Select Board- December 3, 2025

I now call to order the select board meeting of December 3, 2025. Everyone stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. all.

Okay. Dedham Citizens Open Discussion. Is there anyone here tonight who would like to make public comments? Anyone online? All right. Moving forward, the town manager's report.

Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the board. Just a couple of quick updates for this evening. As we all know, our fire chief will be retiring in the springtime, and we have a recruitment through the civil service process that is currently underway. We received notice from the Civil Service Commission that we have three internal applicants who have registered for the exam. that'll be the next phase of the exam, of the process will be the exam and then the sole assessment after that. So again, keeping the board up to date in the community that we are moving forward with that process. and certainly big shoes to fill replacing Chief Spillane, but I'm confident we have good candidates in-house to do that. We have our building commissioner, Ken Cimino, who will be retiring at the end of December and after 39 plus years with the town. substantial spot we'll have to be filling here in the town.

And we're moving forward with that process as well to fill that position. So just a couple of those, a couple of updates, but happy to brief the board on anything else or answer any questions you might have.

Thank you. Questions from board members?

Two huge retirements coming up for the town, two pillars of our community for a really long time that did an amazing job at what they did and how they serve this community. wishing them the best and good luck, Leon, in the quest to replace.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

Well said.

Okay, consent agenda. Move to approve the consent agenda including gift acceptance of smoothies from Tropical Smoothie for a meeting held by Animal Control Lighting of the Menorah on 12-18-25 at 5-45 p.m. Second Hearing a motion and a second all those in favor

All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed no.

Move to take an item not on the agenda.

Second. Hearing a motion and a second, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, no.

Move to approve a request for a holiday block party on Van Brunt Avenue on 12-20-25 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Second.

Hearing motion and second, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, no.

Just one comment on the last item. Just want to say the menorah lighting is one of the nicest events we do every year, and it's a wonderful event. Acknowledgement of a big part of the holiday season, which is Hanukkah and the Jewish community that we have in this community. So I just want to acknowledge that and say I look forward to it. It's encouraged people to attend. It's a wonderful, wonderful event. that's all madam chair.

It is and that's before our December board meeting so we should be prepared to be here by six in advance of our December 18th board meeting.

and to our many Jewish constituents, happy Hanukkah.

All right, up next, we have alteration of premises for boots and beer.

Good evening.

Yes.

I'm Tim Angiolillo, the operations manager for Boots & Beer, LLC. Nice to visit with you again. I want to start by thanking Ms. Nancy Baker and her office for all their help in making sure we had everything together for your consideration. The only item in our alteration is an adjustment to the square footage of the space. The original beer and wine license was for which was a mistake on my end as the operations manager. My wife, Lorna Allison Angelo, is the owner and better known as the jefe of all things in my world. It was originally for 180 square feet, which is just the square footage of the physical bar area.

the actual bars and the bar stools and the alteration is now correct for 1,792 feet which includes the lounge seating area so that's the only adjustment in the alteration that we're requesting with the renewal is the correct square footage that includes the rest of the seating area.

Okay, thank you. Questions from board members? Questions? No? Okay. Well, no other questions from board members. I'll entertain a... This is a public hearing because there's an alteration to a liquor license. So if there's any members of the public who would like to make comments, now would be the time. Anyone here for that? Okay, I'll entertain a motion to close the public hearing.

Move to close the public hearing.

Second. Hearing a motion is second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, no.

Move to approve a request from Boots and Beer LLC for an alteration. alteration to the licensed premises at 204 Legacy Place, Dedham.

Second. Hearing a motion and a second, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Okay. They're all set.

I'd just like to close by again thanking Ms. Nancy. We're very blessed we do this in a valuable way. almost 60 jurisdictions in two different countries and you have a real resource here. It's been really great to communicate with them. Thank you all very much. We appreciate it

Madam Chair, could I ask you a question? So if people are looking for a Christmas gift, this would be a great one. You guys could still, you have plenty of stuff in stock. Absolutely.

Absolutely come over to Legacy Place. I'm wearing the new cowboy boots right now.

I think I just got an idea. I think I'm going to be in there.

There you go. Come on over. Well, thank you all very much for having us in again. Ms. Nancy, thank you.

Thank you so much.

We get you enough charge for the rest of the meeting.

Thank you very much. Up next, we have All Alcohol License for Mezzo Authentic Mediterranean Kitchen.

Good evening members of the board. Madam Chairperson, my name is Justin Peirce. I am counsel for Mr. George Panagopoulos, who is the applicant who has taken ownership of what was formerly Pancho's Taqueria, located at 449 and 551 High Street in Dedham Square. Mr. Panagopoulos is opening a Mediterranean restaurant called Meso Authentic Mediterranean Kitchen, and is seeking an all alcohol restaurant license for Mediterranean Dining Group Incorporated and approval of George Panagopoulos as manager of record pursuant to special legislation chapter 107 Act 2014. Mr. Panagopoulos would also personally like to address the board himself with some comments that he has.

Thank you.

Thank you. Good evening, everybody, Madam Chair. As you know, my name is George Panagopoulos, and I'm currently the owner and operator of Dedham House of Pizza in Dedham Square at 376 Washington Street. and now Mezzo Authentic Mediterranean Kitchen at 551 High Street, also Dedham Square. As the Councilor mentioned, I'm here tonight for the all-purpose alcohol license to list myself as the manager of record for Mezzo Mediterranean, which, as you all know, is located about a one to two minute walk away from my primary business. Just to give you a little bit of background, because you do have a short agenda tonight, so I'll take up some of your time. The restaurant mezzo will be an authentic Mediterranean kitchen which is composed of majority Greek cuisine and other diverse culinary traditions of the various other countries and continents that encircle the Mediterranean Sea.

The name Meso is a play off the word Mese, which is a pan-Mediterranean word, and in Greek, Arabic, and Turkish means small plates, and it's also short for the Greek word for the Mediterranean Sea, Mesogeos. So that's where that comes from. What fast fine means for Dedham Square? The term fast fine signifies a dining concept that is a step above fast casual. Mezzo is not intended to be a formal sit down culinary experience, but rather offer high quality Mediterranean cuisine and meals in a comfortable, stylish environment that reflects the warmth of the Mediterranean lifestyle. I have some supporting data that I could pass around as I believe you may have some questions regarding this. Denim House of Pizza right now is a restaurant that does triple the amount of business and annual sales that I anticipate. this location, Mezzo, to do.

Bear and Wine at the Pizzeria accounts for only half a percent of my sales. It's actually 0.47%. I anticipate Mezzo to roughly anticipate to generate anywhere from one to three and a half percent in alcohol sales. Some other questions I anticipate the board may have and I'm ready to answer them are are anticipated hours of operation Monday to Sunday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. for now. And as requested by the town manager's office, certified letters and cards have been sent out to abutters and returned. There are no schools, churches, or chapels in a 500-foot radius. All employees that will be handling payments and alcohol, whether it's serving or receiving it by the provision companies, will be TIP certified and are already TIP certified.

Many of the documents, TIP certifications have already been submitted with this year's liquor license application for Dedham House at Pizzeria to the town manager's office. many of my valuable team members at the pizzeria will be kind of cross pollinating both businesses so including my delivery drivers so they have already been we've already been staffed and trained in the areas of Alcohol at the Pizzeria. We will follow any of the board's decisions with your restrictions tied to the license. For example, ID scanning machines, if necessary to be used at Mezzo. We have two ID scanners at the pizzeria. One is for backup. So we already have one on hand that has all the bells and whistles, saving information and has internet accessibility to download newest versions of the software.

In regards to being a manager on record for two businesses, there are already other businesses in Dedham Square who hold multiple liquor licenses. And given the proximity, the close proximity of our businesses, I don't anticipate any difficulties. Other than that, thank you for your time and I'm open to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you so much. Thank you. Questions from board members?

Thanks. This is exciting. It's been wonderful to see the diversity of international cuisines growing in the square, and this sounds like it certainly would add to that, so thanks. I think you addressed this in some of the materials, but just as for the record, can you just talk a little bit about your history with a liquor license so far, compliance, any violations, or your experience?

Sure. So we've held this liquor license since 2009. Well, beer and wine. and as for violations we did have one violation last year where we came before your board and there was no disciplinary action but since 2009 it was one and we used it as a training exercise too with our staff to make sure that those who weren't TIP certified were TIP certified and kind of reinforcing the importance of checking IDs. And so that was kind of the minor incident that we had since 2009.

Okay, and would there be any difference in the way alcohol is served or IDs are checked at this restaurant compared to what happens at?

No, it's probably the same way that IDs will be checked, in person and through the machine.

Thank you.

Thank you, Michelle.

Thank you.

