##VIDEO ID:qb1Ruf02MwQ## the Monday November 4th 2024 regular meeting of the gardener city council will come to order the clerk will please call the role councilor Brooks pres Council Craig Cormier president Council General LS Council harder president councilor Heath pres Council heglin pres Council math pres Council Tio munz present Council tone pres Council tyros pres and president pres please rise to recite the opening prayer and sa the Pledge of Allegiance almighty God we thank you for bringing us together this evening Inspire us tothy deeds and sound decisions and direct us toward the attainment of good city government we pray to bless and protect all the people of our city soide and Inspire that we amen Ali to the flag of the United States of America and to the rep for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for [Music] all announcement of open meeting recordings any person may make a video or audio recording of an open session of a meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium subject to reasonable requirements of the chair as to the number placement and operation of equipment used so as not to interfere with the conduct of the meeting any person intending to make such recording shall notify the chair forth with all documents and Exhibits used or referenced at the meeting must be submitted and duplicate to the chair as they become part of the meeting minutes pursuing to General Law chapter 38 subsection 20 is anyone here recording tonight's meeting there are no reading of minutes of Prior meetings public hearings item 11417 a petition by National Grid City Hall AV to install underground facilities install one pad mounted Transformer and approximately 20 ft of conduit in the parking lot off Main Street and Pleasant Street Gardener Mass the public hearing is now open the public hearing notice reads as follows notice to abutters October 24th 2024 to abutters and other interested parties pursuant to the provisions of Mass General Law chapter 166 subsection 22 you are hereby notified that a public hearing will be conducted on Monday November 4th 2024 at 7:30 p.m. on the petition of Massachusetts electric company doing business as national grid for permission to erect and maintain poles and wires and be placed thereon together with such sustaining and protecting fixtures as said companies May deem necessary in the public way or ways here and after referred to as requested in Petition of said companies City Hall Avenue a petition by National Grid City Hall Avenue to install underground facilities install one pad mounted Transformer and approximately 20 ft of conduit in the parking lot off Main Street and Pleasant Street Bar Massachusetts a sketch of the proposed poll location is attached for your edification City Council of gardener TT sarapan City Clerk does anyone wish to speak in favor of the petition Mr Mayor thank you very much Madam president this is a project that the Administration has been working on with National Grid uh this Transformer is being installed in George Sweeny park across the street from the paramont cafe uh the many of the buildings downtown need upgraded electrical services in order to renovate the upper floors of these buildings uh as such they uh need a new Transformer in order to uh be able to upgrade an electrical system uh this Transformer is mainly being used to feed 25 Main Street right now the building has enough electrical capacity to feed the new Bria coffee that's being installed on the first floor but does not have the electrical capacity to re to do the uh intended residential units on the upper floors so that's what this Transformer is being used for however unlike other Transformers that be installed for purposes like this this Transformer is being maintained ownership by National Grid uh the reason for that is that there's like I said several other properties in the downtown that are in the similar boat so this uh Transformer is actually fit fed out to the size to be able to help uh three of the downtown buildings uh upgrade their electrical system so that we can go through that renovation process that we have planned uh really the only reason why a lot of the construction work on the buildings like the garos building at 210 Parker Street the upper floors at 25 Main Street uh and several of the other buildings downtown hasn't begun yet is because of this electrical hold up so this will allow those projects to actually move forward uh and really retrofit out those buildings that you know we heard the plan for a while ago and everything's been on hold and this is the hold that we've been waiting for so uh that's why this is being put forward and happy to answer any questions from what the uh administration's been working with Nashville grid on this thank you thank you Mr [Music] Mayor does anyone wish to speak in favor of the petition is there anyone here who wishes to speak in favor of the petition is there anyone here present who'd like to speak in opposition of the petition is there anyone in opposition of the petition is there anyone in opposition of the petition the public hearing is now closed item 11418 a measure to adopt a factor for real estate and personal property taxation for f school year 2025 the public hearing is now open the public hearing notice reads as follows notice of FY 2025 tax classification hearing pursuant to chapter 40 section 56 of Mass general laws The Gardener city council will hold a public hearing on Monday November 4th 2024 at 7:30 p.m. in the council chamber room 219 at City Hall 95 Pleasant Street Gardener Massachusetts the purpose of the hearing is to determine the percentage of the local tax levy to be borne by each class of real estate the hearing will include the options available under chapter 40 section 56 of the Massachusetts general laws the public is welcome to attend posted to the city website on October 23rd 2024 we will begin with a presentation from the mayor on the subject of the public hearing thank you madam president and counselors uh this is going to be the quickest way we'll get through the uh these slides here a lot of these slides that are included here are for informational purposes only uh just because this is the first time we've actually took a deep dive into why we're suggesting the single tax rate uh for the city's options it feels like every year I come up and refer to a bunch of PDFs and documents that are included in your packet without actually saying what those are for and why we do that uh so we're just doing a quick overview uh the presentation on