Board of Aldermen 04-13-2021 Page 23
Alderwoman Kelly
Ok thank you.
President Wilshire
Thank you.
O-21-060
Endorser: Alderman Richard A. Dowd
Alderman-at-Large Michael B. O’Brien, Sr.
Alderman-at-Large Lori Wilshire
NO PARKING AT CERTAIN TIMES AND NO ON-STREET STUDENT DROP OFF OR PICK UP ON
SECTIONS OF CLEVELAND STREET
Given its first reading; assigned to the COMMITTEE ON INFRASTRUCTURE, by President Wilshire
PERIOD FOR GENERAL PUBLIC COMMENT
President Wilshire
Again, | will ask anyone from the public if they would like to speak. Give your name and address for the record
and you have a 3 minute window. Anyone? Laurie Ortolano?
Laurie Ortolano Yeah, Laurie Ortolano, 41 Berkeley Street. A couple of things quickly. A little while ago | talked
to this Board and | think the Finance Committee about getting an update from Vision on the Commercial /
Residential property assessment rate that we are potentially looking at for 2022 and the vacancy rate for these
commercial properties, mostly to understand if there is going to be a burden shift from commercial properties
onto residential. And | think there’s been some recovery here but Vision has collected one year of commercial
sales data and would have some vacancy information. And | would like to have them talk to us and give us some
input because I’ve received a number of calls from seniors who have asked me to ask this board to consider and
take a look at the elderly tax exemption. You did this is 2018 and you ended up having to phase it in when there
was an increase in the assessments because of the market. There was a pretty big outcry from seniors to get
more assistance and | suspect in 2022 you are going to see the same thing. And | am not weighing in one way
or another about what the right thing to do is here. But it would be good now to look at what other communities
have done with these increases in the real estate market and how they are addressing their exemptions. We
have a generous exemption but | think seniors have a good point who are saying, “address it now” so that we
don’t get stuck in this phase in plan that happened in 2022 and be a little proactive. But let’s understand where
we are going with this situation with the new update.
| also would like and | think wrote a letter to the Board | can’t recall if | did. | would really like to encourage the
Mayor to set up a class with Vision to do a little camera review with us. It was something that was supposed to be
done with KRT and it was cancelled, but some workshop where the public could learn more about modeling, how
it is done, what data they use off your property record card and allows them questions or put out a video before
the update is done.
The last thing is | am not a proponent of maintaining that Right To Know position that was recently hired in the
budget. | don’t feel it has done what it should do to meet the needs of the public. | understand there is no legal
obligation to be civil or polite or work with the public. But | do think that municipal government has an obligation to
try to do that and | think that hasn’t happened. | was very leery of having that position be part of the Legal Office
because it intertwines with other legal issues and that’s exactly what happened. And | don’t think that that
position should be maintained. | think it is really has been very poorly handled and | am really disappointed with
it. Thank you.
