Board of Aldermen 08-13-2019 Page 26
old. This issue really affects older homes. KRT found a lot of stuff that was old, 69, 84, 89, 94 inconsistent
and they started to use the condition in conjunction with EYB.
For example, a restored home is not in average condition; it is in better condition that average. About half
the properties need to be reset. If one property has an Effective Year Build adjusted and the other property
next door is identical and doesn’t have that adjustment it will result in assessments that are not fair and
equitable. EYB is a very subjective field. If an EYB was last updated in 1991 with the last full List &
Measure, that would be skewing that assessments. Rob said there are really only 3 fields that are
subjective: grade, condition and EYB, everything else is black and white. The neighborhood codes are
somewhat objective but not tremendously. That is an interesting statement in set of minutes because | was
struggling so much to understand why this EYB was throwing me off in my neighborhood to the point where
| paid the $55.00 to get all the cards and put the data together to realize that most of the homes were 1955,
1960 and we were slammed up to 1995. No one, including Dan Hansberry, who is now the Chair of the
Board who was sitting in this meeting would tell me that this discussion took place; that this was a
legitimate issue, that | was seeing a problem. It affects about half the older homes, that’s a big issue and |
feel like the City withheld information from me.
Also in the same meeting, Rob said that there was a serious problem with implementing the income
approach. The income approach was all set up and then John recalculated wiping out all the income
information, we lost it all. Rob said this happened “late in the game”. So he called Patriot and they said it
is probably because we were in the analysis database and that was not stable. Rob believes that
explanation was just a cop out. Patriot was surprised that we did the entire update in the analysis data
base but Rob said it should have been able to handle it. He was asked if there was going to be a problem
when an abatement is filed and we need to defend the income approach. He said it would have to be set
up again on that account. He said that Ken is really the person to explain how it was set up. At the
meeting by the Board of Assessors on October 18" it was Dan Hansberry who said “I’m really concerned,
we have to reinvent the wheel and create all this data all over again”. And they never discussed it again.
And the BTLA brought up the issue of this data. To me itis really questionable whether all this data got
recreated. Nobody ever really looked at that except to say “John said it was done”. He lost it all and then
it's all done. We should be looking at that. | really think Cornell, David Cornell should be looking at that
income data to find out if the commercial properties were re-established correctly.
But this is some of the public issues with perceptions and clarity and truthfulness and trust with this
department, you know? | have opened my house for 35 years, we have always let assessors in. | will
never open my door again in Nashua. That ship has sailed and | will tell anyone, don’t open your door.
Because | have looked at a lot of data and it pays not to open your door. And | hope all of you Aldermen
here and the Mayor and the people sitting in this Chamber set the example and are the first ones to open
your door and let these assessors in to re-evaluate your property and set the data straight. Thank you.
Ben Telersky 5 Shakespeare Road. | am here to speak regarding Ordinance 19-051 which was introduced
tonight. | have been working with Alderwoman Kelly to put together a small Youth Advisory Committee. We
have got together a group of Nashua High School and College students to talk about things we would like
to see in Nashua. One of the recurring comments that was made was making the Library more accessible
to students. A lot of the times when High School kids have a group project they will go to Barnes & Noble,
the south end, when we could be getting them into the library utilizing downtown. | am a recent graduate of
Nashua South. | know Nashua values education and by allowing up to 20 students, which is what is in the
Ordinance, allowing up to 20 students to park for free up to 3 hours we’d allow students to have much
better access to the resources that the library has for them. I’m leaving for college in about a week and a
half but | hope you will all support the Ordinance to allow students here to take advantage of the resources
they have in the City. Thank you.
President Wilshire
Oh | didn’t have anyone else signed up. You can address the Board.