the screens is really just for the uh quick referring back to those documents so we don't have to keep uh turning back in the packet uh but I do want to start by um thanking our finance team uh with our city auditor John Richard Den jck our city treasurer Christine Kumar our City Assessor and Josh Cormier our city purchasing director we do meet on a monthly basis to go over the city's Financial State uh and we wouldn't be in as strong as a position as we are uh without their helps and it's something that's really been helpful to me in the mayor's office so thank you for two of them who are appointed by the city council uh and they've really been uh really collaborative to work with just a quick run through if you see uh these acronyms that come up uh that's just how the classifications of tax taxation are coded in the do documents um the valuations uh you'll hear that term brought out throughout valuations are the values of different properties in the city and they're actually set from how the market was performing two calendar years prior uh so all of the valuations you see being talked about for fy2 are things that were happening in uh 20 23 in the real estate market so houses for sale uh that type of trends that you see there that's how state law says we have to go back and value those properties those are all then certified by the state and then every 5 years we have to go back and re-evaluate all of our properties with our data collectors uh but that's all a process there too so that's where our valuations come from themselves uh so if you hear that this is actually how the market was doing two years ago and so everything that's happening now won't actually hit our tax bills or our tax processes for another two years and then just your usual things that you hear at the tax uh hearing uh the tax rates the amount that's set for ,000 the levies the amount that we actually collect in taxes the levy limits the amount that we can collect in taxes the levey ceiling is everything that we could uh so that's your new growth that's if we had any debt exclusions that if we had any overrides all of that plus the tax levy is can go up to the levy ceiling and any excess capacity is what we don't collect in taxes but we could collect if we wanted to uh we're going to get more into that you'll see the numbers pop up later on and might be a little more clear and then New Growth that we've talked about that's anything that we didn't plan when the budget was originally set that's your uh additions onto properties new properties that were built that received their certificate of occupancies by the time that the after the time the budget was Set uh before the time the tax rate was set that we can capture all of that in taxation now that uh the property's been finalized and that's moving forward uh if we didn't have the supplemental budget that we had before where we actually capture that into the budget we wouldn't be able to capture that until the next year budget but by doing that supplemental budget that now factors into all of our um Revenue factors for the upcoming fiscal year so the uh what we're actually here for today the biggest uh question we get from the taxpayers is this the vote that sets the tax rate and that's not the case that determines how much of the tax rate is shared by our residential and open space properties and how much is shared by commercial industrial and personal properties uh it's required to be done on an annual basis um with either a single single rate or a split rate where you have to keep residential and open space together and you have to keep commercial industrial and personal prod together but it all determines do you keep them at the same rate do you uh uh subsidize one rate with the other rate and that's what the uh split tax rat was um and that's what the uh factor that you hear about at this hearing is is how much of the percentage of our taxes that we collect is born by our residential and our open space properties and how much of that is Bor by our commercial and uh industrial and personal properties and there's several different options that we can choose from there's the residential factor of one that's your single tax rate that everyone hears everyone's charge the same tax rate but you can actually go through and there's several different options uh determining how you shift that amount that goes towards your residential and open space or your commercial industrial and personal properties if you so choose to uh you can charge more to your cips or you can charge more q and basically subsidize one versus the other and uh that's something that can be due uh and just to note too like the votes that we've had recently with the city Charter changes and anything like that this is also a vote that the council cannot override in mayoral veto on it requires both mayoral approval and city council approval uh for that not that we've ever had that happen with this one but again just in transparency say for the public who are watching uh that's what the law sets forth uh so single versus split tax rate your single tax rate again as we said it's basically just everyone pays the same uh if uh you you know the um Residential Properties make up 80% of our assessed valuations they're paying 80% of the taxes uh that we're collecting and it's basically just you take everyone's percentage and that's the amount that they're paying in a split tax rate it's a little different like as we said you're subsidizing one versus the other uh so uh this law also does say how much that can happen so if say 80% was residential and 20% was commercial uh then you they could only go up to 30% so it does limit you and how much that change can be because you can only go up to 1.5 uh so you do that 02 * 1.5 that's how you get that 30 that's there um this is all tax law fun and I say fun very lightly um but just the purpose of this slide is basically so even if we wanted to shift it we're capped at how much we can shift it at uh and it's not like these decisions are made willy-nilly or just trying to say we've got a budget Gap let's fill it this way and this is our quickest and easy way to do it there's actual legal processes that we have to follow in any way uh that we choose to go forward uh there are three exemptions we could do as well open space properties could be taxed uh could be lowered in their tax rate by 25% residenti uh multif Family Properties uh that are owner occupied could have their assessments lowered by up to 35% or small commercial properties that have businesses of 10 people