Grafton Town Board Action – Grafton Trail Riders Variance Passes

by Alex Brooks
At its meeting on June 10, the Grafton Town Board tried for the third time to pass a variance allowing the Grafton Trail Riders to have limited camping on their property at 29 Trail Riders Way. This time the resolution passed unanimously with a 4-0 vote. Councilwoman Marie Claus was not present.
[private]The resolution did not limit the camping to any particular dates but relied instead on an annual limit of 60 hours, in accordance with State law. Since the last meeting, Town Attorney Sal Ferlazzo reviewed a draft of the resolution and advised against limiting the camping by dates.
Mike Crandall, who had previously voted against resolutions that didn’t limit the camping to a single weekend, said he was convinced by the Town Attorney’s comments. “We were overreaching,” he said.
The resolution also allows Club members to camp on the property beyond the 60 hour limit as long as the campers give 24 hours notice to the Code Enforcement Officer and there are never more than four campers at a time. It requires that the Club’s septic holding tank be pumped out on a regular basis and the Club’s water supply be tested by a certified lab once a year. The Code Enforcement Officer must be allowed to make periodic inspections of the Club grounds, and he is empowered to cancel the variance immediately if he finds violations of the terms of the variance.
Revaluation
Supervisor Frank Higgins said he had a letter from the State Dept. of Taxation and Finance notifying the Town of its tentative Equalization Rate for 2013. The equalization rate is intended to adjust assessed valuations to make them equal to true market value. Grafton’s tentative equalization rate is 8.5, which means the State’s judgment is that assessed values in Grafton represent about 8.5% of true market value. Another way to say that is that the true market value of a house in Grafton is almost twelve times its assessed value.
Higgins said the State was critical of Grafton in this letter because the Town has not done a revaluation for many years. The relevant sentence said, “Since your municipality has not completed a recent reassessment, we recommend that you examine your assessment roll for inequities and consider reassessing.”
Higgins noted that of the 19 local municipalities whose equalization rates were listed on the second page of the letter, Grafton’s was the lowest.
Higgins handed out information from the State Dept. of Taxation and Finance which suggests that inequities are inevitable if a municipality does not do regular reassessments. “Municipal-wide reassessments are the best way to ensure that assessments are fair and accurate,” was the key message of this document.
Grafton Assessor Craig Surprise said Grafton has not done a revaluation since 1980. He offered a page of figures with a heading “Comparison of Tax Liabilities,” which was pretty much incomprehensible, but the point was that a low equalization rate tends to result in somewhat higher tax liability for property owners when it comes to taxation across multiple municipalities such as School District and County taxes. Surprise also said property owners get better exemptions after a revaluation, when equalization rates are close to 100%
Surprise said a Revaluation takes two years. If he were authorized to begin immediately, the new valuations would not take effect until 2016.
When asked what the cost of a revaluation would be, Surprise said if an outside contractor did it, they usually get $70 to $100 per parcel, which would be $140,000 to $180,000, but if he handled it, with some help from an outside contractor, it would be about $25,000. The State provides $5 per parcel in aid which would cover about $9,000 of the cost for Grafton’s 1,800 parcels.
Supervisor Frank Higgins said he believes a revaluation is long overdue, and he intends to offer a resolution at next month’s meeting authorizing the Assessor to begin a revaluation.
Highway
Highway Superintendent Herb Hasbrouck said his crew has been very busy repairing washouts since the heavy rain that fell on Wednesday evening, June 5. He said he has put down over $5,000 worth of gravel and stone over the last five days. Hasbrouck said the Town’s grader has a “differential problem” which rendered it inoperable just at the moment they needed it most because of the washouts. He was given a quote to repair it for $15,000, but he did not think this was right, and he negotiated with the company until he got an estimate of $8,700. He then sent it in to be repaired. He said he expects to rent a Gradall for a while so he can get the roads fixed up right away.
Hasbrouck said he is ordering culverts a couple of sizes bigger than he used to as he believes the Town needs to prepare its infrastructure for more rainfall and more sudden rainfall.
Reports
Dog Officer Rick Bly said he had seven calls between May 11 and June 5. Two at-large dogs were impounded. Two lost dogs were reported. One was found, and the other is still at large. There was a dog bite at the Grafton Lakes State Park.
The Grafton Ambulance responded to 13 calls in May – a headache, six falls, hemorrhage, difficulty breathing and four other problems. The ambulance traveled 278 miles, and the squad logged 46.4 volunteer hours on the ambulance. Captain Baldwin also asked that everyone make sure that house numbers and road signs are visible so the ambulance can find your house quickly when you need help.
Town Clerk Sue Putnam said that on Saturdays in June, July and August, she will be in the Town Hall only by appointment. Those who need to make an appointment may call her cell phone at 951-4460. Her Monday and Wednesday hours are unchanged in the summer.
The meeting was adjourned in loving memory of Reverend William O’Dell.[/private]