Other comments from board members? So thank you. I'm excited about this opening up. You said that you may use the scanner, though, at the new place. I would suggest that using the scanner at both restaurants. There's nothing like that scanner that detects anything going on. and so if you have the two having you know one at one and one at the other I think would be great. So you're going to be the manager for both and just splitting your time between both of them assuming Most of your time in the beginning will be held in the new place. Correct. Helping to train and going back and forth. Okay. All right. Thank you. I do wish you all the luck there.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Any questions, board comments?

Just, Madam Chair, if I might, just want to express how thrilled I am that you're doing this and wish you the very best of luck. I love the concept of Meso-Mediterranean. I hope you include lots of Arabic food, and that, it makes me, I do have to say that, you know, it makes me think when was the, the cuisine was Greek food, and the last time we had Arab food in Dedham Square was probably Adrian's, which Nancy's father owned, which I have a lot of fond memories of when I was a kid and my mother worked there for a little while. So that was great. And I'm glad you're bringing this concept to the square because it's going to be a great success. I certainly look forward to it. So I wish you the very best of luck, George. I know you'll do a great job. Thank you.

We're willing to test the food.

Dr. Teehan didn't tell you, but he's the one curating the menu.

Yeah, I have some class. I'll hook you up with some people that can do it.

Excellent. And my only question, I know you referenced it a bit, but what is your, how many, How are you going to split your time? How often do you plan to be in the new business in order to, during the first several months while things get set up, how will you plan to split your time?

Right, I'll be back and forth every day. So I'll do probably my mornings over at early mornings at Mezzo, preparing food, getting everything open, heading back to the pizzeria for my lunch rush. heading back over there. I have two managers at the pizzeria and I'll be splitting my, I'll have them help, you know, split my time by them being at the locations as well. My wife, Ina, will be helping out too. So she'll be there. And my plan is to pull my mother out of retirement for one or two nights a week. So we're going to have all hands on deck.

Great. Thank you. Yes, well, I agree. I wish you the best of luck. It's so fun to have so many really great places to eat in the square. appreciate that you're bringing a new flair of your cuisine to a new restaurant.

Thank you.

Thank you. This is also a public hearing, so if there's any members of the public who would like to make a comment on this license request. Anyone online? I'll entertain a motion to close the public hearing. Move to close the public hearing. Second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed no.

Move to approve the issuance of an all-alcohol restaurant license to Mediterranean Dining Group, Inc. DBA, Meso-Authentic Mediterranean Kitchen, 449-551 High Street. Second.

Hearing a motion and a second, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, no.

move to approve the appointment of George Panagopoulos as Manager of Record for MesoAuthentic Mediterranean Kitchen, 449-551 High Street.

Second. Hearing motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. All right. Well, congratulations.

Thank you all. I'm hoping that I could bend your ear for one more minute.

Yes.

So I know that last month you folks addressed some temporary parking for Dedham Square, maybe 15 minute to 20 minute spaces or more. So this is a conversation kind of that I've been having since before the Dedham Square reconstruction project with Bill Keegan, Amy Hilsen, and now with Anne Miranda. I know that in your discussions, you folks were talking about Eastern Avenue. and I just encourage you to kind of look at Dedham Square as a whole and see if we could split those parking spaces up and offer maybe one on Washington Street for Oscars and for for the pizzeria and for the other businesses on Washington. It would be very, very helpful to us. and we'd be helpful to do anything to help make that happen as well. That's the temporary parking, George?

Yeah, and the request back was for exactly that to just happen. the Director of Engineering, Jason Momoni will be reviewing the square as a whole, and there will be a plan presented to us in the future. to look at those types of parking as well as a few other requests that we added in there.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you so much. Nancy, do you need these?

Yes, please.

Thank you, board members. Thank you. And when are you, what do you think? March. March, okay, excellent. Thank you.

All right, and we are ahead of schedule. How about that?

Water, the water group is here.

No, the classification is at 8, so we have to wait 10 minutes. A few minutes, and I know Jim's going to try to catch up. Oh, I'm sorry.

Could we take how long is water, the water discussion? I'll take the water discussion and presentation.

Do we have all the board members?

Is anybody going to be here for the water discussion? Can we do some of the later ones?

We can, because those are not... We can do the New Year's Eve extension, we can do the call for hearing, whatever you'd like.

Let's start with approval of minutes. I don't have them. Next meeting. Yep, sorry. Oh, sorry. That's okay. Start there? Okay.

Madam Chair, every year the board considers an additional one hour from 1 a.m. to 2 a.m. for all pouring establishments on New Year's Eve. The board is so inclined to...

Okay, any comments or discussion from board members?

Move to authorize a one-hour extension from 1 a.m. to 2 a.m. for all licensed establishments serving alcohol for consumption on premises. Second.

Hearing a motion and a second, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Okay.

Can we do the renewal for all licenses for 2026?

Yes. for all licenses.

So as you know, this time of year, all of the licenses that are within the board's purview are for renewal, all licenses. has expired December 31st. They run a calendar year. You have the list of licenses in front of you, which also needs to be part of the motion.

Okay, I'll entertain a motion.

I move to approve the renewal of all licenses in the following categories for calendar year. 2026 all-alcohol restaurant and package store licenses, wine and malt restaurant and package store licenses, in-holder veterans and club licenses, common victual license, class one, two, and three licenses, Secondhand dealer licenses, Sunday and secular day music and dancing licenses, entertainment licenses, automatic amusement licenses, theater licenses, and fortune teller licenses. Is that sufficient answer?

Thank you. Second.

Okay, hearing a motion and a second, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, no.

All right, you guys have it. Thank you. And the last item in front of the board this evening is, as you know, the police department conducted compliance hearings two weeks ago. Unfortunately, we had five businesses that did not pass and the board will need to schedule hearings. Our January dates are somewhat up in the air, so if we could take the motion with dates and times to be determined so I can notify them accordingly.

move to call for compliance failure hearings dates and times to be determined for the following establishments, El Centro, Tavern in the Square, Plaza Liquor Mart, Tamezekal, Tequila Cantina, and Hilton at Dedham Place.

Second. Hearing a motion and a second, any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. You guys have it. Thank you. Yes, thank you. All right.

We will, which one? Old business, new business? Because I think that's all that we have besides water.

Do we have any updates on timing? No. Would you? I'll let you know in a minute.

I mean, I think, can we start the classification hearing? And then by the time Jim gets here, he'll probably be able to comment.

Can we be late for the classification, or no? It's 8 o'clock. Yeah.

We can start it.

If you'd like.

That's what I would suggest, Madam Chair. We start it and keep moving.

Okay. All right, so we will now take up our 8 o'clock agenda item regarding FY26 tax classification hearing.

and you know what I'm going to say each and every time. Thank you. How are you?

Before we get started, we need to make a motion to reconvene our meeting. So our vice chair will make the motion. I'm trying to make a motion to reopen the board session meeting. Second. All in favor? Aye. Madam Chair, Select Board, Leigh Ann Goodwin, Nancy Baker, My name is Richard Schoenfeld. I am the chair of the Board of Assessors. We're here tonight to discuss the fiscal year 2026 tax rate classification hearing. What I'll try to do is I'll try to follow the slides, but I may go out of order, so please understand. Agenda.

The things that we're going to talk about is the purpose of the classification, the requirements for the select board, what is classification, what is the tax shift, the five-year historical data, We'll have summaries of the 2025 assessed values and also the overall 2026 assessed values. We'll talk about shifting the tax rate and will make a recommendation as far as the closing is concerned. The purpose of the tax classification hearing. Before the tax rate can be set, the select board must hold a public hearing each year, known as the tax classification hearing. to consider the tax rate options available to the municipality under property tax classification. This hearing is held after the assessors have determined final values and classified all properties and reported this information to the Department of Revenue. The tax classification hearing does not determine how much money can be raised.

It only determines whether to distribute the tax levy equally among all classes of property, or to reduce the share of the levy by residential classes and shift some of the burden to the commercial, industrial, and personal property classes, also known as the tax shift. Acesis do not raise or lower property taxes. It is our responsibility to find the full and fair cash value of properties. What is classification? Classification is when municipalities have the option of taxing various classes of property differently. The various classes of property are residential, commercial, industrial, and personal property. Vote 1. And this is what you need to think about doing is the Select Board will consider the following two options for tax classification. Vote 1. Does the Select Board want to continue classification for the Town of Dedham?

If no, then a single tax rate is set for all property classes. If yes, then a classification occurs and creates a tax shift. What is a tax shift? Massachusetts communities may shift some of the residential tax burden onto the commercial, industrial, and personal properties by adopting a residential factor which creates the tax split. if you vote yes on vote if vote two if vote if yes on vote one the select board will then vote at what shift do they want to use based on these votes attack rate for fiscal 2026 will be created The tax shift. In fiscal year 25, residential properties make up roughly 83% of the total taxable value, while the CIP properties make up the remaining 17%.

