Selectboard Meeting: Skyrocketing Assessments, Conflict-of-Interest Theater

Notes from a troubling Selectboard Meeting, November 25, 2024.

Christine Hill

Nov 26, 2024

If you want to discuss any of these stories, please call me (781-361-0325) or email me (duxburysubstack@gmail.com).

Highlights

Please look at your Fiscal Year 2025 property values on the Assessor’s website. Some seem very high and somewhat arbitrary. Residents may want to compare their assessments on the Town’s website to the Zestimate for their property on Zillow. Please also compare with your neighbors.
Does anyone on the Affordable Housing Trust want to solve the town’s 40B problem? It sure seems like they don’t.
Conflict-of-interest Kabuki. Town Manager Rene Read forced Selectboard Vice Chair Amy McNab to leave the Selectboard meeting to avoid the appearance of a conflict because her husband is on the Board of Assessors, another elected board. About an hour later, the Board appointed someone to the Coastal Resiliency Task Force whose business profits from work done for coastal resiliency projects in Duxbury. Everyone but McNab claimed there was no conflict-of-interest to see there.
The MBTA Communities Working Group stands down, for now.
Susanna Sheehan asks a really good question about whether the police working at the next half marathon will stop people from driving to their own houses.

Highlighted Discussions

Skyrocketing Assessments on Standish Shore and Other Neighborhoods

At the end of a presentation on next year’s assessments, Soren Jensen of 4 Puritan Way had a question: Why had the assessment on the land value of his property gone up 41 percent for Fiscal Year 2025?

Jensen also wanted to know why every other property in his neighborhood, barring those right on the water, had seen that precise rise in its land valuation.

As an engineer, Jensen thought something funny was going on with spreadsheets. Specifically, he was concerned that Stephen Dunne, the assessing director, might be applying formulas all across his neighborhood willy-nilly without regard to the specific qualities of each property, particularly size, location, and geography.

After Jensen spoke, the Selectboard expressed sympathy but referred him to Dunne for further discussion.

Jensen’s presentation inspired me to check out the family property valuation for 2024 on the assessor’s website. It was a shock—$168,400 over its Zestimate and out-of-keeping with the valuations on neighboring properties, particularly similar ones without deeded water rights. We had missed the skyrocketing valuation because my father was very sick and dying when 2024’s valuations were released. Dunne has since written to say that the property’s valuation will decline in 2025, but it’s still significantly higher than it was three years ago. The land valuation also doesn’t make any sense because it is several hundred thousand dollars more than neighboring properties of the same size.

In any case, my advice to people is to do the following:

Check the assessment on your property and compare its land and building value to similar properties in the neighborhood and to the market price of your home.
If there are significant anomalies, you can file an abatement, but you may also want to consider hiring an attorney if there’s lots of money involved.

People keep telling me that their attempts at abatement have not worked out, but I wonder if they are leading facts instead of frustration. Please remember that the government doesn’t care about your feelings. If you think your taxes are too high, you need to find something illogical in the calculation that is also illegal.

As for me, I’m going to bring my 84-year-old mother to the Board of Assessors and have them explain themselves.

Conflict of Interest Kabuki

Please Amy McNab explain how she had to leave the room due to an “abundance of caution” because her husband is an elected member of the Board of Assessors.

Now watch the Selectboard discuss appointments to the Coastal Resiliency Task Force.

Susanna Sheehan’s Question About the Half Marathon; Read’s and Ladd Fiorini’s Contempt for the Public Shines Through

A few years ago, I was driving home from an appointment, when a policeman at Hall’s Corner told me that I could not drive down Washington Street to my house. I had to get a policeman from Duxbury to intervene so I could go home. The out-of-town police shook his finger and yelled at me as I drove home.

Well, it turns out, I am not the only one who has had this type of experience. At the Selectboard meeting on Monday, Susanna Sheehan of 122 Powder Point Ave stood up to ask whether the roads are being closed for the 13th Annual Half Marathon.

If they are not, are the police who do the details know this? Because it has been my experience that in the past, the police don’t know that the roads aren’t closed. There’s kind of a conflict between runners and cars.

Joanne Moore, director of the Senior Center, which is sponsoring the race, assured her that they would.

Moore was at the meeting to request a change in the route of the half marathon, a change made necessary by the closure of the East Street Bridge.

Brian Glennon II suggested continuing the discussion to another meeting so that “residents can weigh in on the new route, which is substantially different than the previous route and which was not announced in the meeting agenda.”

“I’ve got five months to make arrangements,” said Read, who was methodically tapping his pen up and down impatiently, his hand covering much of his face.

“That’s what I’m saying,” said Glennon.

“I meant the residents,” said Read, meaning the residents have five months to change their plans to accommodate the race.

“They have some input in this, don’t they,” said Glennon. “They can show up and let us know what they think about it. Right, if I had someone going by my house, and I was notified and showed up and said my piece, that’s one thing, but if I didn’t think it was going by my house and all of a sudden it is, it changed the night of the hearing, I’d be concerned.”

Moore then explained that they changed the route because the police department didn’t want people running up and down Washington Street in two directions.

Amy McNab said she understood both sides, but that “the public didn’t have the benefit of knowing the change in the route and so therefore, we haven’t allowed them any notice or time raise any objection to this route.”

“That’s all I’m saying,” said Glennon, “and maybe there are no issues.”

“Did the residents know ahead of time what we were suggesting the route to be, no,” said Cynthia Ladd Fiorini, “No.”

“Never do,” said Read.

“Really?” said Glennon.

“This is not a hearing,” said Read. “They just come in and apply for a race, and that’s it.”

“If anyone was concerned about, they would come tonight,” said Fiorini, apparently unaware that everyone had been talking about how the race has been run on the same route for 12 years and was now changing.

“My concern is…” said Brian who was interrupted by Moore, who was on Zoom.

“As Rene said, any concerns police, fire would be worked out before the race at this meeting with have with emergency personnel,” she said. She added that the race would be over in three hours and that the start time had been pushed back to 7:00 am to get off the road earlier.

“It’s late. Can we just vote already,” snapped Ladd Fiorini.

As MacNab started talking again, Ladd Fiorini sighed loudly, put her head in her hands, and started rubbing her temple.

The board ended up voting for the race. Read and Ladd Fioniri argued that the route had not been posted at all, so the public had no reason to complain if the route changed because they had never been informed in the first place.

The original point of the discussion, however, was that the route was well known but now it had changed to accommodate a bridge closure.

Of course, the public didn’t see route because the Selectboard doesn’t post the documents discussed at their meetings.