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Whitefield Assessment Enters Electronic Age Story date: 07/03/2007 By Lucy L. Martin Murphy (rear) meets witt the selectmen Advice is what Whitefield selectmen wanted Monday night from assessor Jim Murphy who showed the board how to enter tax data using an updated software program.
With the new fiscal year beginning, chair Steve McCormick wanted to know how to get the system running and the potential for using it in 2007-08.
An electronic data base for property taxation was a goal McCormick set years ago when he first ran for the board.
Murphy spent an hour reviewing and demonstrating how to use the Trio software, what codes to enter and what features of the property, including configuration of the land, have to be included. Its all part of the assessing job, to track such details, he said, gesturing toward a thick ring binder on the boards desk. Its in that assessing manual.
In the past half dozen years or so, the town has contracted with Murphy to measure and photograph Whitefield homes and businesses and enter the information on tax cards to be transferred to the computer. Two of the three board members also visit properties each year, updating old information and adding new as development occurs.
The software has sat waiting to be used and needs to be updated.
Charlene Bartlett commented on the weeknights, weekends, and vacation time she has spent driving around town to assess properties, and nine times out of ten we wont find the people at home. McCormick wondered if the work could be expedited by taking a laptop along on the assessing trips. Doing so would eliminate the duplication of entering information first on the cards and later, in the office, on the machine.
Murphy said, Its cumbersome. I dont know anybody that does it that way.
McCormick said, In the future we need to look at how we want to do this. Do we need to put in the budget an assessors agent to do the field work? There are very few towns where selectmen do the assessing any more.
Murphy said the town could have the system in place in six months if you jump on it tomorrow morning. Office staff could do the entry. Then you want to run a check on it to make sure everything in the system is correct. Taxpayers would then receive a letter indicating what the land and building values will be.
In other business, the board discussed changes the Whitefield Athletic Association wishes to make on the ball field, namely removing the grass from the infield and replacing it with stone dust. McCormick said the association needs to post their intentions and announce the time of their next meeting so that the public can weigh in on the proposal.
The board received an opinion from the Maine Municipal Association on a residents request to access his property from the Town Office driveway. Staff attorney Kristin M. Collins wrote in a letter dated June 22 that the driveway is not an accepted town way and noted that the resident has another way of accessing his land, which fronts on Townhouse Rd. Conveying an easement to the resident would have to be approved by town meeting.
Animal control
Animal control office (ACO) Ken Paradis notified the board he was issuing summonses for a dangerous dog and for one unlicensed dog. The matter could end up in court, he said. Paradis said he spent more than three hours Saturday dealing with a situation where the owner of a dog that attacked another dog would not pay for damages.
The board received a bill for $207 from Eugene Mooers III of Hunts Meadow Road for answering 10 complaints, mostly concerning at-large dogs, and attending a selectmens meeting. McCormick said the town never hired Mooers as an assistant or backup ACO when his son Josh, who was hired as the towns ACO after Clayton Lanphier resigned, could not be reached to perform his duties. Board members agreed to query the Mooerses about equipment the town bought for the ACO which has not been returned, including two traps and a chain link kennel/pen.
The board also tabled for further review a bill from Josh Mooers for $572, itemizing 10 calls in January and early February. The ACOs rate of pay is $9/hour.
Vol. 132 - No. 27
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