Of the 17% share from the CIP properties, commercial properties make up roughly 13%, industrial properties make up less than 1%, personal properties make up approximately three percent when voting to shift to the maximum allowable shift it has been historically voted it shifts from an 83 17 Schiff, to a 70-30 split where residential properties will be responsible for roughly 70% of the total tax burden. and the CIP properties would make up the remaining 30%. To show that we have the historical values here. The thing that you want to be is just the values of property within Dedham. And the properties, their values have gone up. in the past year, 6.9%.

From 2025 to 2026, the residential value of property has gone up $439 million. 425,729 or approximately 6.9%. The commercial also went up as well as the industrial and personal property. and so overall it went up by approximately 6.79%. The historical levy raised. Now this is the thing, the tax levy is the total amount of money that the town is authorized to raise through property taxes to fund its budget and provide public services. This year our total is approximately 119,937,666.

That's an increase from the previous year, which was $115,378,785, an increase of approximately $4,558,558 in $881, or approximately 3.95%. The 119 that we're talking about, that number comes from the financial director based on the town's budget. There we go. Five-year historical rates. If you look at the way the chart is presented, you'll see that the CIP, is basically consistent, but it's higher than the residential. And again, the residential is also consistent as well. It's been steady.

Average values. Assessors do not raise or lower taxes. It is our responsibility to find the full and fair cash value of properties. As of 1-1-25, the average single family home was assessed at $810,871. The previous year was $761,990, an increase of approximately 6.4%. As of 1-1-25, the average commercial industrial property was assessed at $3,226,520. 24. The previous year was 3,062,815, an increase of 5.35%.

Again, if you look at the five-year assessed value, the thing that you really want to notice is that the average single-family value has gone from 761,990, and that was 2025, to 810,871 in 2026. That's a difference of $48,881. The single family value change was approximately 6.41%. the average tax bill. Last year was $9,616. Potentially, we will talk about this later, whatever we decide as far as the single or the split tax. Again, the historical rates.

I'm again looking at the average single-family house, 761,990, and this year it's 860,871. Tax rate last year was $12.62 per thousand. the summary of the fiscal year 2025 assessed values in the town of Dedham. These assessment values have a valuation date of January 1st, 2024, and are based on the sales and data analysts from activity in calendar year 2023. Residential, $6.4 billion. That's 83%. Commercial, $1 billion, 13%. Industrial, $60 million. It's less than 1%. Personal property, $250 million, or 3%.

The total property altogether is $7.7 billion. In fiscal year 25, residential assessment represents roughly 83 of the assessed values in the Town of Dedham, while the CIP properties represented roughly 17%. 2025 tax information. In fiscal year 2025, the select board voted to continue classification and to shift to the max of 175. Based on those votes, the split tax was calculated for fiscal year 25, which set the residential rate at $12.62 per thousand and the CIP rate at $26.20 per thousand. Had the Select Board not voted to continue classification, the single rate for property classes would have been

would have been approximately $14.97 per thousand. In fiscal year 25, the average single family home was assessed at $761,990. which is roughly up 3% from fiscal year 24. If a single tax rate of $1,497 was voted, the average single family factor would have been $11,470. The tax levy for fiscal year 25 is $115,378,785. which is about 5.7% or 5.3% from fiscal year 24. Instead, based on last year's votes and using a split tax rate,

The average family home tax bill was $9,616, which is up roughly 4% or $372 from fiscal year 24. This next slide is basically it compares values. And really the thing that looking for the most of the bottom bottom six, and talks about total residential. We've gone up in parcels from 8,327 to 8,344 parcels. and the rest of it is one commercial as well. And you can see that all of them have increased. It's 6.9, 5.3, 13.8, 8.8 and 6.8.

We've already discussed these previously. Why do we change assessed value each year? We are required to, under the guidelines of the Department of Revenue and the Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 59, we are required to assess each property at 100% full and fair cash valuation. Assess values must reflect the market, i.e., what properties are selling for. Therefore, assessment values will change from year to year based on the market even when they have not been made, even when not made any changes to your home. Property class. Again, these are numbers that we've already discussed so there's really no need to go over them again. Here's a summary of fiscal year 2026 assessed values in the town of Dedham. Again, go back to slide 13 for comparisons.

But just to go over briefly, these assessment values from valuation date of January 1st 2025 are based on sales and data analysis from the activity in calendar year 2024. Residential, 6.8 billion. and 83%. And that's up $439 million. Commercial, $1.1 billion, 13%. is at 83, 13%, and that has gone up $53 million, $891. Industrial, $68 million, 1%. Personal property, $270 million, 3%. The total of all property is $8.2 billion. So now we'll talk about the tax shift.

As you saw in the previous slide, residential properties make up roughly 83% of the property values in the town of Dedham, while CIP properties make up the remaining 17%. communities may vote to shift some of the residential tax burden to CIP properties up to the maximal allowance of 175%. Voting to shift to the maximum allowable shift as it has been historically voted, the residential properties will be responsible for 70% of the total tax burden and CIP properties would make up the remaining 30%. Just looking at the tax rate. If we did the single tax rate for fiscal year 2026, the number that we have is $14.57 per thousand.

If we do the split tax rate, we come out to $12.62 per thousand. The minimum residential factor, there again, it's the single tax rate, you see the 1457. And then there's also a number of shifts, 1.5 to 1.75. on the split tax and we are recommending the 1.75. summary of the fiscal year 2026 classification hearing. The purpose of the classification hearing is to classify all property and personal property within the limits of the town of Dedham. Classifications allows the Select Board to shift taxes up to 175% on the Commercial Industrial Personal Property Values .

If the select board votes to discontinue classification, the fiscal year 2026 tax rate would be $14.57 per thousand of value for all classes of property. If the Board continues classification, the residential rate would be $12.30 and the CIP rate would be $25.51. In closing, in order to determine the fiscal year 2026 tax rate, the following two questions must be voted on by the select board. One. does the select board want to continue classification for the town of Dedham? And two, what shift, if classification continues, does the board wish to use? This concludes our presentation.

I want to, first of all, thank the members of the select board who put this package together, the slides, and a comprehensive presentation. First of all, Kevin Doyle is here. Paul D'Olimpio, Sue Munchback, Colleen McGordy, and Derek Sergi. I also want to acknowledge the Board of Assessors, Michael Polito, our Vice Chair, and George Panagopoulos, our Secretary. and with that I'll conclude our presentation. If you have any questions, please ask.

Thank you so much. I'll open it up to board members for comments and questions.

So just a couple things that I think we should discuss for the benefit of everyone at home. and we're talking tonight about is how we're gonna divvy up the pie. How big the slice is gonna be for the residential versus the commercial. The size of the pie, that's voted on by town meeting. And by that I mean the size of the levy. So Leon, would you just talk very briefly for the benefit of everyone at home, how of the size of the pie or the levy, where that comes from through our budgetary process, just so if people are confused, they can understand.

Property taxes make up the greatest percentage of our town revenues. That is part of the budget that is voted on by town meeting in the spring, every May. and so we have in Massachusetts a law called Prop 2 1⁄2 which controls how much that property tax levy can grow from year to year. So that's 2.5% plus new growth. We are currently below what is called the levy limit. we closely monitor that and from year to year we try to control the increases to the levy to the extent possible to minimize the tax impacts to our property owners here in town, but we also need to fund the operations that control the maintenance of streets, the buildings, schools, fire, police, all the essential municipal services as well.

The number that we have tonight is based on the budget that was approved last May. That's correct. And will be approved this upcoming May.

For the FY27 budget, it will be in May.

just want to make a point. So what we are doing tonight is we are deciding whether we want to give everyone an equal slice of the pie or whether we want to give a bigger slice of the pie to the commercial and a smaller slice of pie to the residential. The size of the pie does not change based on anything we do tonight. I know that we're facing financial challenges right now as a community, but I do want to address one thing that I've heard quite a bit recently at town meeting, many town meeting and in other places, which is that We should be just charging more to commercial properties. And if you look, what we're doing tonight is we're already asking commercial properties to pay more than they should pay if they were just getting an equal piece of the pie.

and I think that it's a little dangerous to just throw out there that the assessor's office can just wave a magic wand and start charging people more and generating more tax revenue. because the process they use is very scientific. It is based on analysis. They work all year to come up with the numbers that they come up with. And I'm sure they're not perfect. but they do a really good job. And the reality is that we already ask a lot of our commercial property tax payers in this community and if we ask too much of them, we run the risk of creating a not business friendly environment. And the reality is so much of what we have done in this community has been supported by our commercial property taxpayers. They have rights to

they have a process that they expect to be adhered to. So I just think that it's worth mentioning that because as we're all searching for answers for how we solve our financial problems, It's not just as simple as, hey, let's just go assess people a little more and we'll collect a little more. It's just not how it works. And I don't know if, Kevin, you want to talk about the process. that you've come to to get these numbers. But I know you work very hard, kind of like Santa Claus. You work very hard 12 months a year, right, for the big day here. But if you could just tell us a little about how you get here.