with an assess value of uh less than $1 million could also have their taxes lowered all of these except for uh all of these would have to be approved by the council specific to the property themselves uh number three would then have to be approved by the state too for that commercial we don't have any of these but these are the options that are available to us and then the biggest question that we get asked every year is why are my taxes I thought they could only go up uh 2 and a half% a year property uh it's just a reminder that proposition 2 and a half when it was passed at the ballot uh as a ballot question in 1980 uh said that the amount of taxes the total amount of taxes that we collect in every year cannot go up by more than 2 and a half% and then that 25% of the total amount that's taken in is then divided up among the different properties based on their valuations that we've talked about earlier are based on how comparable properties were selling 2 years prior in the real estate market um but because we're capped at how much we can collect annually by proposition two and a half our tax rate and our valuations have an inverse relationship where if the valuations go up the tax rate goes down and vice versa if the tax rate goes up valuations will likely go down uh because we are capped and if you have only so much room if something fills up more of that space that you have the other one shrinks and that's just how that sliding scale works uh and what we run into in when we are in a good Market where valuations are going up tax rates are going down is this anomaly in the tax bill laws uh because valuations go in on the first day of the fiscal year so come July 1st our new property valuations are put into place but state law also says that the new tax rate does not go into effect until the first day of the third quarter of the fiscal year because we have to close out the previous fiscal year make sure we're in a good Financial setting so what this does is for the first two bills of the fiscal year because we do quarterly billing the ones that are issued in July and the ones that are issued in October are called preliminary tax bills and the reason for that is we don't have our actual tax rate yet so we're using last year's tax rate in this year's valuations if the Market's doing slow you don't really notice a difference but when the Market's taken off like we have since the pandemic you'll notice a larger amount paid up front until this new tax rate is set um and because the first two that's why again the first two quarters are your estimated bills and the uh second two quarters are considered your actual tax bills uh and you're actually subsidizing the second your third and fourth quarter bills because of the way that the laws are set up when rates and valuations have to be put into effect uh so to put this into visual perspective you'd think on a quarterly basis you'd have four equal quarters but in reality it's actually something that looks more like this your first and second quarters are a lot larger than your third and fourth so how does that affect us here in Gardner for the current fiscal year as I said at the beginning we are recommending a residential factor of one uh in a single tax rate as we have before what's happened so far uh the la3 has been certified that's our values from two years ago do has said these are arms length sales that's uh good enough to determine comparable property values across the city uh the la4 has been certified that's uh saying that based off of those comparable sales from the la3 properties should be valued at this much and they certify by the address that this and the type of property that that's how much those should be valued and assessed at the LA 13 that's our new growth that's also certified and added to our Revenue the council adopted the uh supplemental budget at the last uh council meeting and then free cash was also certified what we have next to do is this hearing that we're in uh after this hearing tomorrow the uh City auditor and myself will uh go online on the State's Department of revenues website upload everything that's happened here sign off and then the Department of Revenue sets the tax rate based off of the vote that's happened this evening and then after that the City Treasurer's Office issues our third and four tax bills uh for third and fourth quarter tax bills for the coming fiscal year sub uh so where we lie in Gard there right now uh the tax levy that's the amount we're actually collecting in Gardener that's $33.99 million into taxation uh the ex capacity that you see there is what we could go up to in collecting taxes versus what we actually are there's that difference of $1 19,38 uh that we could have raised in taxes but we didn't need to in this year's budget uh so that's our excess that's there New Growth came in at 32,9 51 that Levy ceiling that 59 million that's one of those that if we had a debt exclusion if we had an override if we had something like that then that Levy limit of 33.9 million could not not plus all of those could not exceed that $59 million so that's really it is we really don't talk about the levy ceiling too often because we're likely never going to hit it um unless there's a lot of projects that happen that none of us are looking at doing right now um but that's what that number stands for the real estate market in Garder has been still pretty heavy right now the average sale price the median sale price in Gardner right now is about $415,000 for a single family home as you can see that has fluctuated that's a 5year timeline uh on the graph that's there showing the charts uh there have been nine homes and gardeners sold this year which is a 55% drop from last year mainly because we don't have the housing stock and that's something that we're looking at do uh right now is how much of these valuation increases and the market trends that we're seeing are simply because we don't have the housing stock and is it a certain type of housing that we don't have that's causing the spike in the real estate market is it that we don't have enough senior housing is it that we don't have enough market rate don't have enough affordable and that's what we're looking at right now uh and the average house and Gardener right now is uh selling at about 103 7% of its asking price that it's listed for uh so it's something that we're seeing that number continue to go up uh and if you look next to that 88.9% of all houses on the market in Garder over the last year went above asking price uh by that 13.7% on