councilman Boor-I am sorry I did not mean to direct to you, I guess in some private discussions with board members it sometimes comes back as if you are saying no. I do not mean that you are the cog in the wheel that is broken, but I guess my point is, it has been made very clear to me that as a board as stated at the beginning of this conversation we have the authority if there are three of us that want to release it we can release anything we want essentially. It isn’t your issue, because the workshop is taking place and it is here I just throw it out here. Of all things that I would not worry about it would be the very first portion of data obtained in a process because it is obviously premature, rudimentary, not anywhere refined to the point of where any thing that can be established is going to be. Director Swan-We have several discussions about this when it first surfaced and we were like minded on this, that this information if the people want it, they should get it with the understanding it is preliminary. All the information that they are trying to get may not be on that first set of sheets. I have always had the policy and so has Helen that it is open it is there. Come on and look at it. There is a stack of informal reviews right there and I bet most of those people walked out with a comp sheet. Assessor Otte-They did. Director Swan-One of the more recent ones, I have never tried, I know Helen and I know the people from Appraisal Associates they do not try to hold that stuff back. So, it is just a glitch in the system or a cog or whatever, all of a sudden turned up not foilable which surprised me. Supervisor Stec-Your own opinion as to the value or the wisdom, from an assessors perspective, if we are trying to truly glean wisdom from the process. Is this what you would look at, is this what somebody should ask for, is there value in what has been asked for purpose of understanding and gaining confidence in Helen’s accuracy or is there something else that should be asked for? 54 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 10-24-2005 MTG.#48 Director Swan-Yea. The comp sheets, because that is going to basically on your individual basis is going to give you the jest of how that value was .. Councilman Brewer-The value of the totality of it not just the first one. Director Swan-I would say yes, all of them. But the last one is the most important one. The one that was generated when you were doing the informal because that has the most information the most complete information and it gives you the cost backup, the land backup on it and gives you the comps set up and any kind of breakdown at the bottom as to why things were adjusted. Councilman Boor-In the future I hope that we would save to disk every time we do something and that we do not overwrite and we keep the original. Assessor Otte-We have all the disks that produced the assessments. Councilman Boor-But you do not have the originals because I asked for them and you said that they were all over written. Assessor Otte-The original disk on that, we have the printed copy. Councilman Boor- But we don’t have the original disk. Assessor Otte-Not the disk we have the printed copy. Councilman Boor-That would be so nice, that way you would not have to lug all that stuff around Helen. Assessor Otte-As a matter of fact the applicant on the F.O.I.L. asked for that preliminary roll, he asked for a copy of it in his first letter, the records officer said yes, for a charge of $25.00, it was never picked up. That was a valuable piece of information … Supervisor Stec-Noted that a resolution could be available at the next Town Board Meeting regarding the release of the information…questioned the amount to be released… Councilman Strough-I would think that if you took twenty houses from a given area you should be able to determine how reliable those comps are for determining value of the homes. If you found a fault that should also come out, and you can bring that to our attention we can address it if that is the case. That would be an at large figure that seems to be manageable for Helen and everyone involved. I certainly don’t want to represent the consensus of the Board. Assessor Otte-I would make the request that the parcels requested be specifically named that would save us time. Councilman Strough-And if they are suspect that would alleviate more of their interest too, certainly that would take their most twenty suspect properties they could look at the comps and I think it should be also addressed that these comps are only part of the process and your letter that shows how the process is done goes with it. Supervisor Stec-The other statistical data that we kind of talked about, I really think that if people stepped back and looked at the statistics that you have shown me I do not think there is anyone sitting at this table that would question the integrity of your statistics. That for the very limited data that you have of sales on Lake George which I think you said was seven or eight in the last twelve month window that you had that ratio was 94% that the assessed value vs the actual sales data was 94%. For the hundreds of data points that you have throughout the rest of town or even town wide, you did have a number where you factored out lake front that number was 92% . Statistically that is a dead heat. Anyone that had a college statistics course will understand with those sample sizes 92- 94% that is a dead run, that tells me that was done uniformly throughout the Town. 55 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 10-24-2005 MTG.