Sure, thanks. You guys make up a lot of great points. So just to back it up a little bit, just kind of put in layman's terms for everybody at home, when you're looking at the town budget, this year for fiscal 26 it's about 162 million and that's everything that's everything to run and operate the town so that's Your streets, your sewers, your schools, salaries, health, police, fire, safety, everything within the town means. So again, that's about $162 million. Then the town brings in local receipts and other revenues. So that can be grants, state aid, building permits, fees, anything that our programs bring in. So that we estimate for the fiscal 26 about $42 million. So you take the $162 million to run and operate the town, subtract out the revenue that it brings in, that's $42 million, brings it down to about that $120 million. $119,937,666. But roughly $120 million. So that's what's called the tax levy.

The tax levy is what revenue we can raise that gets distributed amongst all real and personal property throughout the town. So again, that's 120 out of about 160. It's just about 75% of the town budget gets funded through property taxes. The budget and all that stuff is set at town meeting and voted through by town meeting members at spring town meeting. Any amendments are made at fall town meeting and gets us to where we are today. So again, today's meeting and the classification hearing and the purposes is how do we want to distribute. the share of the pie. So Dedham's not a large town. It's about 10 square miles. 83% of the town is comprised of residential values. Again, as Richard had mentioned, 17% comes from the CIP properties. Commercial is about 13%. Less than 1% is industrial and the remaining 3% is personal property.

Commercial property, one misconception I like to let people know is we do have a good amount of commercial, but I think people think we have a lot more because it's all visible. It's down Route 1. It runs from Westwood to West Roxbury down the Route 1 corridor. So to people's surprise, we had less than 300 parcels, and that includes vacant land for commercial properties alone. It brings in a good amount of value because we have places like Legacy Place, Dedham Mall, Dedham Plaza, stuff like that. So what we lack is we don't have the industrial values that most other communities have like Norwood, South Norwood, Walpole, Canton, Needham, they all have these industrial neighborhoods, these little pockets within their town that aren't in residential neighborhoods that bring in a significant amount of revenue. that helps alleviate some of the tax burden for the residents. We don't have that. Like I said, it's less than 1%. We have less than 60%. Parcels for Industrial throughout the whole town. And they just spread out in little areas.

So there's really not too much. Most towns aren't as heavily valued by residential. Like I said, we have a decent amount of commercial, but when you're looking at it, an 83% versus 17%, it's pretty significant and heavily on the residents. So that's kind of when we look at these tax shift burdens when we have larger parcels like commercial, you know, like Legacy Place and Dedham Plaza and all this stuff. So it does help shifting to the max. They pick up their share of it, and it shifts it from an 83.17 to a 70.30. But like Dennis said, with the values, So for fiscal 26, it's how all properties stood and what condition they were in and the value as of 1-1-25, so the previous year. And all of that comes from data from the previous calendar year. So for fiscal 26, we're looking at data from calendar year 2024. So if it's residential properties, you know, like single family homes, condos, they're primary residents, so those are based on sales.

So that's sales, you know, sales activity that happened during the calendar year 2024. When you're looking at commercial properties, it's a little bit different. We do analyze all the sales. We do trend all the market. We kind of look at market data, so we're looking at their income, their vacancy, their expenses, and the market cap rate for different segments, commercial, you know, the hotels, restaurants. They all have different and other market factors in it. And so we kind of look at those a little bit differently. I know some people bring up, well, the certain sales prices like the large apartment buildings, you know, Jefferson Station. You can't chase those because they're investor sales. They use different cap rates. They're investor cap rates. So rather use them in the market. It's not like you, when you go and buy your home, you're doing a single, you're buying it for your home and what it's worth. If I buy my home, an appraiser is going to come in looking at how else would it sweat that day, the condition it's in, where it's located, use similar sales within six months, within a half a mile down the street.

So Mass Appraisal, the way we do stuff, it's for taxation purposes and we use statistics. It's market data. And like I said, it's not perfect. It's a scientific fact that we use based on the market data that we have. And it's basically just so everybody pays their fair share of taxes. So it's basically an estimate. I always like to point out it's not an exact number. People can't get caught up on the exact number on it. It's just like when you buy at home. You might have three buyers. Someone's going to offer, you know, if it's an $800,000 purchase price, someone might only think it's worth $750,000. Someone might pay $825,000, $850,000. So it's a little bit, you know, it's always a value range for these parcels. So people need to understand that the reason that we're here and the reason that assessor is to raise that 75% of the tax levy so that everybody pays their fair share of taxes. again, like to Dennis's point, we can't go chasing the sales on some of these investment properties. So if you see it was bought for 140 million, we can't assess that because the next door

Apartments over at Jefferson Station, the one next to it, President's Way. That one, if that's only valued at $60 million, $70 million, you can't raise that to $142 million where there's no sale. at the same time, they're very similar properties. They're high-end apartment buildings. They have to be proportionate. So all of our properties in town have to be assessed proportionally. So we have to be within the market. and then we also have to be proportioned to one another. You can't have two similar homes, completely different assessed values. So those are the type of things that I like to point out.

Thank you.

Other questions from board members?

Sure. Yep, OK. Thank you for answering about the commercial and how you evaluate them and all that. Because you do hear a lot of chatter. Are we doing a good job at that and what goes into it? Some people have some perception of what you see out there is it's very straightforward, but what you just explained, there's a lot that actually goes into that. and I understand from exactly what you wrote in your presentation and what was said Assessors do not raise or lower property taxes. It is your responsibility to find the full and fair cash value of property. So I understand what your job is. I also understand what this meeting is all about as well. But it's also an opportunity to talk about taxes as well and the cost to our residents. And when I look at this information, and thank you for all of your hard work on this, I completely understand it.

So we're at 1262 going to 1230, correct?

1262 to 1230 on the residential tax rate.

Right. And I understand the shift over to the commercial as well, too, is taking a burden off of our residents. because it would be unbelievable if we didn't have that. And I know there's some chatter in some other municipalities that are looking at why they don't have a bigger shift. Now with that all being said, I've also been paying attention to what's going on in Boston right now with commercial. And they're going down. They're having a really hard time and they're looking at possibly a 13% increase in the city of Boston to try to pay their bills, right? Because at the end of the day, that's exactly what we have to do with this. We have to pay our bills. cover our expenses. Their valuations went down. The commercial isn't worth what it was. It went down, I think they said, about 6%. Right now, we're very lucky.

but I have a lot of concern for what could be happening. I think that we as a board, I understand that we're looking at things, the town manager, school committee, finance committee, We have to really pay attention to our spending and what's coming up because we might have kind of a false sense of comfort in looking at somebody is going to say when they get their increase in their tax bill. Your tax rate is only, it went down. Your evaluation went up, okay? So that's fantastic. You now live in a $900,000 home. But what could happen in a year or two years if it starts to go down? What will happen to that tax rate? Where will we be? Back to the 1361, the 1480, we're going to split. If commercial starts to have a big problem as well, too, and we have lots of vacancies that happen, we don't know what the future brings, but it doesn't seem too stable right now.

then we're not going to be able to pay the bill with that as well either. So it's a good time just to remember to remind everybody, to remind town meeting that there are ramifications for what we do, for the votes that we take. when it is recommended from the town manager and the Finance and Warrant Committee that we reduce something, there's a lot to think about. There's a lot to think about when making those decisions. something like that showing that that tax rate goes down is going to give a real false sense in my opinion to people. especially if your home values start to go down. If your home value goes down and you pay a higher tax rate, there's a double whammy right there. Now all of a sudden, oh my gosh, my house is only worth $700,000 and I'm paying $14,000 a year in taxes. What am I getting for that?

I'm not getting any new services. Where are my services? So I have to say that. has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with what your job is. I understand what your job is and I appreciate everything. I just feel that I'd be remiss to not bring that into the public eye. because I know that's what the conversations are going to be. So thank you. Thank you very much for your work. And it is what it is.