average so it's something that we're still seeing the strong real estate market even though we're here hearing of you know the interest rates while they did come down a little bit they're still higher than they were but the housing market in Garder is still just as strong and we're seeing it right now uh if you look on a regional basis uh we're beating everyone in the community but lemonster lemonster is 05% higher than us and fitchburg's 3.6% lower than us uh so it's one of those that we're I think we're third right now in the region for how this real estate Market's going again behind lemonster and lunenberg so what our data is so so far for uh the fiscal year and what's coming up today it's based on an average assessed uh average single family home assessed value of$ 34,7 79 an estimated tax rate of $14.37 which would acate to an estimated average single family tax bill of $4,899 we say estimated because again as we said the Department of Revenue is the one who has to set the tax rate so we can guess what they're going to set it as uh right now there's two options it really looks like it's going to be 1437 or 1436 so for the purposes of the presentation we use the higher number uh just if we're pleasantly surprised we're pleasantly surprised uh right now uh 84% of our properties and Gardener are Residential Properties 8% are commercial 4% are industrial and 5% comes from personal property Taxation and these are the total valuations of a whole so again when we're setting that factor of what could change and what could not you're not using the percentage of Total Property you're using the percentage of the valuations of that property against the whole city as we saw uh before in the letter I sent to the council this is our new growth over the last uh just about 10 years uh that big spike you saw in 2017 there's a industrial uh company over on suffk Lane called Tera firm uh they did a large new equipment purchase which substantially increased our personal property taxation by about $350,000 in 2017 the reason that came down is it was then built into our regular tax levy in the next year so that's why you see that large Spike that's there uh and really the decrease that's there isn't that big of a decrease overall when you look at the ground scheme of things and the trends that we have over our 20-year Outlook uh but in it really just looks like the real estate market is catching up to the demand uh just because we have the we don't have the supply and demand issue where we have the demand the supply to meet the demand because we're running into that I think with the interest rates with uh inflation and everything people aren't renovating their houses but that doesn't mean the demand for those houses aren't there so that's why even though our valuations are going up new growth is going down and just looking at the data is that we don't have that Nexus that meets in the middle because the demand is there but people can't move out of the houses that they're living in because then they have a hard time finding a new house to go into themselves and it's one of those that kind of uh circles in that manner uh but this is the amount of uh increase in valuations per type of property in in the city you'll see for the past couple years our three family houses have seen the biggest increase in valuation out of any other classification of property in the city um people are looking for apartments and I think these people are coming up and buying up these three family homes and knowing that they can get these tenants in these apartments uh and we don't have that many available here in Gardner and that's the other thing uh so that again supply and demand situation that's where our our three families uh seem to be the biggest followed pretty closely after by our four plus unit families uh that's something that I you know I think is going to continue unless we find a way to build our housing stock that we have here um in any sense of the term for either single family apartment units or anything like that we just don't have the demand the supply to meet the demand that's there uh single family home valuations and this just personifies it even more uh it have gone up uh substantially over the last 10 years uh we've only seen a 10% increase in our population in the same time period and a lot of it's people moving out from in the metropolitan Boston area and coming out to this area but again that demand is there I think people are realizing now that you can buy a house on an acre of land and Gardener for what you can buy a brick for in Boston and that's something that as that cycle perpetuates and people come moving out here our values go up because again the supply is down and this just shows that uh correlation and inverse relationship that we talked about earlier the blue line is our tax rate over the from 2014 to present uh the orange line is our average uh single family home valuation uh over the same period of time and you can see they meet in the middle uh and then Verge off by about that same amount there too so you're always going to have that inverse effect there where they met in December of 2020 is really the um Nexus where the uh real estate market took off the most uh and as someone who bought a house in that same time frame uh it took me 38 offers before I got my house accepted and it's because we had that such demand that was here in Garder uh so it's one of those things that I think is going to continue for a little bit longer at least until the market evens out uh but you'll notice the trend downward in the tax rate and up in the valuations didn't begin when the pandemic begin this is actually some began excuse me this is something that began in 2017 and what happened with the pandemic and the interest rates dropping as a result of the pandemic just sped up the process but this is something that we've seen for quite some time this is in your packet it's just so you can see the his hisorical data that's there in terms of valuations and our uh tax rate uh this is where we fall if you look at uh how much bills have increased the tax rate and those valuations the blue bars are the valuations the green line is the tax rate the red bars are how much the average single family tax bill has increased from year to year this is the lowest amount an average single family tax bill has increased from the previous fiscal year to the current by just under $5 uh where if you know noticed last year it was around $268 and the reason for that is this uh we have no Revenue uh we're able to do more in the