Greetings from Manipal Spine Care Center at Manipal Hospitals, Bangalore. I am Dr. Vidyadharayesh, Head of the Department and Consultant Spine Surgeon. Today I am going to talk about low back pain, what I have learnt in the last 20 to 25 years, trying to be a better and better spine specialist. Back pain is a major health problem. It constitutes to 8 out of 10 of us suffering from back pain at some point of time in life. It is a major epidemic in a metropolitan city like Bangalore where most of us are having a sitting job. It is a big business as well because anything you want to sell you can say it works for back pain and it sells better, whether it is anointment, bed or surgeries as well. There are a lot of myths revolving around the issue of low back pain like people saying lifting heavy weights causing back pain which is not true, bed rest is the main way of treating a low back pain, not true again, x-ray city scans and MRIs giving us the exact diagnosis which is not true again and that once you had back pain that you will always need a surgery in the end which is not true again. But the truth remains that many people suffer from back pain, there is no standard of cure. Two doctors, you will get two opinions, you go to 20, you will get 20. No two doctors can talk the same language. Briefly to know about what is normal in spine, there is functional spinal unit which is constituted by two vertebrae separated by one cushion or the intervertebral disc and two facet joints, the joints which move or back, front and back, sideways as well as the twisting moments. But that is not all friends, there are ligaments holding the two bones together, there are muscles which contract and give the necessary movement to the low back, there is a delicate spinal cord which runs from the brain to the tail tip giving rise to branches in the neck going down the upper limb, in the low back going down the lower limb. Coming to what can go wrong in the back to cause back pain, most of the time it is the disc which is the king pin maker in low back pain, it is either the starting point of all the problems in the back or commonest end point in almost all low back pain patients. To know more about this disc, this disc when we are born is liquid inconsistency, it becomes gel, it becomes solid merely because we all grow in age and we lose water and protein from our tissues, like how we lose water and protein from our skin and the skin gets wrinkled, how we lose water and protein from the joints and we become arthritic. So, similarly the disc loses water and protein and becomes degenerated, this is normal degeneration of the disc which causes back pain in 90 percent of people with the normal or abnormal. This is a schematic diagram of a child with functional spinal unit, two vertebral bones and the disc spinal cord and nerve root going down the leg.  Now, as the child grows adult, the balloon becomes thicker, the water becomes lesser, making it more and more stiffer compared to a child who has got a very flexible and very elastic shock absorber. This is a stiff and rigid shock absorber with less water, more thicker balloon. This can only tear and the liquid from inside the disc can come out, it can either mechanically compress the nerve root going down the leg or it can chemically irritate the nerve root going down the leg. So, this causes a slip disc or a disc prolapse which in addition to back and neck pain causes arm and leg pain. Friends, this is the MRI of a 10 year old child, done for academic interest, child has no back pain and you can see these balloony watery discs. In contrast, this is a 80 year old man, no back pain and the MRI done for academic interest. You can see these thick balloons with hardly any water.  From above down, the normal disc loses water and proteins becomes degenerated. It bulges backwards, the disc balloon tears, the inner nucleus comes out. Once that comes out, the disc space becomes less, thins out. Once the disc space is thinned out, you remember from my previous slide, there are muscles and ligaments, they become loose. So, the bones start wobbling, one on top of the other and body senses it to be abnormal and then body starts forming bridging osteophytes, trying to bridge the two bones, holding them together. Now, these are called as stages of degenerative disc disease and every single disc has to go through this before we die and depending on when you take an MRI, you will see the discs in different phases of degeneration. Now, all this is boring, we will go to how patients present to you in the outpatient. Before we go into the depth, we need to know two concepts, one is pain. Friends, pain is a protective reflex, it is a response of the body towards an underlying injury or damage. There is a physical injury, like you get cut, you feel pain because that is the way body tries to make you remove your hand from the area of injury.  So, pain is a protective reflex, it is not only physical, not only psychological, it is a combination of two. Next important point is stress, under stress, how our body perceives pain. Stress by my definition is extreme of any emotion is a stress on the body, be it anxiety, apprehension, tension, happiness, unhappiness, fear. Anything in extreme is a stress on the body and that itself can cause the pain to amplify and you will not realize that it is because of the stress that you are feeling the pain much, much more. And this is a very important thing because in today's world, most people are stressed out and unless we give importance to stress as an element in perception of pain, we may easily get carried away by the severity of pain that the person explains. Now, lot of people have their own explanations of pain, it is throbbing, it is pinching, it is a catch, it is a pull, it is a burning pain, it is you know, you can write a book on how to express pain and still the patient will tell you that no doctor, you did not get me right. That is not the way, I feel it is something different which I cannot put it in words. But we as doctors will have to listen to you because it is you who has paid money and come to the doctor, so I cannot say no, no, no, you tell me next. So we tend to pretend that we are listening, but we in fact are trying to pick up if there are any red flags. Now, to give you a brief idea as to what are the red flags, a child complaining of back pain is a red flag for us, child does not know existence of neck and back and if a child complains of back and neck pain, it is a red flag for us. A elderly person may be 50, 60s, usually does not go to a doctor unless it is bothering him or her for long enough time, maybe 2, 3 months it is bothering and he starts getting a doubt whether something is really going wrong in his body.  