#48 Understanding that in thirteen thousand parcels you are going to be able to find a few dozen that you are going to say that one is out to lunch, how did they miss that one, that is what the grievances process is for. Assessor Otte- Distributed to the Town Board the ratio reports. Report one – using 2003 sales up to the end of June 2004 Neighborhood 101 is Lake George 123 –Glen Lake Noted last page is summary gives you the ratio of assessed value to the sale price. This is the 2005 assessed value compared to the selling price, even though the sale might have occurred in 2003 we still picked the new assessment to show how close. Report two – st July 1. 2004 to present to show you what is happening to the ratios in the past twelve months. You can see the equity among the neighborhoods, Lake George is 87%, Glen Lake is 91.7% and the rest of Queensbury is 87% it can’t get any closer than that. Director Swan-This is what we are seeing County wide the number of sales is slowing down but the values of the sales are increasing. Supervisor Stec-If you look at an individual property that is one data point out of thirteen thousand if you look hard enough you are going to find a few dozens that you are going to scratch your head and you are going to say that one is out to lunch. The statistics is what I have been trained to follow. Assessor Otte-In mass appraisal this is our proof. Director Swan-The only way you can. Assessor Otte-We worked constantly on the individuals, that is what all these are about are the individuals coming in. Supervisor Stec-To me if somebody is going to try and say well was it fairly done throughout the town you look at the statistics, the statistics are what tell you that. Questioned who should pick the comps for the F.O.I.L.? Councilman Brewer-The person that wants them specifically give us the numbers of the properties he wants. Supervisor Stec-Do we have a number, I want to give the requestor who is present tonight guidance so that we can get this in writing. Councilman Boor-Lets say we pick the number twenty, how many requests for twenty are we going to allow them? Supervisor Stec-You are right you could have twenty people in here say, give me twenty and now you are up to four hundred. I would like us to come up with something that we think is reasonable. Councilman Boor-As far as what is available on disk we have only the final the most recent final on disk we do not have any of the previous steps as you have laid out here these different dates do we have any figures from each one of these dates? Assessor Otte-The tentative roll is on file is on disk. Supervisor Stec-What kind of direction do we want to give to Mr. Brothers? Councilman Strough-Allow Mr. Brothers, whoever, to make a request to Helen and then Helen all you are going to do is pass it on to us. It is our responsibility to say yea or nay. Supervisor Stec-It needs to be a written appeal to the Town Board. Councilman Strough-Let us review it and consider its reasonableness and the context of it and say yea or nay. We will be very considerate, I think we should think of the burden it would place on your office it has to be reasonable. 56 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 10-24-2005 MTG.#48 Councilman Boor-That is really why I asked on disk and what isn’t, I do not know what is on disk anymore. Supervisor Stec-We have all had a chance to talk to Helen as far as what is her concerns, context is the perfect word. She was concerned about the context that these would be viewed in. I think these go a long ways towards addressing, I have heard numbers out there that the Town is at eighty percent and we are at a hundred percent everyone is within a couple of percentage points of everybody. Councilman Strough-This too is available to the public. Assessor Otte-It certainly is. Director Swan-If you do not trust those figures you can go to the State of New York at the Office of Real Property Services they did their own independent statistical analysis and which is almost identical results as what you see right there. Supervisor Stec-An outside entity at the State of New York and everyone has their bearing levels of confidence with the State of New York, and they came up with very similar statistical analysis. I like to think that the public would believe that we would spend three hundred thousand dollars and not make sure that we had a good product at the end of the day. It might not be a product everyone wants to see parked in their driveway but it is a product. I think that is reasonable though, I will communicate with Mr. Brothers I will give him a copy of what the code says as far as specificity of what needs to be included in that written request. Councilman Boor-On a philosophical note and obviously there is going to be a lot differing opinions and that is the benefit of doing a re-val. I do not know if we are ever going to have an answer to that because there is certainly the notion that as your property value as a whole increases that because of the way we do things here in the County we get an increased amount of sales tax revenue. However, there is a lot of caveats there also as they relate to property tax and as we become a greater entity within the county we pay more. In the future I would like to have a benefit cost