budget than we were able to do without the revenue that we're now taking in uh from the meals tax the hotel's tax our local receipts things like that that were able to help supplement some of the budget funds that we would normally rely on taxation for aside from that the markets uh trends that they're in right now uh that's why we the average single family home and Gardener should see about a $5 increase from last year's tax bill to this year's tax bill uh just to make that a little clearer because it was harder to see with the other stuff this is the jumps that you've seen in increases uh each year uh in the average single family tax bill in Gardner this is where we fall currently uh with the other communities in north central Massachusetts right now Gardner ranks fifth out of the 11 North Central Mass communities I should say this is all last year's data including our bills and valuations and tax rate from last year because we're the first of this group to hit the hearing uh so this is something that maybe in February another letter will come to the council saying updated information where we fall after this is all done but we can't predict where these communities will fall uh but right now you see where Gardener Falls amongst the uh communities in our region we're required by law to show you the at top 10 highest property taxpayers in the city of Garder the utilities are in grve we throw those in because they're always going to be uh in the top 10 there uh number three fre just because that's a bunch of last names mixed together that's rid uh Ridgewood Condominiums uh and all of the llc's that jointly own Ridgewood Condominiums uh and you can go down from there and that's our top 10 highest taxpayers uh so how does this fit here right now with the average single family home Bill uh we talked about earlier how uh you're subsidizing because of the current tax rate and the way the Market's in a strong upward Trend uh that first SEC first Bills first quarter bills and second quarter bills actually subsidize your third quarter bills and your fourth quarter bills because you're doing the new values with the old rate and then you go to the new values and the new rate in January uh the average single family home and Gardener should see a reduction of about $15.64 from what they got in their October Bill versus what they'll get in their January Bill and their April Bill uh because the average single family home in Gardner right now is pre has paid about 52% of the taxes uh that they're annually going to be charged because the tax rates going down because that valuation went up and the tax rate isn't going down until January that's where you get this immediate drop because we're capped at how much we can collecting taxes if we simply said just start the new rates and just continue going forward from there we'd be going over prop two and a half and we'd be going over that 2 and a half% that we're legally allowed to collect uh so that's why you'll see that drop and how did this compare to last year uh La we're actually people should be seeing a reduction of a little greater than we saw last year but pretty on par uh with how that set up uh for this year this was a new SE sheet included in the budget this year but with the updated tax rate I figured I'd also include that here uh what this shows is the Departments of the city the percentage of the full City budget that that department makes up and then taking the average single family tax bill of $4,888 199 taking the percentage of that and showing how much the average taxpayer and Gardener is paying towards Department in the city if it's not on this list then they contributed less than $25 a year uh to that Department based off of their average tax bill uh but you'll see the school department makes up 44.3% of the city's budget 44.3% of the average single family tax bill in Garder is $2,173 so the average single family uh home taxpayer and Gardener is paying about $2,100 towards the school department on an annual basis that's what this uh shows here for the top departments in the city going down to again everything under the building department paid less than $25 a year uh for the Department that um is listed there uh the last Trend that we've seen here uh just for informational purposes is the percentage of the average household income that we get from the Census um the average household income in Garder between 2015 and 2025 has gone up by just under 60% uh the average single family home valuation in Garder has gone up by just over 114% uh so right now between what we anticipate a taxpayer is paying in their mortgage versus what we anticipate the taxpayers also then paying in taxes they're paying about 21% of their annual income uh towards their houses that they have here and that's again something that until we can find a way to grow our housing stock that's really what uh that trend is going to be like we want that to go at least stabilized I don't think it's going to go down unfortunately but until those valuations get under control with that supply and demand issue that we have that's really a trend that we're going to see you see in the last 10 years uh there's been an increase of about 16 177% of how much of a person's income is going towards paying for their house and both just mortgage costs and in taxation let alone utilities and everything else that's associated with ownership of the house uh and then everything that you have to buy with it uh but because only 57% of the city owns the properties that they live in we did a rental analysis view as well uh with the different rents in the city this is also included in your packet just so you can have an apples comparison between the two there uh with rents going up you know across the different types of apartments that we have in the city but this doesn't relate directly to taxation but it's also good because that is 42% of the City's population right now just to show what uh Financial impact this may have on them and the rents that they pay uh but what was also interesting is right now in the city if you have a three-bedroom apartment uh and compared how much you're paying annually off of your 12-month rent of 22740 and go back to how much you're paying if you own a single family house uh based on the values that we have and the market trends we have you're actually paying about $400 more to rent a three-bedroom apartment and Gardener than to own a single family house uh but that's again because we don't have the apartment stock that we have for the demand that we have here um so