Not to say that people in between 20 and 50 years are mad, but most of us have lot of other stresses which may bring us to the doctor early or which may make us feel the pain much, much more than what it would have hurt a child or a elderly. Trauma, a simple slip in the bathroom if the patient is an elderly, fever with constitutional symptoms like loss of weight, loss of appetite, not to forget today tuberculosis has come back with a vengeance, there are at least 2 to 3 patients with tuberculosis pain coming to me in a week's time. Patients with neurological symptoms or neurological weaknesses like somebody having tingling, numbness in the legs, in the arms, somebody is unsteady when he walks, he is lurching, he is his knee is buckling, he is not able to walk straight, he has to hold people and walk, definitely it is a red flag for us. However, 90% of people with back pain become better on lying down at night or become better on taking painkiller medications. Now if somebody comes to you and says that the pain is worse at night, it is not improved with painkillers, definitely you will have to think of infection in the spine or malignancy or cancer in the spine. Now as a doctor we see so many patients and we need to quickly examine and find out as to what is it that we are looking for in this patient. Basically we are checking the integrity of the nerves which is reflected by the power of the muscle. So we ask the patient, we look at the patient walking into your cabin, if he is walking normal he is okay, if he is not walking well, he is lurching, he is taking the support then it is abnormal. But somebody may look to be normal but if you ask him to heal walk or if you ask him to tow walk it is not possible then you know that there is a neurological deficit in this patient and that again becomes a red flag for us. Having said all these red flags are seen in less than 1% of patients who are presenting with back and neck pain. So the remaining 99% have lot of yellow flags otherwise the stress related stuff but they do not have a red flag but they all need a diagnosis, they need to be treated because everybody is paying the doctor to get cured. Now that is a big diagnostic puzzle and we in addition to having so many doubts in our mind we are added with the doubt of which investigation to choose from because there are enough and lots in the market that can empty anybody's bank balance. Friends to add to our confusion, some of the patients come and tell you that doctor so and so has diagnosed me with spondylosis in 1996 and ever since I have had on and off back pain. People come and tell you that I have a slip disc which was diagnosed in 2013 in this hospital and I have an extra bone, I have a crack in the back, friends it is not because of the patient, it is because of doctors like me who have driven it deep into their head that they have these problems. And it is not uncommon to see that there is a extra piece of calcification in the x-ray or a defect in the bone or there may be a small piece of extra bone or a small snow or irregular bone but these need not cause back pain. How do you know that the patient's grandfather or grandmother did not have these changes on the x-ray? They did not have any major problems in life and they all lived till 80 to 90 years because they never had time, they did not have money, they did not have doctors like with the other, they did not have hospitals like Manipal. So they lived happily and today we have time, money, doctors and technology we go chasing problems the more closer we look the more scarier it is to see. So friends this brings us to an important document which is a study done by the insurance companies in US about healthcare expenditure on treatment of patients with back pain. You know they did analyze how much of money was spent on treating patients with back pain over a period of 1994 to 2004. They found that the number of MRAs was increased by 2 times or 5 times, number of opioid analgesics that is pain killers was increased by 2 times, the number of injections was increased by 4 times and of course the surgeries were increased by nearly 5 times. But the bottom line remained that these increased expenditures were not accompanied by increased or improved patient outcome or patient disability. So this made them wonder if patient disability in 1994 and 2004 is the same why we need to spend extra money on healthcare of these patients with back pain. So they gave the project work to different people to find out what was it that was going wrong, why people are not ok despite spending more money. And they concluded that more than two thirds of this final MRAs were inappropriately being asked that means they should not have been asked and they have been asked and that is why there is a increased expenditure. And once they did the spinal MRI patients were undergoing more and more spinal surgeries. So they found that centers where spinal MRIs were done highest were doing the spinal surgeries highest. So friends no matter who is sleeping next to you you need to safeguard your blanket not everybody needs a diagnosis. Think of it today morning when you get up you have a severe back pain catch in your back. Do you think you need an x-ray? Of course the answer is there no. When do you need an x-ray? In children of course no matter how many days of duration of back pain needs an x-ray. If somebody is involved in a road traffic accident definitely needs an x-ray. Somebody coming in a stretcher not able to just get up from the bed needs an x-ray and severe back pain in an elderly needs an x-ray. We are not talking about MRI friends it is just x-ray we do not need it for everybody. But rest all people can wait for at least 3 weeks and if it is not resistant I think it is better that you get a x-ray. And if somebody is coming like this crooked definitely you need to get an x-ray. X-ray gives us mainly a bony pathology in and around the spine. But it is not the best of investigations. The best of investigations are the diagnostic gold standard friends is the MRI. MRI magnetic resonance imaging is the gold standard because it can detect dehydration or degeneration of the disc, loss of water and protein or a large slip disc like this pressing on the nerves or a large bone slip which is totally malaligning the spinal column or even it can diagnose the infection and malignancies at the earliest. There is no other investigation which can pick up spinal infection and spinal cancers earlier than MRI. But there is a very important landmark article published by Eugene Keraghi from Stanford University US which is published in New England Journal of Medicine which is one of the highest impact factor clinical journal with impact factor of 55 which is why it definitely gives me a pleasure to share this article with you in detail.  I am sure in Stanford most of the Indian IT scholars would have gone thinking that why not do it? Why not see what is going on inside our back? And to his surprise he basically this Keraghi was a smart person. He wanted to see what is normal finding in an MRI of a normal volunteer without back pain ever in his back. He found these pictures on the MRI and this is the schematic diagram that he has given in his article. He found that there were patients with volunteers with slip disc, there were small snorts, irregular inflates, there was dehydration of the disc and there was annular tear with high intensity zone the balloon rupture and the liquid coming out. And he shocked the world with this table. He found that 60 percent of normal human volunteers had disc degeneration, 55 percent of population normal population without back pain had a slip disc or disc prolapse or disc protrusion, 30 percent annular fissures and 25 percent high intensity zone. In other words he concluded that just because you do an MRI on people you will your likelihood of seeing an abnormality is more than 80 percent of the population and most of them have more than one problems on MRI although they do not have any problem. Now he put a very important question to the scientific world should you treat the patient or should you treat the MRI? If you treat the MRI you are like this hunter who is hunting for his prey which he does not know where it is hiding. Friends today if a doctor thinks that he can treat the patient based on the MRI finding he is like this lineman who does not know which wire is faulty and all