JAY — Letters will be sent out this week to property owners with their new valuations listed, assessing agent Paul Binette of John O’Donnell Associates Inc. told selectpersons Monday.
Binette presented board members with the revised valuations for all of the property in town except for Verso Paper Corp. That property is being evaluated by Corporate Valuations Inc. of Oregon.
The changes are not big, but there are changes, he said.
If people want to discuss the new property values, assessing agents will be available through appointment on Monday, July 28, and Tuesday, July 29, Binette said. People are asked to call the Town Office at 897-6785 to set up an appointment.
The last revaluation the company did in Jay was in 2006, when the market was a lot healthier, he said.
All of the new values will be posted on the Internet.
The purpose of the equalization services is to provide new land and building valuation schedules based on market data from the past two or three years.
The town’s average assessment ratio for improved properties will be between 93 and 100 percent, according to the contract the board entered into with O’Donnell.
Company representatives were to conduct an exterior review of each property that sold in the past two years in which the sale did not involve parties related to each other.
In other business, selectpersons gave final approval to the list of streetlights targeted to be removed, knowing that there are a handful that still need to be clarified.
About 133 streetlights will be removed to save the town money.
Selectpersons Chairman Steve McCourt and Selectperson Tim DeMillo thanked the seven committee members for all the work they did. Selectpersons Justin Merrill and Pearl Cook served on the committee.
In another matter, the board approved the Police Department getting new Tasers under the Taser Assurance Plan, which will allow the town to pay for the electronic weapons over five years.
The plan will allow the department to buy two new Taser X26Ps with holsters and data download cables and the company will give the department an additional new Taser.
The money will come out of drug forfeiture money that the department gains through drug seizures, acting police Chief Richard Caton IV said.
They have $6,853. It will go into an asset forfeiture reserve account.
Caton said he would like to keep $1,000 cash for operations and drug investigations, including drug buys. The rest will go into the reserve account that they can draw on.
Under the five-year, lease-to-own program, the first payment will be $2,538.80 and for the next four years the payments will be $370 each year. At the end of the program in 2018, the company will give the department two new Tasers, Caton said.
dperry@sunjournal.com
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