these are the options for the different tax rate splits that we have based on all of that information that I just put forward um the city is re the administration's recommending a single tax rate that's why that's highlight there um and that's all of the reasons why is that with everything that else is going on right now the market being as high as it is the trends in New Growth in valuations that we're seeing the way we're comparing to other communities um we don't want to shift anymore onto our residential and open space owners at the same time we're at I believe since 2020 we're at 79 new businesses that have open in the city uh even with the ones that have closed for one reason or another we're still at a net gain of 67 uh in that same time period right now uh I spent most of the afternoon on the phone with someone who's interested in the garos slot over on tany Boulevard today I've spent most of the time recently cold calling with businesses who are interested in coming into Gardener we've shown that we're open for business so we don't want to shift anymore onto our commercial industrial and personal property side and really close off that progress and positive trend that we've seen on our business side so for all of those reason reasons finally that's why the administration is requesting uh a single tax rate at that $14.37 uh Mark just so we can have a uh stable financial plan moving forward for our Residential Properties that are seeing increases in valuations and for our commercial industrial properties that are coming in at a higher rate hoping that we can help balance the amount of commercial industrial personal property taxes versus residential and open space property taxes that we have to get those more in the middle um to even out what we're seeing financially thank you thank you Mr Mayor does anyone wish to speak in favor of the petition I I just had a question sure Council M um I just wanted to ask mayor I just with the I just want to go over um on slides 43 and 46 you mentioned um that the average increased tax bill you said about $5 I just want to make sure that if we go to one you're saying that the home valuation the assessments are are not scheduled to go up uh we've got the City Assessor here uh to I don't know if we can say that that that's the average home I want to say that now the valuations have gone into effect as of July 1 so the valuations you see in the bill now will be your valuation for the fiscal year okay there will be people you know we have to reassess the valuations every year so if any valuations change for something other than new growth in terms of you added a deck or you did an upgrade to your you re you added a new bathroom or something like that anything that will build your valuation mid year anything else would wouldn't take effect until the next fiscal year when the new valuations are certified in that Trend did I say that right Chris that is correct thank you I I just want to make that clarify thank you thank you any further questions comments from the council okay is there anyone here to wishes to speak in favor is there anyone present in favor is there anyone else present in favor is there anyone here in opposition is there anybody wishes to speak in opposition is there anyone who wishes to speak in opposition is there anyone here that wishes to speak on the petition okay the public hearings closed thank you Communications from the mayor Communications item 11419 a measure authorizing the city to enter into a contract for up to five years for Police Department body camera cloud storage councelor Mac uh I make motion to refer this to the finance committee second motion made by councelor Ma second and by councelor tyus to refer the item to the finance committee is there a discussion on the motion all those in favor say I I who suppos say no motion passes item 1420 a measure declaring Surplus for the purpose of disposal of land and buildings at 73 Stewart Street councelor Mac I make a motion to refer this item to the finance committee second motion made by councelor Max second by councel tyos to refer the item to the finance committee is there discussion on the motion all those in favor say I I post say no Mo passes item 11 1421 a communication from the mayor regarding medx health insurance rates for retirees Council ma I'd like to make a motion to place this communication on file second motion made by councelor Max seconded by councel tyos to place the communication on file is there a discussion on the motion Mr Mayor thank you madam president just like I did with the health insurance and I've talked enough this meeting so I'll keep this quick um um uh we talked about comparing to other communities in the area we did find out this morning that fishburg rates went up about 18% where ours is at 12 uh Fitchburg also does a 7030 split where we do a 7525 split so just to compare uh the rates we're seeing we're pretty on par with what other communities in the region are seeing thank you thank you Mr Mayor any discussion on the motion seeing as there isn't all those in favor say I I oppos say no motion passes ordinances item item 11 1422 an ordinance to amend the chapter 600 of the code of the city of Garder there of entitled vehicles and traffic councelor Cormier I make a motion to refer the item to the Safety Committee for study and Report second motion made by councelor Cormier second by counselor Heath to refer the item to the Public Safety Committee for studying report is there a discussion on the motion all those in favor say I I who oppos to say no motion passes petitions applications Communications Etc item 11423 a proposal relative to the rules of the city council councelor tyros thank you madam president I moveed to refer to the committee of a whole and to schedule an informal meeting to discuss this item second motion made by councelor Tyro second to by counselor Mac to refer the item to the committee of the whole and schedule an informal meeting is there discussion on the motion all those in favor say I I those opposed to say no motion passes reports of standing committees find finance committee item 11 1289 an ordinance to amend the code of the city of Gardner part one thereof entitled administrative legislation councelor Mack uh councilors have received the seventh version of this item to review the committee um the finance committee respectfully request for more time as there will be an informal meeting scheduled on this item very soon if there is no objection the committee will be granted more time the committee will be