levels need not be treated. Today we are in a world where the patient goes to the first general practitioner because of couple of days of back pain the practitioner writes some medicines and he says come back after 5 days. The patient goes back to him and sees that the pain is not better and the doctor says no no in addition to this I will add one more drug and take this for 10 more days. And after 10 more days patient is not ok and he loses faith in this old man he is a general practitioner he has been in the same place for last 25 years he thinks maybe he does not updated his knowledge and he goes to the orthopedic surgeon who would as soon as he says it is already 3 weeks I think you need a diagnosis I think you go and do a MRI. So the patient goes to the MRI center and he sees that all of a sudden the MRI bill is 7500 rupees and he gets a shock of his life my god 3 weeks of back pain and I have to shell out 7500 bucks. But what to do world is like that you will have to pay to get services. So he does the MRI he goes back to the orthopedic surgeon who sees the report and says in addition to these changes in the medications you also do physiotherapy for 2 to 3 weeks and come back to me. Now religiously this patient goes and does physiotherapy in addition to the medications and he does not find any relief even after 3 weeks. Now he is starting to get frustrated. He looks at internet today that is the media where lot of knowledge is freely available. So he looks forward saying that orthopedic should not treat and there are specific surgeons called spine surgeons to deal with these problems and he looks for the highest rated spine surgeons in the city and he goes to the surgeon. Surgeons do not look like this they will all come in cap mask and OT dress and apron on top that is their brand today. And he comes he puts the MRI on the lobby and patient thinks yeah yeah now the previous orthopedic surgeon did not even look at the MRI he just looked at the report and wrote the medicines and this doctor is so nice he is knowing how to read an MRI. The doctor sees the MRI he sees that there is a disc prolapse and it is pressing on the spinal cord and he shows it to the patient.  And patient is shocked for such a 6 weeks of pain I need to go for a surgery actually he starts then thinking that from day 1 to now actually 75% of the pain is already gone and this doctor is telling me that I need surgery.  You go running you go to 10 doctors trying to hear that you know opinion poll trying to hear that you do not need surgery but at least in a place like Bangalore you will get to hear that 8 out of 10 of the surgeons would tell you small smaller and smaller surgery anyway that is how we sell surgery friends and 2 of the doctors would have told him that one more hump one more jerk one more pothole and the whole disc may come and your leg may get paralyzed. This hits him hard especially if he has gone with his wife the wife would cry every night saying that you will have something what will happen to me. So this man although the pain is gone he would have to definitely go for a surgery because he needs to get a peaceful sleep. And he thinks he is helping himself by jumping and doing something to get rid of the problem he does not know what is waiting for him. This is the exact picture that I feel the patient is in. Now quick slides on treatment treatment I divide it into 2 parts one is treatment when there is pain which all of us do because pain chases you from behind so you want to get treated. The problem is with prevention which starts only after the pain goes after 3 months you forget that you had pain after 6 months even wife will stop nagging you that you have to exercise. Friends these are the evidence based guidelines of treating back pain after all the advances in science today we believe that it is the nature which heals not the doctor not the physio not the bed rest not the painkillers. It is the nature which heals given time in 3 months 90% of the people become alright on their own. Now how many of us have the patients or ability to hold on to not going to doctors for 3 months. We have 2 major problems in waiting for nature to heal one impatience because we have lot of other things which are more important than our health like friends wedding somebody is grave privation and so many things. And to suit our needs we have every street having a clinic every main road having a hospital so we keep changing hospitals and doctors still finally nature heals and the last doctor gets the credit that is why I pray God every night every day morning make me the last doctor let them finish 3 months and then come to me. Friends bed rest bed rest in back pain and neck pain has been like a 5th religion in India after Hindu muslim christian sick is bed rest anything and everything it will work people believe and doctors also believe. So it is a belief that is why I say that it is a religion and to be honest in science it has been proven that more than 2 days of bed rest in fact delays recovery it causes you more and more psychological component to be increased. So it delays recovery corsets and collars and belts external supports to the spine wherein we have enough internal musculature which is giving us the support to our back and the neck if you tight tie the external supports the internal support dies off. So it is not recommended if you use it for more than 7 days the muscles will go for wasting. Physiotherapy symptomatically is useful but not as a curative measure. So if somebody is in acute pain he may get some relief of pain but not that it will fast forward natural healing. Friends what to do what not to do everybody has a rule book everybody tells you if you have had back pain whether you know the person or not he has an opinion to give you do not bend forward do not lift weights do not go on 2 wheelers do not do not only thing to do is bed rest which is again not right. So today what is believed or rather proven is resume normal daily activities within pain limits but do not do something that increases pain. The activities which increase pain indirectly mean that they increase the injury before it has healed. So who has to decide the patient has to decide it is not the doctor not the mother-in-law not the well-wisher who has to decide what a patient can do or what he cannot do. Today pain is there which is protective respect pain be within its limits I think that is the way to go forward and rest is equal to rest and today we believe in active rest being within pain limits and doing everything not bed rest. Pain killers or analgesics have to be taken on demand basis only if there is an important meeting please take a pain killer and go for the meeting do not have to suffer and show people to gain their sympathy. If you are going for a wedding reception please take a pain killer and go so that there is a good photo of you on the album which will last forever antidepressants which is very important. Now two bad things when do you need MRI when do you need surgery there are only 3 indications for surgery in 90 percent of clinical situations in spine mechanical back pain. Absolute indications are two weakness of limbs and trunk or urinary and motion incontinence or inability to pass.  