Thank you. Dimitria, I'd just like to add to that, because you make a good point. So a lot of people will look at, oh, the rates are going down, so my taxes are going down, or vice versa, and that's kind of how it is. So you make a good point. It's really what the tax levy is, and that's the total. It's the tax bill that gets spread out throughout the property taxes. So whether your values are going up, then the tax rate might go down. doesn't mean your tax is going down. So I always like to tell people, if you complain about the values, if you cut everybody's values in town in half, guess what? The tax rate's just going up because we still have to pay that $120 million tax bill. So to your point, whether the values are going up, it's just going to lower the tax rate. If the values are going down, the tax rate is going to go up. So it's a pendulum swing, and it's those discussions that need to happen. throughout the year, what services are worth it, at what price point do we want to have it, so that every year your taxes are going to go up. It's the cost of goods, services increase year over year, it's salaries, it's coal, it's everything that's increasing year over year.

unless you drastically cut the budget or services, they're always going to go up over the years. So, I mean, these discussions should be had so that where it can control the amount that it increases. So the lower the levy, the tax levy it is, the less the increase is on the individual level. So like DuPont knows, One good thing is when you look back at the five-year historical tax levy, St. Louis has been in five years. So I think that's a great attribute to have. It's a contribution to the hard work by the FinCom, by your select board, by town manager, pretty much everyone in the room here. It's these tough decisions that were made and to make it only a four and a half million dollar increase in a levy in a time where all these prices are increasing so it was only an increase of like I said four and a half million about four percent the lowest it's been and if if the vote goes to to do the split tax rate and the tax shift A $357 increase, while it's a lot, it's also the lowest it's been in five years.

So I think a lot of hard decisions were made. I think if everybody's still diligent and continues their efforts going forward, to make sure that these hard decisions are made to make sure that these services are worth what the taxes that we're paying.

Absolutely.

We have to keep that in mind, right? not have a false sense, but I agree. I think that the process last year was really great. I think FinCon, the amount of meetings that they had, the process starting earlier also helped in really, really educating people on what all the decisions mean. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Other comments, questions?

Joe, thanks, Kevin, and, of course, the Board of Assessors. Some great points made already by members of the Board. and I also appreciate you explaining on how assessments are done. I believe that there was some misinformation at a recent town meeting about what was going on. And I think it's important that we clarify how the assessments of properties are done. And I think you did, Kevin, tonight a good job of doing that. And people need to remember that that there is a process in which to arrive at assessments for properties. Everyone, when they look at their tax bill, everybody wants their assessment to be low, except when you're gonna sell your house. then you want it higher because you want to get the top dollar. But then when your neighbor

sells their house for more than the assessed value, and then somebody else down the street from you does the same thing, guess what? you want to know why your tax rate is going up? Because as I think as Kevin, and correct me if I'm wrong, it's based on the area when you're looking at sales and increases in values go up. So I mean it's a, it's really, a double-edged sword so to speak that you want it low when you ain't gonna live in your house and you want it high when you want to sell. That's just the reality. And I think you also did a good job of explaining on the commercial side of the value of investors versus the value of the property in being equally unfair. because that's what we have to be. We have to be fair in the assessments of tax. And if somebody doesn't think the assessment is correct, there is a process.

that they can go through and ask for an abatement and ask the board to take a look at it and the assessor's office to review. So there are avenues for folks to look if they think they are being unfairly taxed. but the bottom line, as was mentioned before, is we have to raise a certain amount of money based on the votes of town meeting. Now, Leon, when he was describing it, he sort of, he mentioned the levy. We didn't get into particulars about where we are in the levy and what the levy is. When you get to that levy by law, you can't go above that unless the voters of a community choose to do that. And that's why the work that's being done now by Finance and Warrant and these committees that we have

is to try to keep that below and reduce it so that we don't have to go beyond that. But that takes a lot of discipline, and that's where the work that has started and has continued will be so important as we go into in future years to vote the tax increase. And finally, thanks also for mentioning how much less commercial property we really have in our town. there is a perception that Legacy Place is so big it's taking care of anything. That perception is so false they help us and so does all the other commercial helps us, but it's not compared to when you talk about Norwood or other communities surrounding us, they have a much larger commercial base. That's why it's important

for us as a community to continue to look at ways in which to develop, responsibly develop parcels of land so that we have the mix of a commercial and residential. Because as you look at these charts, there's only so much. There's only so much you can assess right now. And until we have new growth, this is what we're going to be dealing with and working with. So a lot here. Thanks very much for the good presentation. And that's it, Erin. Thank you.

Thank you. Any comments? Yes. Thanks for the presentation. Thanks for sending the information ahead. It's so helpful when we have that ahead. And for all the great conversation this has generated to help people understand the process. This is my first tax classification hearing since I've been on the board, but I have followed this for many years from the seat of finance and warrant and just as a resident. And I don't have any questions, but my colleagues just have a few. comments. I do appreciate the past work this board has done of making the shift. I think it is really important that we are are making this shift to help ease the burden a bit for our residential taxpayers. But do want to stress, and Jim mentioned some of the other efforts happening, this is really only one tool in the toolbox and it's really important that we continue to look at all the different strategies that we can employ to deal with

the budget issues that you know we like a lot of communities are facing both as a town and that our residents face with their own home budgets as well so I know you know in terms of reducing burden on our taxpayers. I think that's something that is really important to continue to look at. I know we have at least one committee that is set up specifically to look at. Are we doing the most that we can for people that are really struggling with their taxes. And that's something I stress our board and Finance and Warrant and everybody on staff to make sure that Dedham is doing the most that it can when it comes to tax relief for struggling residents. And then it's, like we've talked about in many different places, it's the lovers of the... and a lot of this came out in our deficit reduction study and that we're all looking closely as we move forward into the budget process. You know, like how do we continue to really control our expenses and find efficiencies

There's not a lot we can do fast, we've learned, in the short term. But we're starting to employ those. I know we're working on those. And not to lose sight of those long-term efforts that we can make. Well, we're also looking at revenue options, and that's something that deficit reduction study really showed us, is that there's not a lot of revenue options that don't also somehow, whether it's through fees or additional kinds of taxes, impact our residents. We'd be creative or focus especially on economic development to find other revenue sources that don't impact our residents. So again, I think this shift that I hope that we will vote will just be the beginning of the effort that we're making to work with the deficit reduction report, the survey that our residents filled out that we're looking at now to make sure that we're really looking comprehensively at issues for the town budget and our residents' budgets. Thanks.

Thank you, Michelle. Well, thank you. Thank you for coming here tonight, sharing your presentation with us. and thank you for all the work that you do all year round in order to get to this place. It's no small effort to review our properties in such a detailed way. And I appreciate that you discussed the process and the resources that you tap into in order to make these assessments and present this information to us. I think what has been really helpful about this year is, I don't know, this must be the 12th or 13th or 14th time that we've had a discussion about our budget and our taxes over the course of this year. We've been talking about it all year round because of the process.

in the conversations in order to manage our budget and our revenues have been happening year-round. and I want to take a moment to appreciate that process and the number of voices, the number of decision makers that go into creating our budget every single year. A couple things. What was interesting in looking at this year's numbers, there were 17 new parcels that were residential. There was one new parcel that is commercial.

there was zero new industrial parcels and there were 13 fewer personal parcels that were part of this year's assessment. And I think it's important to just say those out loud. So 17 more houses, one new commercial development, zero new industrial developments. So when we talk about the budget, as my colleagues have already discussed, so I don't need to add to that, there are so many puzzle pieces to what it is that we are working with here. We're looking at not just property, we're looking at the property Revenue. There are other types of revenue that can be looked into. Some of those have been proposed in the past. We've made small adjustments. There are larger adjustments that we can look at as well.

But there are so many pieces that go to the puzzle. So I just appreciate that the level of importance that everyone has been taking to make sure that we are presenting the most fair tax rate proposal to our residents as is possible right now. and yes, it still continues to be a struggle to keep the average residential tax bill from expanding too quickly. But the fact that our tax rate has gone from 13.6 in FY21, down to 12.3 now. That doesn't happen by accident. That's happened because for the past five years,

This town has been actively working to make sure that we rein that in and that we look at our budget and that we make very careful decisions. I just wanted to mention that doesn't happen by accident. and so those efforts continue to need to move forward. A couple other things, when we talk about affordability, I know we have talked about explored the option of senior tax programs in the past, and I think that's a conversation that we need to continue to move forward and nudge forward when we look at the issue of affordability here in town. So I hope that we continue to do that. I don't need to add anything additional or new to tonight's discussion, but just wanted to make those few points that we have been talking about this all year round,

we have had the town manager has discussions about our budget, the select board, makes decisions and have discussions around our budget, finance and warrant, town meeting. There's so many involved in this process, and I appreciate that we are working to try to balance affordability with services in meeting our residents' needs. So thank you.