granted more time item 1147 seven a measure authorizing a 5-year contract for school transportation services councelor M um this item was initiated by the school department to enter into a new school um busing contract Ser uh for a five-year Services um from FY 2026 to 2030 um this is a 3+2 contract which would allow an additional two-year option by the mayor um the two years would not be binding um when we went through the bud buget uh for this past fiscal year we were informed that the to expect an increase cost for transportation so this will allow the school department to seek more competitive rates in the bidding process the committee was in favor and I move the order second motion made by councelor Max second to by councelor tyos to authorize the contract is there discussion on the motion all those in favor say I I all those oppos say no motion passes item 11408 in order accepting the provisions of section 5n of chapter 59 of the general laws to establish a veteran property tax workof program report from the finance committee councelor Mac um this item is to have a veterans tax workof program that would reflect our current senior tax workof program which allows a property tax reduction up to $1,000 a year a veteran may not meet the current age requirement for the senior workof program but can apply for a property tax reduction as long as their primary resident is in Gardener for volunteering up to 68 hours of service to the city which is aligned with a $15 minimum wage there will be 10 spots for veterans to participate in this program and there is a new application that will be used and it will be the same application that is used for the senior tax workof program and which will be available through the human resource department the can committee was the committee was unanimous unanimously in favor and I move the order second motion made by C Max second by councelor Tone to adopt the order is there a discussion on the motion all those in favor say I I who's opposed to say no motion passes item 11 1409 a communication from the mayor regarding the certification of FY 2024 free cash report from the finance committee counselor Mac I make a motion to place the communication on file second motion made by councelor Max second by councel tyros to place a communication on files there discussion on the motion all those in favor say I I who opposed say no motion passes item 11 1410 a communication from the mayor regarding the certification of FY 2024 Enterprise fund retained earnings report from the finance committee councelor Mack thank you madam president I make a motion to place a communication on file second motion made by councelor Max second and by councelor Tone to place the communication on file is there a discussion on the motion all those in favor say I iOS say no motion passes appointments item number 11 1414 a measure confirming the mayor's appointment of Paul Gage to the position of historical commission member for a term expiring October 16th 2024 councelor tyros thank you madam president the committee respectfully request more time if there is no objection the committee will be granted more time the committee will be granted more time Safety Committee item 11 1415 an ordinance to amend the code of the city of Gardner chapter 477 thereof entitled mobile homes and trailers councelor CRA cor thank you madam president uh the Safety Committee had a chance to meet on this item and discuss it with both the mayor and the chief of police uh this item was brought forth by the police department to the administration uh in regards to the increase of mobile homes that are parking in areas that are not owned by homeowners uh in public ways uh and and such uh the issue uh that really concerns is mostly um disposal of waste um from these vehicles as well as trash um it's a really a health issue um so the deputy chief uh drafted this order based on similar legislation from several other uh communities in the area um to help alleviate this issue by keeping these RVs moving along um the committee was in favor unanimously of this and I move to send the item to first printing second motion made by councelor Cormier seconded by councelor Heath to send the item to first printing is there a discussion on the motion all those in favor say I I I those post say no motion passes item 11 1416 an ordinance to amend the code of the city of Gardner chapter 600 thereof entitled entitled vehicles in traffic to add a new section 21 to be entitled parking meter fees weight councelor foror thank you madam president uh the city has begun to install new parking meters to replace all the ones that no longer work um this is expected to take the next several weeks um but since we usually traditionally Wave parking meters through December anyway uh they won't really become uh effective to collect until January uh so the Administration has uh traffic commission actually brought this forward to propose that anyone with the list of Veteran uh and service member plates that are listed in the ordinance uh once the meters start collecting will'll be have their fees waved from parking they will still be uh obligated to the time limit by the meter but they will not need to pay the the fee uh the committee was unanimously in favor and I move the ordinance to first printing motion made by councelor Cormier second by councelor Harden to send the item to first printing is there a discussion on the motion all those in favor say I I those opposed say no motion passes service committee item 11385 a measure to to Grant National Grid and easement to install a Transformer at 95 Pleasant Street councelor t m president like to make a motion to remove this from the calendar as we uh voted uh on this at our last meeting and again this was for the easement otherwise we wouldn't have been able to have the uh public hearing here today second motion made by councelor Tony second to by councelor tyros to remove the item from the calendar is there a discussion on the motion all those in favor say I I those oppos say no motion passes item 11417 a petition by National Grid City Hall Avenue to install underground facilities install one pad mounted Transformer and approximately 20 ft of conduit in the parking lot off Main Street and Pleasant Street Garden of Massachusetts we did have a public hearing earlier on this item this evening councelor ton Madam president uh Public Service committee would like to request more time on this item if there is no objection the committee will be granted more time the committee will be granted more time Committee