So, the earlier you release the more is the chance that the nerve will become normal and the muscle will function normal. So, when we say absolute here I as a surgeon have a right to sell surgery because even if the patient goes to 20 other doctors they if they know about spine they should talk about spine surgery not medications not physiotherapy or anything else. In chronic pain is more difficult in fact the absolute indications are less than 1 percent in clinical practice 1 percent of back pain will have weakness and loss of control or urine and motion. However, in chronic pain where pain is subjective you know everybody's pain is different in some schools you would have seen some children when the teacher raises the hand children get pain and they cry in some cases teacher gives 4 on the students bum and teacher gets tears. So, patient's perception of pain is different and that is why it is a relative indication but the indication point is functionally disabling pain for more than 3 consecutive months 3 months because 3 months is the normal time for body to heal an injury if at all body has failed to heal it and pain is functionally disabling. Then it is the patient's call to buy surgery as a surgeon can offer that there is a option by intervening because the nature has failed to heal it, but this is a relative indication but it is very sad that we have to put it on patient's head, but we always give them the explanation that if you are not able to match your expectation and ability the gap between expectation and ability is your disability. There are two ways to treat if there is a disability for 3 consecutive months one is bringing down expectation living like 80 year old or take up the problem with the help of science and technology pinpoint it and kill it and get back your ability to match your expectation and that is where you have a relative indication. So, it is very highly individualized because everybody's pain is not the same.  So, it is functional restoration surgery and not a cosmetic surgery. Coming to the last part prevention to know how to prevent back pain you need to know two things one is natural history of neglected back pain if you do not do anything what will happen to back pain this is the natural history pain intensity 0 to 10 age in years till around 30 years nobody has back pain first episode comes it will go in 3 days 3 weeks or 3 months 10 years the patient is ok 30 43 years he will get one more episode 50 years is one more episode 55 57 59 60 you know as the time goes if you do not take care the episodes will come more and more frequently and of initially it used to heal normal completely and in between episodes patient never had back pain and after sometime if you see although 80 90 percent of it has healed, but still you will not feel that same back that used to have in SSLC PUC days and this residual pain goes on increasing to a point at some point of time that you will end up needing a surgery for functionally disabling pain. So, if you are looking at stopping the or preventing you have to do something here so that this cascade does not flow the other thing that we need to emphasize is philosophy of back pain why some people get back pain have you seen a child with back pain of course not in a school of 2000 students you will not see even one child with back pain in a year. So, why because child does not even know that neck and back exists you ask any child parts of the body they will all tell eyes ears nose hands legs they do not know about neck and back exam time they look at in the mirror they say headache throat pain and stomach pain because they think they can see in the mirror and nobody else can see. Now, in another group this is true till 15 years of age till the person is in plus 2 take another group 25 to 30 years of age you do not have to talk to them or ask them if a group of people young adults are talking for more than half an hour to one hour invariably the discussion will end in who is the best spine surgeon which hospital is better whether acupuncture or Ayurvedic massage endoscopic or microscopic dyskectomy or you know lot of things that they talk about as though the next biggest threat to the world is not anymore nuclear weapons it is neck and back pain.  So, friends if at all you look why we have lost flexibility and become stiff it is not because our liquid disc has become solid it is nearly because of you remember the first slide that I had showed in anatomy ligaments and muscles if you do not move them and stretch them every day they are going to become stiff and once the body become stiff it can only break and give rise to slip disc or a disc prolapse and you will have in addition to back pain a leg pain and a need to see a surgeon. The best preventive measure is bringing back the flexibility into our spines and this can be the key for preventive measure. Friends our body is like this old car which if you do not start it every day in a weeks time you will have to push and start if you do not start it for a month you will have to get a mechanic change the battery and start. By virtue of us being able to stand direct against gravity fully humans were the most evolved animals on earth. But chimpanzees came very close but never fully straight and you see us today we are regressing the there is a regression of metamorphosis and I do not know where we are heading to preventive measures yoga is in the top of the list because yoga moves all the 33 bones and the discs in the back and there is no better way to exercise your back than yoga swimming is the next best smoking is the only thing which is proven to have accelerated disc degeneration and disc prolapse weight gain for obvious reasons is not good because it is going to be mechanical disadvantage for your spine it is going to pull your spine forwards and strain it much much more for all the software guys look straight six straight but more importantly take breaks you know nobody gets up they get glued to the chair and once after four hours they get up and they are like and all so get up take a walk and do some stretches and you are fine to sit again friends movement is life the more you move the more an individual moves the more the joints move the more is life and friends one of the very important preventive measure is do not do an MRI unless indicated this is all about yoga there is a randomized study done by 10 Americans no Indian in it it won the best paper award in SRS yoga improves functional disability pain intensity and depression in adults with chronic low back pain so it not only tackles the physical component of pain but also the psychological component of pain so that is the important the breathing pattern of yoga also takes care of psychological component of pain and it is very important that you do it yoga friends is like a recurring deposit you invest one hour of your day in yoga I am sure that you will see the returns in after 30 years from the day you start it is a way of life it is not an exercise to sum it up it is not because you have a small disc ball that you can go on suffering if it is a small narrow canal by birth even a smallest of disc prolapse can cause such significant pain or neurological deficit that you may need to get surgery done it is not to say that the disc prolapse is very big and that is why you need to get surgery done sometimes the canal diameter may be by birth very large and this disc although is a large disc prolapse it may be floating freely it may not be pressing so why need a surgery so it is not based on MRI that you decide whether somebody needs surgery or not and no matter who claims what there is no center in the world which can give you hundred percent success in spine surgery or any surgery for that matter and friends conservative treatment is always reversible surgery no matter how small it will always leave behind a scar and I don't mind you doing thorough work up even