Can I just say one more quick thing just because I thought someone else was going to say it. I think it needs to be said very quickly because I know this has gone on too long. When the residential values go up 6% and the commercial value goes up 5% and we're already shifting to the maximum, who gets a bigger piece of pie at that point? Residential. And that's been a trend that's been going on for a few years now, right? The relative, the relative decrease in value of commercial versus residential actually shifts more back to the residential even though we shift to the max of the commercial. And I just want to make that point because I think that's another challenge that we're facing as we take all this on.

And to add to that, so COVID made that a lot worse than in recent years due to the fact that when the housing market there was no inventory COVID happened nobody knew what was going to go on with the housing market so everybody held still they stopped everybody that was about to put their house on the market they didn't they weren't sure is it going to go up is it going to go down due to the low inventory year after year, the 34 years in a row, the residential values went skyrocketing, 8, 10, 11%, and commercial took a hit. especially the restaurants, the hotels. Those industries where restrictions were made, there were high vacancies, so the commercials was only going up at about 3%. The industrial market was still doing well, but unfortunately we have less than 1%. here in Dedham. So that was when the bigger split. This year it helps and you see not as a significant increase in the residential single family tax bill is due to part that it

those increases were more comparable and the personal property and the industrial did exceed what the residential increase was. So that helps kind of offset some of the larger increases that have happened in previous years. So one other thing to go back to what Erin had said too is affordability. We do have programs out there. The Council on Aging does have Senior Tax Work Off Program. So Courtney does a great job with that. We have a significant amount of seniors who participate in the Senior Tax Work Off Program. the assessing office and the board of assessors. We handle a lot of senior exemptions for those seniors that qualify. So there are programs, they are on our website. with the guidelines. People always can call the Council on Aging office and call our assessing office. We also recently founded the Tax Aid Committee and the Tax Aid Fund. So there's also the

the taxi committee that oversees that and we usually get about you know anywhere from 20 to 40 applicants on that alone for some additional tax relief. so just want to know that there are some resources out there we do research and look at what other communities are doing we're constantly looking and talking to other communities and how things are going because you know the pressure is everywhere taxes are high in the Northeast. It's not just an issue in Dedham, it's everywhere. But Dedham's done a pretty good job. Like I said, this is the lowest in the last five years for the increase, and a lot of that's due to the levy. So a lot of the hard work that's going on and the hard decisions in keeping the levy increase below the 5%. So anytime you're in that 2.5% to 4% to 5% increase, that's kind of a norm with inflation and everything that's going on. So you're kind of controlling it, where in previous years due to COVID and everything, the cost of everything went up so significantly. That's why you saw such an increase in the tax levy, which

when 75% is being funded by property taxes, everybody, the taxpayers, are feeling the burden on that. And then one last note to say is, Dennis brought it up in the beginning. It's a year-long process. The assessment department, the board of assessors, we work very hard year-long. This is a reval year, so it's a more rigorous process. We started a lot sooner. We're in constant communication with the state. All of our values are scrutinized and has to be approved by the Department of Revenue. All of our sales are looked at. So some of those apartment building sales, they're looking at those. and they're saying no you can't chase that sale. of course, you know, residents would like it to, but we can't. We've got to be proportionate. We've got to be fair. We can't use the investor cap rates. So all of that plays in. So we have the State and the Department of Revenue looking at all of that, and if we do certain things, they're not going to approve our values. which we won't be able to send out our tax bills and bring in the tax revenue for it. So it's a long process. They're pounding the streets. They're checking our property record cards, making sure our data is correct.

They're actually taking handfuls in certain neighborhoods and different segments, whether it's condos or single families or industrial or commercial. they're walking the streets making sure our property record cards are up to date, that we are having a visit history with every 10 years, that we are reviewing the sales. We're going through line item by line item, sale by sale with the Department of Revenue. sometimes eight, ten hours a day we're on the phone with them. They're coming into the office, they're hitting the street. So there's a lot more that goes on with this. It's not just like, oh, hey, let's just throw a number at the wall and see what sticks. It may seem that from afar if you're looking at some of the sales like on the investor side or commercial side. But it all makes sense. It all has to be statistics. They're looking at it by quarter, by street, by neighborhood, by style of the home. There's a lot that goes into it and all of it has to be approved by the Department of Revenue. like I said this is a revalued year so it's more intense and you know we're talking in February beginning hardcore in March and we just finished you know just two weeks ago so

Values will be out, and to Jim's point, if for some reason you look at your property record card, we always encourage people to look at it, make sure the data's correct. If it isn't, give us a call. We'll set up a time to come out there, someone from my office, one of our data collectors, We'll come out, we'll do a quick visit, make sure the data's correct. That's the first thing we want to make sure. So check that, and if you still think it's too high, If it's a residential home, take a look at some sales in your neighborhood. Maybe it's because of a data error. Maybe it's something just with the mass statistics. Give us a call. You can file an abatement. The values are out officially on January 1st. They'll be printed on your tax bill. You have 30 days, so you'll have to February 1st to file an abatement. We'll look at it in-house. We'll look at the sales. and the more information that you put in an abatement application, the more meaningful, the more time we spent, the more serious we know that you are and we're gonna take a look at it and look at those sales that you provide and see if there's an error in the data or if there's

a sale that shouldn't have been counted that was thrown out that you know may have been overlooked you know and the board reviews everything so there is a whole process and we're just here to make sure that everybody pays their fair share.

thank you for mentioning all of those programs ranging from the senior tax write-off through the abatement process.

Can I ask one quick question? So I was going to say the same thing, thank you for mentioning the abatement process, the tax relief fund. Am I correct that residents can contribute to that fund? And if so, I don't know if you or who could tell us just for the benefit of people that might watch how to do that because I find myself thinking about how we have so many residents that are concerned about their taxes. We also have residents that I've heard from and we saw in our community poll that will say that they're happy to pay more taxes for more services. I would love to see more people kind of put their money where their mouth is and maybe contribute to some of the funds that help those that struggle to pay their taxes. And so can you talk a little bit about how people might be able to help with that?

Sure. So the tax aid from the Tax Aid Committee was originally passed in town meeting, I think, back in 2014. It took some time to get it up and running. I think we started officially. The committee appointed three members, plus two ex officio members, our chair of the board, Our Treasure Collective, Jason Caravaggio, and three elected tax residents. They committed so you can donate on any of the quarterly tax payments. You can check off that donation box and anything extra that gets put into it gets put into the tax aid fund and that fund builds year over year. and each year we get a pool of candidates. I think the first year we had between 20 and 30 and it grew up to about 40. And there are some guidelines and restrictions. It's all online. We have everything under the assessing office. If you have questions, give us a call. Like I said, call the Council of Aging on some of these programs. But anybody that has the means to give a little bit of extra, please do, because there are a lot of people that are in need. There are a lot of applicants that have been applying for it that need it.

So we're still in the process right now for this year, but on average it's been about somewhere between 10 and 12,000 that we've been able to help provide some tax relief to some of these residents that are really in need. If there are people out there, please donate. It's like I said, it's right on your tax bill. You can check it off and anything extra obviously helps it go straight to that fund. Thank you for bringing that up.

All right, and this is a public hearing. Are there any members of the public who wish to speak on the tax classification issue tonight? Anyone online?

Move to close the public hearing.

Second.

Hearing a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, no.

And move to continue the classification in the town of Dedham.

Second. Hearing a motion and second, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, no.

Madam Chair, I move to use the maximum shift of 1.75.

Hearing a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. All right. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

All right, up next we have Dedham-Westwood Water District Executive Director and Dedham board members.

I guess you were not.

Wherever you want. All these are done? Okay. Good evening, Madam Chair, members of the board. I appreciate the opportunity to be here tonight with two of our board members, Bob Alexander and Eric Merithew. John Healy was planning on attending and reached out to us earlier this evening and unfortunately had a something come up last minute that he had to attend to. So I have a brief presentation. I know it's getting late into the evening, so I'll try to run through it fairly quickly and then obviously open it up to any questions or comments that the board may have. Right to the next slide, please. So I want to talk about a few regulatory items that we were going through this year. You may remember that 2025 marks the first year that we were required to follow the state's mandated drought plan and water restrictions that were prescribed by them.

We performed a lot of public outreach including meetings at both select board meetings for both communities back in April and press releases and everything just to get the word out. The new regulations required us to be in level two, so watering one day a week for four months out of the summer. We had April and May and then September and October. So we did get a little bit of leeway in the Teehan, Teehan, Jr., We may see some additional changes to this which we'd bring forward. Another regulatory item that we've been working on over the past couple years is our service line inventory. This is part of EPA's lead and copper rule revisions. Basically what we needed to do is take all 13,325 services that we have

and we had to identify the material that that service is on both the district owned portion under the right of way and the private owned portion which is within the front or back lawn of the resident or building that it serves. In the past two years, we were able to identify about 95% of these, which is really good. I think we did a pretty good job with our outreach, which we'll get into a little bit later, that we were recognized for that. We started off with mailing out pamphlets directly to our residents to try to get them self-identified. We did an exhaustive records search to try to get those numbers Down, and again, 95% is great. The endeavor cost about $900,000 over the past two years, which was 100% funded through Grant of the Massachusetts Clean Water Trust State Revolving Fund. We have more work as this continues.