of the whole item 11 1418 a measure to adopt a factor for real estate and personal property taxation for fiscal year 2025 we also had a public hearing on this item earlier this evening and a presentation from the mayor is there a motion councelor heglin thank you madam president uh I move that the residential factor for the real estate taxes be set at one for the fiscal year beginning on July 1st 2024 and ending June 30th 2025 second motion made by councelor heglin seconded by councelor tyros that the residential factor for real estate taxes be set at one for the fiscal year beginning on July 1st 2024 and ending July 30th 2025 is there a discussion on the motion all those in favor say I I those opposed say no motion passes there is no unfinished business and matters for reconsideration there is no new Business Council comments and remarks are there any coun comment councelor Brooks thank you madam president so election day is finally here I would in case anybody had missed that uh I would first like to thank all the folks in the city clerk's office for their dedication and hard work and putting together the 2024 election the city is fortunate to have such a good staff and many other residents willing to spend a long day at the polling place tomorrow uh second I I'd like to pass on a few things I learned while serving as an assistant registar there are a myriad of safeguards to prevent dishonesty and many checks and balances in place to ensure that the end results are honest and accurate first the ballot boxes are tested prior to being deployed to each of the 10 precincts in the city the city clerk's office fills out 50 ballots and then runs them into The Ballot Box to be sure they are counted properly after deployment and before the polls open The Ballot Box produces a printed tape showing all the names and questions on the ballot and showing that no votes have been cast this beginning tape is posted in the polling place for the public to examine when someone comes in to vote they go to the inspector at the check-in table and announce their name and address the inspector repeats the name and address checks the name off the list and hands the voter a ballot after voting the voter goes to the checkout table where they Again State their name and address to the inspector who checks their name off the list the voter then places their ballot in The Ballot Box where it's tabulated the inspectors also use the DAT to process mailin absentee and early voting ballots if someone comes into the polling place and tries to vote after having already voted by mailin absentee or early voting they will not be allowed to vote their name has already been checked off the list when the polling place closes at the end of the election day inspectors compare the counts on the two lists of Voters with the count on The Ballot Box the number obviously should be the same on all three the warden then prints a tape from The Ballot Box showing The Unofficial election results from that Ballot Box the total votes cast on the report should again prove to the two lists one copy of the print out is posted next to the tape printed at the start of the day another copy along with the ballot Bots memory cards are brought to the city clerk's office the city clerk compiles the results from all precincts checks to make sure that the results look correct and then posts the unofficial results for the city ballots from each Precinct are counted to be sure that number of ballots agreed with a total from the lists of Voters they are then sealed in a box and returned by the police officer to the city clerk the sealed box from each Precinct is placed in a vault in case there are questions or recounts the board of registrars reviews any conditional ballots and counts any late arriving overseas ballots the city clerk has a couple of weeks to review the results and make sure it all proves only then does she send the official results to the Secretary of State so is that it actually no every four years the Secretary of State selects random races and precincts from across the Commonwealth for an audit an audit involves opening up the sealed Ballot Box and hand counting the ballots to assure that the votes were counted correctly as an assistant registar I sat through an audit four years ago and the city had no issues again to the dedication and hard work of uh the staff in the city clerk's office having seen how elections are conducted in this city I have no doubt that the elections are accurate and honest since the city is following the rules sit down by the Commonwealth I have no doubt that elections in Massachusetts are accurate and honest while other states may have different rules governing their elections the process across all 50 states is similar so I have confidence that tomorrow's election will be accurate and honest in closing if you have not already voted make sure you go to the polls tomorrow voting is your right as an American voting is also your duty as an American thank you thank you counselor further Council comments and remarks councelor M yes I just want to make sure that the garden CI citizens are aware that today on um the city hall website on the garden of fire department website Chief legoy published um a letter to all Garden residents that there is an open fire band currently going on due to the weather conditions um any types of open outdoor fire kits fires uh open Flames for cooking purposes recreational or or ornamental fires are B until further notice and this also includes burning brush and other yard debris and there's a warning on here for people to please ensure that they um are careful of disposing smoking material materials and um fully extinguish um prior to disposal um and use only non um combustible uh containers um because we see what's going on in parts of our state and um I just think it it forbears um mention it to our to our citizens that there is a uh a ban on open FL Firs thank you thank you counselor further Council comments and remarks I too just wanted to wish the uh city clerk's office and all the poll and election workers well tomorrow and know it's a long day you do great work and we appreciate what you do for the council uh so I wanted to wish you well tomorrow there's no further Council comments and remarks uh I will entertain a motion to adjourn after closing prayer motion May by Council Brook second by counc to Sony all those in favor say I I post say no motion passes father you for the opp the of this meeting bless thend until our next meeting meeting stand J thank you everyone for