doing an MRI knowing well that it is not to look at the degenerative normal aging process it is only if you are looking at to a point to prove whether there is underlying infection or cancer you may do an MRI but think conservative and stay conservative indications for surgery are only three as I mentioned weakness urine motion incontinence or inability to pass or intractable pain functionally disabling pain for three consecutive months friends rest all can be managed non-surgically to sum it up in one slide the whole thing that I talked pain is protective friends respected be within its limits when you have pain flexibility is the key when you don't have pain maintain it with yoga both MRI and surgery are having same three common indications weakness bowel bladder involvement and functionally disabling pain for more than three consecutive months and it is not to say that you should never do a surgery please don't let the pain become chronic that is more than three months because then it becomes chronic pain syndrome wherein it goes deep in the brain and even if you treat the primary cause it will never go out of your brain then it becomes chronic pain syndrome it can then be only treated not cured it becomes like asthma and diabetes friends there is no way that we are able to reverse this degenerative cascade and we are yet to find a way to get back these baluni watery discs of children on a philosophical note I would end this topic what God wanted us to do was be farmers sweat it out in the hot sun morning to evening end of the day any food would taste nice it would get digested and no matter which pillow which matters the farmer gets such a sound sleep that next day morning when he gets his fresh energetic and happy today what we are doing exactly opposite sitting in air conditioned rooms body is cold brain is heated up anything and everything we have extremes of emotions too happy too unhappy too anxious too apprehensive too tense too fearful everything is too much that strains the brain and once brain gets heated up it is the controller of all the organs in the body and all the organs becomes autonomous they lose control because boss is heated up so they start misbehaving and you will start getting giddiness dizziness headache just pain palpitation breathlessness neck pain back pain acidity constipation menstrual irregularities you name it you will have it and trust me friends every single symptom that you have we at Manipal Hospital have a super duper specialist if you do not find a suitable specialist for your problem or disease or a symptom you please write to the customer care they will get new new fellows from UK and US everybody now wants to come back to India so end of it each person each doctor at least for namesake he has to give one or two medicines and you have 10 doctors 10 prescriptions you will end up taking 10 medicines in the morning 15 in the afternoon 20 in the night so we invariably end up creating patients out of you so you have three choices to avoid all this one leave all this go back to your grandfather's farm and do agriculture work I think it is safest you do not have any health hazards you will get good food good nutrition happy life or you want to be in Bangalore doing the work that you are doing please do one hour of yoga daily or stop cribbing start enjoying pain or at least do a favor to the doctors keep changing doctors for entertainment do not irritate the same doctor by going every three months thank you friends I honestly feel that we are over treating back pain and it's time that high time that we have to back off thank you one and all


using Lexis-Nexis Academic to locate federal and state administrative law. Once legislation is passed through Congress affecting public policy, it is often up to an existing federal agency, or sometimes a newly created federal agency, to regulate the new policy. For example, the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act states, the Secretary of Health and Human Services may establish an office to be known as the Office on Child Abuse and Neglect. In order to fully understand the policy, you must examine the rules and regulations developed by Health and Human Services. These rules and regulations are sometimes called regulatory law or administrative law and can be found in the Code of Federal Regulations. To find the Code of Federal Regulations, begin at the public policy in the US Subject Guide on the Regulatory Law tab. And in the box under Federal Regulations is a link for Lexis-Nexis Academic. Connect to the database. Lexis-Nexis is a large database that contains magazines, newspapers, company information, as well as legal information. In the blue sidebar, click on US Legal. Right now, we are looking for the federal regulations, so we want to choose federal statutes, codes, and regulations. Notice that the Select Source box by default only has the box for the annotated US Code selected. The US Code is the subject arrangement of the public laws passed by Congress, we are looking for regulations, so we need to uncheck the annotated US Code and check the CFR, Code of Federal Regulations. In the search box, I am going to type in quotation marks, child abuse prevention. The reason I am using quotation marks is to tell the database that I only want to see results with that exact phrase, those four words in that exact order. Otherwise, the database may return lots of results that mention child abuse and mention prevention, but are not necessarily related to this particular act. Lexis-Nexis finds 12 results. They are automatically sorted from the newest to the oldest or the most recently changed regulations at the top. The first is simply a proclamation from the president proclaiming March to be National Child Abuse Prevention Month. The second is relates to Coast Guard personnel and child development centers. Definitely not what we're looking for. But the third hit, 45 CFR 1340 relates to the Department of Health and Human Services and the Administration for Children, Youth, and Families Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention and Treatment Program. When I select 45 CFR 1340.1, I get the full text of that section of the regulation in the right frame and an expandable and contractable table of contents in the left frame. The text here is telling me that this regulation implements the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act. The table of contents on the left here is helpful because I can see that all of part 1340 is about child abuse and neglect prevention and treatment. Subpart A are the general provisions. Subpart B are about grants to states. And subpart C are about discretionary grants and contracts. And I can move through these sections using the table of contents here.