We have to identify all of them, so that last 5% we will have to identify, and then we have to do some other mandatory requirements as well as far as some excavations to confirm that our records were correct. So this project is not over, but phase one is. Phase two and three will be coming up in the next few years. Next project. So we had a couple of big water main projects this year. First and foremost, East Street, which I'm sure you are probably all aware of. It was a difficult project. given the traffic issues and the many, many utilities that already exist within East Street, our main MWRA, two gas lines, electric, communication, everything. So this project was put together in two distinct phases, one where we were replacing the water main in a new corridor and one where we were replacing the water main where it existed, which required an above-ground bypass main.

Our communication outreach for this project was the first that I think this is one of the first times that we had done this. We did public meetings. We did one public meeting for each phase of the project to try to bring the residents and businesses that would be impacted through these phases and inform them about the project, who the participants are, the contractor, District staff, how they can get in touch with us. And then besides the public meetings, we also did weekly updates. So every week on a Friday, we would send out an email to anyone who subscribed to it stating what work was done, what work is going to be done in the next week. and identifying any other problems. And again, just a constant way of communicating back to us if you have any issues. The second project was the Milk Street water main in Westwood. Only 10 residents are on that street, so it was pretty, as compared to East Street, it was a pretty minor project. But again, we did get it done.

Both these projects I'd like to mention. That's fine. You can go to the next one. That's fine. We're done in advance of the town's paving. So trying to, I guess, save taxpayer and ratepayer money by only paving the road once. So we're only doing a permanent patch on where we put the water main and then at some point in the next few years I believe the DPW is coming be coming through and that's on Milk Street and Westwood too they're going to be paving that for us. Now we can go to the next slide. Thank you. So just recently we kicked off our PFAS upgrade project at the White Lodge Treatment Plant. This project will bring us into compliance with the EPA's new requirements on per and polyfluorinated compounds. specifically we'll call them PFOA and PFOS that they're going to be regulating down to four parts per trillion.

We see anywhere from five to seven parts per trillion of these compounds at both of our well fields. This project will take approximately 18 months, so we'll be looking at activating the new filtration in about early 2027. total cost of about $15.55 million. And we were fortunate enough to get this project funded again through the Massachusetts State Revolving Fund at a 0% interest 20-year loan. and we will not begin to have to pay that loan back until the project is 100% complete. So we won't see the principal payments until 2027. Next slide please. We recently completed the new garage and much needed site improvements at our headquarters at 50 Elm Street.

It's a four-bay, about 4,500 square foot garage to house equipment that is typically kept outside and in the elements year-round. So it would be nice and give us an opportunity to keep things clean and last a little bit longer and ready to respond to emergency situations. Also, the site improvements included much needed drainage. We typically had flooding. anytime it rained or we had snow melt. And it also eliminated traffic driving around our building. for customers and employees. We now have customer parking in front of the building, and customers only need to access the front of the building. So it makes it a little bit safer for our employees working out in the backyard as well. and then lastly we just completed the transition to a new billing software program in November and although the changes are more significant on the internal side of the program

There were changes on the resident and customer side, including new account numbers. The online portal is a little bit different. You have to sign up for it again just because it is a different program. We have a new payment software, Invoice Cloud, and then the bills look a little bit different. Like many software changes, it came with its own hiccups, but we are currently billing in the new system and things appear to be going smoothly at this point, so we're hoping that all that continues. Besides some of the projects that we accomplished in 2025 or performed, we did have some other accomplishments that I'd like to mention. So we received a $42,000 or just over $42,000 grant to purchase 550 leak detection monitors that get permanently mounted on our fire hydrants and what this does is allow us every night they will listen to the water mains and services and help us identify leaks before they become pretty significant leaks

allow us to take care of them faster and also hope to reduce water loss through infrastructure underground. We learned earlier this year, next slide. that the district was awarded just over $4.9 million in the 3M PFAS settlement. We did submit a press release out to the communities once we loaned this. This is a gross amount, so once you subtract attorneys and other minor fees, we'll probably be looking at about a $3.6 million and Cash that we will receive from this settlement. Although this settlement does help, it's a far cry from the $15.5 million we're putting into White Lodge Treatment Plant. Never mind, we also have Bridge Street that we're going to be looking at on the horizon. Next slide, please. In two weeks, we will be receiving the Newman Water Works Association's 2025 Distinguished Drinking Water Public Involvement Award.

This award is to recognize all of the work we have performed through our public outreach for the projects that we completed in 2025. and some of which I just mentioned. I'd like to very quickly just recognize our communications coordinator, Alyssa Lane, who was integral to all of this outreach and us receiving this recognition. and then with that we'll start to talk a little bit into 2026 and what we'll be doing. We have a water main on Schoolmaster Lane. This is a new water main just over a thousand feet that will be looping our water system from Country Club Lane to West Street. This project was recommended in our 2021 capital improvement plan, and the loop will improve water quality, fire protection, and redundancy for some of the larger facilities that we currently have including like the prison HSL over on the West Street side.

We'll also be replacing almost a hundred year old water main on Riverside Drive. This project is being prioritized. Like I said before, DPW is looking to pave Riverside Drive, so what we want to do is get in there and replace this 100-year-old main before it creates a problem and dig up a street that was recently paved. Again, we will be doing public outreach for that and having community meetings. It's size-wise, length-wise, it's about the size of East Street, but we anticipate with the lack of underground infrastructure in there and No traffic issues that we'll be able to get through there a lot smoother than we did East Street. And then lastly, we'll be replacing our Burgess Ave. pumping station in Westwood. with a new above-ground pumping station. So the existing station does not provide fire flow to the area at all. pump through their fire truck to actually get fire suppression up in that system. There's approximately 200 homes up there. And there's no backup power.

So during times of power loss, they lose pressure for some period of time until we can respond and put a temporary generator out there. So the new station will be above ground, improving safety for our employees when they have to access, and then it will be outfitted with proper fire pumps and a backup generator, permanent jet backup generator. And with that, we'll open it up to any questions that you may have.

Thank you so much for your presentation. Of course. Questions, comments from board members?

Thank you. Thank you very much. I'd have to say the building really looks nice. I've been by it a couple of times, and that looks great. And thank you for the communication, coming here, my time serving on the board. It's been in the most recent years that you guys have been coming, and it's great. So that communication, as we spoke about at the last meeting as well, too, and keeping that communication going. This is a question that really has nothing to do with what you just went over, and if you can't answer it or don't want to answer it, but here I go. and WRA, the dumping into the Charles River. Were you involved in any of those conversations? I know there was a lot of community groups that were against it. I'm just curious, you might not have anything to say about that, or don't want to say anything about that.

I'm not exactly 100% sure what you're speaking of. Sorry.

Oh, that they were going to allow dumping of sewage into the Charles River, and a lot of community groups petitioned to stop that from happening. So there are some hearings that are going to be taking place about that. So it has really nothing to do with you. I just didn't know and just talking about the water and Charles River and all that. It's been in the papers. Yeah, it's been in the papers. because our child's river is right here, and WRA is just curious on that.

The district overall just handles the water side of it, not the sewerage piece, though, in terms of it. the staff that you would in terms of working with the other area Yeah, yeah.

I didn't really know and thought that, you know, it really, it fell on you whatsoever, but didn't know if there was any involvement there or any outreach about any of that going on, so.

certainly something I want to look into though because having wells right along the Charles River I want to make sure that you know we're aware of that and I'm assuming it would have been treated

I guess I don't know too much about the details of it, but they were saying it's perfectly fine and it can go on forever. But the groups are saying absolutely not. A lot of the environmental groups are standing up and saying this is not what we want to see in the child's room. We worked so hard to clean it up. Why would we want that to happen?

They have very strict rules. and they're going to bring a new underground major pipeline closer. And they sample anybody that has any kind of industrial waste going to their treatment plants. I'm scratching my head on that one because they are so that they're making water treatment plants with the residuals we're going to end up getting. We're going to put that Yeah, it was interesting.

Yeah, outside of our involvement with the water district, just from professional sense working with some police water

practice that after a certain level of treatment, you can pump back into the waterways. It's regulated by the EPA so that for doing that. It has not been. There are further restrictions, and that's just to get to what the national level is on, which would make that harder. But I guess that would be there.

that it's fine and that's what they're saying.

It doesn't sound... Like something you want to hear about?