analysis done before we do another re-val because even though the States wants you to do it the fact of the matter is that not every municipality does it at the same time and I do not know that we are really doing our constituents a favor if we do this because the State wants us to do it but in fact it cost our residents more in total. In other words they lose, they pay more in property tax .. Supervisor Stec-This is probably the perfect group to have you and Mike respond to that questions, because that question has come up what Roger is referring to is certainly everyone understands that for now in the Town of Queensbury and the rest of Warren County, sales tax is doled out based on its assessed value so from that perspective we will get more money from the County next year. Our share our slice of the County taxes has gone up. I think that those are roughly equalvent. Councilman Boor-That is exactly my question who is going to do the work to find out if in fact this cost us or this saved us? Supervisor Stec-I know that at the County there has been a lot of talk about they would like to go to a County wide assessment a hundred percent for everybody so that you would have a single tax rate in all of Warren County and there might be advantages and disadvantages of that. I have heard that discussion in the last year up at the County. Councilman Strough-In addition there is school aid formula. The school aid formula and I did ask about it, it does affect the school aid formula but it is only one component of that formula. The State always uses 100% equalization anyway. So, the difference of this one component in the formula is going to the difference between the new assessment and the past full equalization rate. The outcome of how much state aid you are going to get is not impacted in a big way by a re-assessment but it is impacted. The school emphasized that they may be getting a reduction in school aid? That is likely but there 57 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 10-24-2005 MTG.#48 are other factors that go into the formula so they did not comment themselves to it. If it did it would be minimal. They do not know for sure. Councilman Boor-When do we find out if it was a good idea or a bad idea? Assessor Otte-Part of that is what my office has been doing for the last seven months and this was the reason, it was not pressure from New York State to do a re-val, it had been twelve years since we had done a re-val in Queensbury the market was red hot and there was a tremendous amount of new construction. My real analysis which I presented to you is being the reason for a re-val is for equity among individual taxpayers in the Town. You could see over the years where things were becoming out of balance, certain sections of town were paying on a much higher percentage of real value then other sections. New properties were paying on a very high percent of full market value, older properties were not. So, this is a shifting around to try and bring everybody back to a bench mark and Mike has a very personal example of how this happened and what happened to him in the re-val. These are the kinds of things that I studied for ten years and the brought to you as being an issue that I thought needed to be addressed. Councilman Boor-Certain States deal with these things differently one of the reason why I like new construction costing more is because these are properties that have up until the point that they are sold contributed nothing to the roads, contributed nothing to fire, nothing to EMS and yet you have some people who have lived in this community for thirty, forty, fifty years who every year have paid taxes and supported the very infrastructure that Joe Blow from New Jersey comes in gets to use the very day he buys that property. So, although your argument is germane there is also a counterpoint to that and I think we have penalized the long term residence who have supported all the infrastructure in this community for a very long time. Assessor Otte-The State Law says full market value or a equitable portion, ratio thereof. So, it’s the State Law in Real Property Tax and that has been around for a long time. I understand your point and it is well taken. Director Swan-We have a system that is inherently flawed, I do not think anybody would disagree with that. The whole property tax system is flawed from the very start. What we try to do is make it as equitable as possible at the grass roots level which is the individual assessment. That is what we are looking at that is what my charge is as the Director of Real Property under real property tax law. When you look at the cost effect on the distribution of sales tax, county tax, school tax, sometimes that is a plus sometimes it is a minus. For lack of a better term because of the legislation that Helen and I deal with, we have blinders on to that other section, because we are charged with equity. It is kind of a blunt way to say it but that is the reality. Councilman Boor-I can appreciate it, I think it is valid, it makes sense, it is just that that is your job. Director Swan-There is no question that when you change assessments especially it has been twelve years or ten years what ever it was here in Queensbury there are going to be people that are going to be seeing a decrease, there is going to be people that are seeing an increase my school taxes more than doubled, because I was under assessed, I had a twelve year old house. Trying to keep it equitable with what was out there and my assessment went ski high. Councilman Boor-You are on Lake George? Director Swan-No. Right about a half mile from here, not on the lake not on any thing like that. I am just on a road, right around the corner from here. Councilman Strough-How would we re-equalize the situation, lets say a neighborhood discovered there was a love canal under it and no body knew about it and all of a sudden it was discovered so home..crash all right and they go from three hundred thousand to fifty thousand. How fast does our system react to that and reassessing their home? 58 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 10-24-2005 MTG.