Pursuant to, pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021, this meeting will be conducted via remote means, public access. The meeting may do so by going to the Amherstown meeting, Amherstown government website, www.amherstma.gov. Or the meeting may be available on the YouTube, on the Amherst YouTube channel. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means. In the event that we are unable to do so for reasons of economic hardship and despite best efforts, we will post on the aforementioned Amherstown government website and audio or video recording or other comprehensive record of proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting. I now call the meeting to order. Hi, and I would like to inquire if anyone is recording the meeting at this time, the board, Amherst Board of Assessors is doing so. So if anyone else is doing so, please let me know at this time. Okay, hearing none, we can move along. So I will go ahead and share my screen with you so we can look at the minutes from the last meeting. Okay, did everybody get an opportunity to look at those? Yes. Do I have a motion to approve them? So moved. Okay, second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Okay. Sorry, just catching up with you. Okay, so the next thing on the agenda is our excise weeks. He's got to make the appearance in every meeting. All right, so I will make that bigger for you. So this is the excise abatement for the week of January 4th through January 10th in the amount of $931.43. All right, move to approve those. Second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Okay. Next week we have is actually just one day. It's January 25th and the abatements are in the amount of $504.06. Okay, move to approve those abatements. Second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Okay. Then we have quite a long list of abatements for the week of February 2nd through February 7th. This was the beginning of our new calendar year excise commitment. So this is all of, most of this is the abatements for vehicles that are exempt. As you see the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, you'll see a church, more Commonwealth, Amherst College, so on and so forth. And I will get down to the last page. So I take at the university vehicles are those, are those, okay, those, right. Those are exempt as well. Yes. Okay. Yes. Someday I'll get to the bottom. Wow. Yeah. University of Mass has a lot of vehicles. All right, there we go. So this is in the amount of $77,653.79. So this represents cars that have been, these are vehicles that have been sold. No, these, so these are vehicles that belong to the university and the Commonwealth and the town of Amherst, so on and so forth. And being that those vehicles belong to those particular entities, they are exempt from excise tax. Right, okay, okay, so we, and so you have to exempt them every single year. So we're working on a process, which I can show you a little bit more about when we get to the actual commitment, which is next where you can go in and you can mark these customer numbers. So if you see, does it give customer number, it doesn't give customer numbers on this particular report, but it, each, each person that has an excise tax bill or each business has a customer number in our billing system. And what we can do is go in and look up that number and mark them as an exempt entity. So Commonwealth of Mass has a couple, I think, because there's just one little difference in how their name is presented on their registration. The University of Mass may also have that. So what we would do is we'd go into the billing system, mark them exempt, and it'll still show on our commitment, but we won't have to actually process an abatement for every single one of them like this. So, and I can show you what that would look like in our commitment because a few of them worked this time and for some reason the rest didn't. So we have to talk to the software system. But just makes it easier, makes it easier on the eyes for all of you with the abatements makes it a much faster, more efficient process when we're actually putting together the, the commitment. And so the Amherst College, their vehicles are exempt too? That's correct, yes. All right. I just want to add something in this whole commitment. It's not just those, there is a mixture of some that, some that are handicapped, blind. Anybody that falls under that are exempt from paying excise. So you'll see some of those in here if you expand through, just in case you see that near questioning. Yes. Yes. And they do, those who fall under those categories do have to provide us with proof of those things. Blindness certificate, that's current. Handicap plates, usually they show an HP on them so we don't have to do too much searching on that. Purple hearts, so on and so forth. There's, there's certain, depending on the type of eligibility there's certain documentation that you would need to provide. So is that an annual filing that those individuals have to do? So they don't have to file necessarily every year but we do need to get that updated information every couple of years. I have usually done it every three to five years because a lot can change in that amount of time. Handicap plates, they don't ever have to either do purple hearts because it says right on their license plate that it's purple heart or handicap. Handicap placards do not count as a handicap license plate. You actually have to have the physical plate on your vehicle. Handicap placards, the reason they don't abate the taxes on those is because you already have the convenience of being able to move it from vehicle to vehicle whereas the license plate is stuck to that one car. So, so those particular ones do not have to do an annual filing. Okay. Move to approve those abatements. Second. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Aye. Okay, dope. So moving on to the motor vehicle excise commitments I'll make this a little smaller there. This is the commitment that came from the registry for fiscal year 2021. So this was any vehicles that were registered, I'm sorry calendar year 2021. This was any vehicles that were registered since the last commitment was issued to the town of Amherst until the end of the calendar year 2021. So this is the commitment to accounting and to the warrant to the collector in the amount of $11,554.23. And I just want to scroll through to show you this is the, this goes to the collector, whoop, there we go. This goes to the accounting office and then the final page you'll see was... Ooh. You're just gonna see the last figure, the figures on this because there would be way too much to attach to this. So this is just the figure showing that we put it into the computer system for billing. And here's where I mean. So you see commitment total number of bills here elicited as 330 valuation and then excise tax, which is the amount that I just quoted the $11,554.68, which is what we're committing. Then you'll see where it says total exempt and it only says three in the future, all of those in the past, all the businesses, Commonwealth, Amherst College, UMass will fall under this category once it actually starts working correctly. And so you'll see there's X amount that are exempt. That was their valuation and then what the actual excise would be if we were able to collect those.  