It doesn't sound like it, but of course there's always back story. There's always more details. They're saying that it's, yeah.

They pulled it from their agenda in November.

that was all I just wanted to ask and again to thank you for keeping in contact we do appreciate all of your work on this thank you Thank you.

Thanks, Madam Chair. So a few things. First, I was wondering what that thing was on my fire hydrant in front of my house. While you're up. I didn't know what it was. It figured it was some type of sensor, but I think that's a great grant that you got because we all know, especially in the wintertime, when a fire hydrant leaks, and it freezes and the fire department have to access it, you have a dead hydrant. You can't do anything with it so I think this is a great tool. So are all the hydrants equipped with this or are there some areas that do not have them.

So the way the technology works is that these sensors listen, and then they can listen a certain distance. So you don't need to have them on every hydrant, but you need to have them within, like, so for example, you have a street that's 1,000 feet long. with three hybrids on it, you might just have it on two. Hydrance, rather than all three. And then when the information comes back to us, these sensors can correlate to one another. So if one hears one loud, one hears one soft, it will actually kind of determine and tell you it's within this vicinity. So it doesn't just listen to the hydrants, it listens to the underground infrastructure because that sound comes up the pipes into the hydrant.

So since you've had these in operation, how many leaks?

I know we've had at least three. Steve, yeah. One of them actually was on E Street at the Ice Arena while we were there doing our infrastructure improvements. We had implemented these, and then we saw that after collecting the data, because we do have to go out and collect the data from them every once in a while. that there was a leak there. So we actually found a leak before it had shown up and we had to repair it because even though we were going to be replacing the infrastructure, we hadn't gotten there yet.

We also have contracts with companies to do public detection analysis and we've been in comparison between how effective this constantly running system is versus bringing in outside sources.

I just want to just also compliment your service. I've had them a couple of times out to the house for issues with the meters. They're professional, they're timely, they come, they do the job, they give you advice on on what you have we had what to do and they've been terrific and it's been a couple of times and I'm sure that there's a lot of people that call and go out and having them into their homes, they're polite and they do an excellent job. Hats off to your service folks that get out there and do the job. And thanks also for the communication that we're seeing from the district as Dimitria mentioned, and we talked at our last meeting about having a joint meeting with the town of Westwood and inviting the district in because we're all in this together and probably should get, no, probably we will get back to to having those conversations between us all.

And one last thing is that occasionally I hear from folks that all of a sudden they see a spike in their water bill and they don't understand it. So can you just talk a little bit about, I know on the bills I have seen in the past, you might have a leak, and I think sometimes, what should people do when they see they're used to seeing a flat X number of dollar bill, and then all of a sudden, and because the way in which it's quarterly? Or monthly. Monthly, I'm sorry, yeah. Monthly, you see a big jump. What should they do? So I'd say first and foremost, call us.

and we can talk through the bill and we can explain to them whether or not it is truly usage or if there's some sort of other anomaly going on. That said, we also have tools that help them identify leaks. So we have little tablets that you can put in the toilet tank. The toilets are often part of the problem, is the little flapper. once you flush the flapper falls down and that's what stops the water from running sometimes that flapper is not sealed all the way you don't really hear the water running but it's continuing to run into the bowl and then down through so the dye tabs you put into the tank and then once it's done, if you start to see color come into the bowl of the tank without flushing, then you know you have a leak. So that's a common culprit for random high usage, unexpected high usage. It's possible that you have other leaks going on, especially in the summer months irrigation systems. If you don't properly blow them out in the wintertime, when they go to put them on in the summer, then that can be an issue as well.

But yeah, call us. We can always send someone out and take a look as well and bring the die tabs out to help.

Thank you. from a broken head, just dribbling down the road.

because it also doesn't just affect your water bill because the sewer bill is based on your usage. So if you have a spike and a leak in your water bill, you're going to be paying a sewer bill for clean water, which we don't want clean water to go down our drains.

Just want to quickly echo the congratulations on the award for the communications and kudos to you, Alyssa. I definitely noticed it. I thought it was really good communication around the water restriction change. and everything with the changeover. I finally got on and did my new login in the portal, but it was very clear what to do. That was smooth for me as well. So just good job with everybody with those transitions.

Great.

Very quickly, just want to say it's very palatable, the energy that you're bringing to the position and the effort that you're bringing and supported by your board members and the enthusiasm and the clear attempts to improve the communication with this board and the public. I think I speak for all of us when I say it's appreciated and just keep up the great work and I think it's definitely the right path and I look forward to continuing to cultivate those relationships. So thank you for a great presentation.

Thank you. Yes, and thank you for being here. Thank you for board members who are here tonight and staff as well. It's interesting just to see the full scope of what it is that you're working on. That treatment center upgrade is certainly a huge project and one that I know is necessary. So good luck with that. Thank you for coordinating with us on paving projects. it certainly helps us and all the efforts that we're doing to maintain our budget by doing that and it can feel as simple as coordination but I know that it takes thought and effort to make that happen. So I appreciate that. The new garage on Elm Street looks great. I hope that, I know we had heard from neighbors who had some concerns.

I hope that those concerns go unfounded and that this is a helpful addition to the neighborhood by being able to house all those vehicles inside. So thank you so much for being here and staying for a later meeting and providing us with all this information for your ongoing communications and appreciate the work that you do. Thanks so much.

Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Thank you. All right. Moving on, I think we're at old and new business.

Thank you.

Good night. Thank you.

Thanks.

Thank you. comes through my house for sure.

Got my water bottle right here.

We'll see you. Bye. Old or new business.

I just wanted to mention that I was glad to be able to attend on Monday the visit to Dedham High by the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and their education team and you know it was really Well done. The presentation, the logistics, everything went really well. And Erin, thank you for representing us so well, kicking it off and introducing the governor. And I want to say congrats to the schools, because we really should be proud of Dedham High School, that Dedham was chosen. It wasn't random. They were looking for a district that really was employing a lot of the best practices that they are looking to spread throughout the state. And we checked a lot of those boxes. So that was really good to hear. are all doing a great job. but most importantly, I just wanna thank Leon and all the different staff of the town and school. It's a lot that goes into an event like that and how tricky to do that

coming back from a four day long weekend after Thanksgiving and having to be ready first thing Monday morning. So I know people that thought they were gonna have a four day weekend were having a lot of phone calls and being in the workplace. So school staff, facility staff, I heard many people say they had never seen Matt Hafner in a tie, but he was there in a tie. our police department, your whole team, Leon, and communications, Amanda, several people took holiday time to make sure that we presented Dedham well, and we really did. So just thank you to I'm sure I forgot teams that were involved, but thank you to everybody that had a hand in that.

Thank you.

Older New Business. Anyone else? Holiday Stroll. Friday night, 5 to 8. Also, Saturday, December 6, is the Blue Hills Regional Technical Holiday Craft Fair that they have. I believe it starts at 10 AM, goes to about 3 PM. It's a great craft fair. Blue Hills, Winter Market Starts. And also, I just wanted to, on the website, and I was reading about things, and it said, you know, I want to remind people that there are all sorts of ways to donate your time to the community during the holiday season and beyond. There's lots of opportunities at the Council on Aging, Youth Commission, the libraries. the people that want to get involved. Animal Control is also always looking. That's a great page that you have on the website. that shows all these organizations that we have in town that need help. They need volunteer hours.

So even for the dogs, they're collecting food between The Animal Control and Play It Again Sports, they're having, and can drop off food there because people don't even, you know, sometimes with the pantry, they keep it there, they bring it over, there's animals, etc. Lots to do. Help them restock their shelves that way as well. Go right on our website. That's a really great page. Thank you.

And just to clarify, 5 to 8 is the stroll. The tree lighting is at 6.30, around 6.30? 6.30. 630. That's a question that sometimes I hear. So the tree lighting is around 630 in that five to eight stroll window.

Just briefly, you know, on Monday also, I think it was, was it Monday? No, Tuesday? whatever, get confused now, Monday. There was a holiday luncheon for veterans and their families down at the American Legion. I know Sue Butler, Joe Hamilton, I know Bob Coughlin and others supported it as well as there's two restaurants that slipped my mind right now. I believe they're on River Street. But I stopped in before I went to grab a train and It was really wonderful to see the families and the veterans and of course Santa was there. but to take the time and the effort to put together a nice afternoon. Hats off to them and thank you for those that that have organized that. And the lights in different subject, the lights in the square, the lights in the town green, look amazing.

They really do. I drove through last Friday, and it was like the wow factor. So great job. It looks great. So thank you.

Great. Thank you. All right, I'll entertain a motion to adjourn.

So moved.

Second. Second. All those in favor say aye.

Aye. Opposed, no. All right. Our meeting is adjourned.