#48 Assessor Otte-We have twelve months cycle. In the instance of Hadlock Pond for instance I do not know what was decided in changing that twelve month cycle I do not know if adjustments were made. Supervisor Stec-Questioned what was done at the County? Director Swan-In the infinite wisdom of the State Legislature they can change some of these things and they did, Betty Little had a bill put through when we had all the flooding in June up North when Bolton got washed out and Warrensburg and the Northway got washed out that basically said that the local municipality could correct an assessment on a property retro actively in 2005 if you could prove that you had more than I think don’t quote me on this it was a third of the value of the property was lost. In those certain special instances I do not know because it is Washington County whether that same thing happened over at Hadlock Pond or not, I do not know. I did not keep up on that. Under normal circumstances through the cycle, real property tax law states that you are to do the best of your ability to maintain equality in your roll and if you find a neighborhood that is out of whack it is your responsibility as the assessor to adjust those assessments whether it is up or down depending on the, most of the time in reality it goes up. But, if you do have a love canal you are given the authority as the assessor to make the proper adjustments for the affected area. It happened years ago down in South Glens Falls Moreau, the Terry Drive area over there where they found the Caputo Dump Site and everything those assessments were reduced drastically in that subdivision as a result of that. Councilman Brewer-Now, they are coming back up, because they corrected the water problem. Councilman Strough-Or visa versa if a neighborhood all of a sudden very popular and assessments go up then that too will be … Councilman Boor-Lake George Director Swan-That is a good example of what you are talking about. Property on a lake has just been sky rocketing, the popularity and it is just not the lakes it is the rivers and the streams and the ponds. Supervisor Stec-I think we have a consensus among board members I think everyone is comfortable with. Councilman Boor-For clarity, requests for this type of information will come directly to the Town Board or to the Assessor, thorough the Assessor to the Town Board? Supervisor Stec-The mechanism that we are in is that a determination by the Records Clerk has been made and an appeal needs to be made in writing to the Town Board. It needs to come to the Town Board. Councilman Boor-I would prefer it goes through Helen’s Office, we are not going to know if it is a non seneschal request, I do not mean that in a derogatory way. If the numbers, if the properties don’t even exist or something. Supervisor Stec-As soon as I get it Helen is going to get a copy of it. Our Code says it needs to come to the Town Board. Mr. John Salvador-Is there a time, must that appeal be filed in a certain time? Supervisor Stec-No, it does not say how long, he has to file it. So, I think we have direction and consensus and again I think the context argument I thank you for your efforts and in also preparing the rest of the context that I know you were concerned about, hey I am confident that I have done a good job in this re-val I know to paraphrase that is where you are coming from. Out of thirteen thousand properties not everyone is going to be unanimous in that and everyone understands that. So, this will give us some 59 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 10-24-2005 MTG.#48 closure on some of those issues. Thanked Director of Real Property Mike Swan and Town of Queensbury Assessor Helen Otte 5.0Discussion: West Glens Falls EMS Building Supervisor Stec-West Glens Falls EMS, noted they are awaiting additional bids and they would like to meet at a later date. DISCUSSIONS Board discussed the expansion of the State Police Building, indicating that they would like to proceed this year. Board requested more detail in regard to roof repairs from Chuck Rice Building and Grounds Superintendent. Discussion regarding pedestrian bridge – and temporary C/O Supervisor will be writing letter to Great Escape. RESOLUTION ADJOURNING TOWN BOARD MEETING RESOLUTION NO. 504. 2005 INTRODUCED BY: Mr. Tim Brewer WHO MOVED FOR ITS ADOPTION SECONDED BY: Mr. Theodore Turner RESOLVED , that the Town Board of the Town of Queensbury hereby adjourns its Special Town Board Meeting. th Duly adopted this 24 day of October, 2005 by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Boor, Mr. Turner, Mr. Strough, Mr. Brewer, Mr. Stec NOES: None ABSENT: None Respectfully submitted, Miss Darleen M. Dougher Town Clerk-Queensbury