So there was 333 bills in this particular commitment, totaling this much in valuation and totaling 11,829,23 in actual excise tax if we were able to collect it. So we're only committing the top amount because these are the bills that are actually going to be received and we expect to collect that amount of money. So again, in the future, this will be much nicer. There will be a lot more exempt on the commitment, but I just wanted to point that out to you guys. So the software didn't work very well this year. For some reason there was an issue and I don't know why there, I also got a phone call from Greenfield that they were having some trouble as well. So I don't know if there was just something in Munis that happened, which occasionally does occur, but we didn't want to hold up mailing these out to actually try to sort this out beforehand. So we just did it this way. And in the meantime, until the next commitment comes we're going to work with Munis and try to get that fixed. So next year under total exempts it would actually list the individual exempt number. That's right, right, right. So this particular commitment is small. There actually really could have been three, but when we go to the next commitment you'll see that there's not as many listed because it didn't work. But next year at this time, when we look at the first commitment of the calendar year you could see that there are 7,000 bills and there's a 400 of them that are exempt, for example. But those are by customer, not by bill. They're by customer. They're by customer, but it is the bill count. So you see the 330 and the three exempt that is actually how many bill numbers are not, yes, yes. Not by customer, okay. That's right, right. We market by customer and then under that customer number any plate that's attached to it will automatically be exempted. Got it. Yes. So we have to approve our signatures on these, right? That's correct. So again, I'll just go back up here. So this is the commitment to accounting and then this next one here is the warrant to the collector for those particular bills for the remainder of calendar year 2021. Again, in the amount of $11,554.23. And now I'm sorry, I see in the word 68 and I see 23 in the number. Yes, we can correct that. So what we could do is if you're comfortable voting we can do a vote with a friendly amendment and we will make that change. And I will note that as well in the minutes. What's the right number? The one in writing or the one in the note? It's 23 cents and I will show. No, it's, it's a 68. You're correct. You're right. I'm sorry. 68 cents. So here is the amount here. Let me grab the highlighter. Here is the amount that we will actually be changing that to. So $11,554 and 68 cents. Which is okay. All right. So can we go back up to the wording again? Can we go back up? Can we scroll back up to the wording? Yes. And let's just check this one as well that it's 60. So this one would also need to be changed here because that's got the 23 cents as well. So up to you guys, if you want to wait to, um, to vote on this next week, we can make those changes or you can vote with the friendly amendments to change the, the change from 23 to 68 cents. And I can put that in the minutes if that's what you're wanting to do. From 68 to 23. From 23 to 68. Yep. So it would be this part is correct. And then this 23 here would just need to be changed. Okay. So up to you guys, if you want us to fix it before you vote on it, we can do that. Or I can mark it in the notes and we can fix it. We go ahead and do it. Okay. Um, so moved. Um, Okay. Okay. Second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. And I will. Friendly amendments. Okay. So I will put that. In the notes. And I've also put in the notes. What's a change it to so that we have that for, for next time. All right. So moving along to the next commitment. And then we'll go ahead and get, I'm going to move on to the next. Thank you. So we will move on to the next. Next commitment. Similarly looking. This is commitment number one for calendar year. 2022 excise tax. In the amount. Of 1 million. Five hundred. 32 dollars. I'm sorry. Five hundred. 32,000. 186 dollars. And 89 cents. Yeah, I just know, I just noticed that. Okay. I see that. You might have two people look at these in the future. Just to catch each other. Yeah. We can do that for sure. So let me skip over. This is the. Commitment to the. The warrant to the collector. This is the commitment to accounting. And then here is the. The actual piece out of munis. So that is the correct number. It was just missing the 89 cents in the wording. So here you can see a little bit more. Of the total. So the total. Set of, of. Exis bills that we received from the registry was the 14,000. Understanding that this 290. Two is not totally accurate because some of those. Did not get it. Marked exempt. And so we were billing for 13,953 actual tax bills. So when, when the, the, the, the immunus is actually working correctly. We'll see, like I said, we'll see a bigger number. And that will include those abatements that we had to do this year. So next year it'll be more like. You know, 400 or something to that. So just so you know what happened this time is the ones that didn't get. Pulled in on there for, for the exemptions. I had to go and do. What we call a massive bait. And I had to manually. Do the abatements on the ones that get caught. Those were the ones that were just approved on that large sheet. Right. Yes. So. So going back up to the top, we'll look at these numbers. Again, the page that we'll go to accounting for the commitment of 1,532,186 dollars and 86 cents. 89. 89 cents. I'm sorry. So here is the. Warrant to the collector. And I will. Also mark that that needs to be adjusted as well. Okay. With that, with that correction. I move that we approve our signatures on this. Second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. And Kim, why are we seeing more than one. Commitment. So occasionally at the end of the calendar year, generally speaking, I should say. The registry will send us two commitments, one for the new calendar year. And one for any excise tax bills that were, or any vehicles that were registered from the last commitment on. So I actually have. This calendar that I like to. Follow along with. Just the way it's marked. It's just the, it's just the. The. Months, but just the way it's three months at a time. So generally speaking, we get an excise commitment every three months. So now you can kind of see why I really like this. So October. We may have sent out tax bills. For excise. So if anybody registered after that commitment was sent to us, which would be October, November, December. That's what the first commitment that we just approved would be. So. And then this one here is fresh starting brand new for the whole entire calendar year, 2022. Anything that was registered as of the 1st of January. Tim, is this, this paperwork and process and everything very similar. What you did in Greenfield. It's exactly the same. Yes. Okay. Exactly statewide. Everybody does it the same. Yes. Okay. So I would imagine the number of exempts is a lot higher here. Right. I'm not necessarily because for example, in Greenfield, we had the hospital. We had a lot of community outreach. You know, where their, their actual vehicles were exempt. We had the college we had, you know, we had a lot of Commonwealth of mass. We have the jail. So, you know, I wouldn't say that. That Amherst is necessarily a lot more than Greenfield. You know, more than somewhere like shoots very leverant. Sure. Shell burn. Sure. Absolutely. So, you know, looking at, at Hampshire County, you know, more than. Pellum more than Belcher town, maybe. But, you know, it's, it really varies, I guess, as to what it is. In your town as to what would be exempt. But I would say to be on the safe side, every town has some because every town has a DBW. Every town has a police and fire. Well, I shouldn't say that because that's not true, but most towns have police and fire. So there's going to be some variation of exempt vehicles in every commitment. So it says trailer. Do you have any trailers? Trailers would be included in that as well. So, so we don't, I don't know specifically if there was, you know, X amount of trailers in the commitment, but if anybody has campers, pulling trailers, like car trailers or anything to that nature, that gets included into that commitment as well as well as in the community. So if anybody has a license tag, anything that has a license tag, yes, with the exception of recreational vehicles, you know, ATVs, because that's a whole