Select Board passes on Zoning Board appointment

The Select Board voted 2 for to 3 against on the reappointment of Mr. Ray Souza to the Zoning Board of Appeals(ZBA). Mr. McDonald and I were for reappointment. Mr. Souza had served on the ZBA for the past 46 years. Members voting against the reappointment cited the desire to have new people involved and several cases where the courts have ruled the ZBA board decisions were badly in error and/or were against the recommendation of the Town Counsel.
The Zoning Board of Appeals has a difficult and very technical job. There are in and outs of the law and court decisions which affect their rulings and it takes a while to get familiar with legal constraints. That is the reason I supported Mr. Souza's reappointment. He has the experience.
In an unexpaectecd turn of events, Ms. Figuereido, who had expressed interest in being appointed to the ZBA as a full member, withdrew herself from consideration at last night's meeting. She is currently an alternate member and attends most hearings but cannot vote unless there is an absence of a full member. When Mr. Souza was then nominated for reappointment, the vote went against him. An alternate member will have to fill that spot on the ZBA until the Select Board finds a new member.
Curt Brown's Standard Times article about the reappointment can be found at this link.
I feel there was quite a lot of rather uncivil behavior ...

... at the meeting and I hope that I did not contribute to it. I tried to keep the discussion on the topic at hand but it frequently strayed from the issue of the appointment.
Finally I want to thank Mr. Souza for his many years of service to the town. He has spent many hours as a volunteer on the ZBA and has my gratitude for that.
Click here to read on!

Lakevile votes for increased regionalization

The Standard Times reports at this link that the Lakeville Town Meeting voted to fully regionalize their district with Freetown I think it is a good move. As I wrote here, a regional school with Westport would be a good idea for our town. Click here to read on!

Lakeville tries again

The Standard Times reports here that Lakeville voters will take up full regionalization of their schools again. Their high school is already regional with Freetown. Combining the two districts will reduce transportation and administration costs. I think it shokld be done.
I also believe that Dartmouth should form a regional district with Westport. The resulting school district would have about 6000 students, 7-8 elementary schools, ...

... two middle schools, and two high schools. The new district would save millions in transportation and administration costs. Hard to see a down side from my point of view.
Why do that now you ask? Well, while our finances are not in dire shape at the moment, the long term outlook is that the required school spending is outstripping revenue. This is not a criticism of the school department but a fact of life due to the school funding formulas in place. Regional schools get state help with transportation costs. This is one way of getting the state to kick in more funding of their unfunded mandate to the town..
What do you feel about a regional district and why do you think it would be good or bad? Click here to read on!

Tax classification time

The Select Board will have a public hearing tomorrow and set the tax rate for 2011.Several years ago, I posted an explanation of how the tax levy and the tax rate are related and that explanation can be found at this link. Currently Dartmouth employs a split tax rate where commercial, industrial and personal (CIP) property is taxed at a higher rate than residential properties. For the past few years that "split tax" rate has been 40% higher on CIP property. In addition a small commercial exemption has been adopted which reduces the tax on small businesses by 10%, resulting in a split tax on those establishments of 130%.
Back in March 2008, I posted an explanation form Mr. Gracie on why the ability to split tax rates exists and why it is applicable to Dartmouth. That post can be found at this link.
Thanks to the banksters and Wall Street's riverboat gamblers, residential real estate values have declined for the past few years. The result is that the percentage of the total tax levy paid by the CIP properties has increased somewhat over the past few years. I believe that this compensates for a decade or more shifting the burden to the residential portion of the levy. In any case, ...

... the shift is not large, CIP real property taxes would grow to 22.2% of the levy from a low of 13.8% in 2006. My initial thought is to leave the tax shift unchanged for the next year. That position is not staunchly held and I will be interested to hear what the arguments are to change it, if any, at the hearing tomorrow. What are your thoughts on this? Click here to read on!