different type of registration. But if it's any type of registration through the registry of motor vehicles. Then it would. Right. Right. So that's that. Okay. So did, we do have a motion and an approved all on this with friendly amendments. Okay. I think we voted, I think we voted it already. We did. Yes. All right. So moving along to the next agenda item is going to be our. Our. Here we go. You're doing very well, though. I have to say. Thank you. So this is a, this is a, this is a, this is a, this is a, this is a, this is a, this is a copy of the mail. Thank you. Um, so this is our warrant to the collector for, um, an omitted real estate tax bill for 28. Rich crest roads. So just before we get into the amounts on this one. Little background was somehow. On this particular property. A button was unchecked, which basically you valued the house. So the preliminary bills, directly on there. And when the final bills were generated, it was just the value of the land. So when we noticed that that happened, we created the tax bill based on the house basically, which is what was missing from the final tax bills. So the $11,868.83 is what was not billed in the final tax bills that were generated. That represents the house? That represents the house? Yes. So how did that get caught? In this particular case, the person called looking for their tax bill because they were they were confused that they had a credit and they didn't understand what it was. Sometimes it'll just be a matter of going through the records and you happen to come upon this property and you go, wait a second, something doesn't look right here and you go into the billing system and you can find it. And if that happens, then you would do the same. You would just do this, what's called an omitted tax bill or revised tax bill. In this case, it it should actually be it is omitted because we missed it. It wasn't billed. So no good deed goes unpunished, right? That's right. That's right. Was there a mechanism to catch this if the if the taxpayer had not called in? There's not, unfortunately. OK, it's I mean. This was something I would say very rarely happens. This particular situation was very strange. I actually I'm not sure even how Mutes was able to or I should say vision was able to allow us to leave the parcel with this particular button being unchecked. So not not quite sure exactly what went on there. So the software doesn't catch it then. It absolutely should. And I don't know. Oh, what's your year? You should be able to do a run comparing last year taxes versus this year and see. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. You can do that. Yep. And then if you see that there is something that looks like, you know, this value was, you know, four hundred thousand dollars and now it's only a hundred. What's going on here? You know, and you should be able to go look at that absolutely. So I wonder how many of these are are are in the system right now that are I would be willing to bet there's very few. If not, this was the only one because, like, like I said, this is a very strange thing to have had happen. When I mean, when I showed Teresa, she was like, whoa, I've never seen that before. So I would say this is a very, very fluke situation where this happened. I feel like we should give a special award to this taxpayer for. I know, give him a discount because he found it. If only we could. Right. OK, so I moved. Should I move to approve our signature on this? This is a commitment, right? This is a commitment. Yes, this one, it goes to the collector and and. The accountant. Second. All those in favor, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. OK, and then. Kim, it's not too much trouble. Can you run that report and just report back next meeting? I sure can. Nothing else. But it's a little bit, it's a little tough to do it right now, because I've already started making changes for the fiscal year. OK, that's all right. However, though, what we should do and what we can do is in our process of finalizing our values for the fiscal year, we should absolutely run that report and just whip through it and see where there are differences and how much. Yeah, we're talking big differences, not just exactly. I mean, because there could be little minuscule things here and there on every single property, but we're talking like this, where the whole house was missing for the final tax bill. Are you saying there's an appropriate time to do that? Yes, I would say that would be in the fall time, definitely the appropriate time to be able to do that. And I would like to actually I'd like to do that to make sure that this doesn't happen again.  This is a very fluke thing that that I would say there was a bug somewhere in the computer system that just caused us to be able to move out of this record without being done. A little bit like when you're at a when you're at a restaurant or a store and somebody gives you too much change back, right? Right. It rarely happens, but it happens. And hopefully you're honest and you would give it back. Yeah, that's right. All right, so I will move on to the next commitment, which you will see here for the CPA charge for this property. When doing these corrections, we do have to recalculate the actual amount of CPA that should have been charged for this property. And that is three hundred and fifty six dollars and six cents. All right, I move to approve our commitment on on this amount of CPA surcharge for that for that property. Second. All those in favor, please say, I, I, I. Excellent. OK, so there's the commitments for both to the accounting office that you'll see on on their both amounts. And it's listed on a line called omitted assessment. Is that right? That's right. Yes. OK. Did you want me to go back up there? Sorry about that. I see it. I'm interested in the line for that. It will be specifically in the real estate commitment here. If we wanted to, I do notice that this is an older page for commitment, which no harm in keeping this. There is others that. Oh, I'm sorry. It's not listed under real estate. There is it is actually said omitted assessment. There's others that just have it separated out a little bit differently, but no harm in keeping this one. I mean, it's what we're used to and it works just fine. And then you'll see down here, we put the actual CPA charge, which is something that we add to this to this commitment. I guess, technically, it should be down one more line, but that's all right. Oh, yeah, you're right. And then I think this is just the final page showing that it was put into the computer system. All right. Well, I'm sorry, I saw a different number there. Oh, is that the is that the CPA plus the that is the CPA plus? Yes. Yes. Also, this particular person, because they had paid their preliminary bills as they should have, there was just a credit that was moved to make sure that they didn't actually receive the refund and then have to repay it. So that might have also been a little bit of that number there. So. All right. That's all that just lots of paperwork to go with that. OK, so next agenda item is for sixty six Wentworth Drive. This property has been enrolled in chapter sixty one with a forest management plan. I'm sorry, this this has actually been enrolled in chapter sixty one a without a forest management plan. And this particular owner decided that they wanted to talk with a forester and create a plan for a portion of their land. So this is thirty six point six eight acres of a total of forty seven point three one acres is to be classified in this forest management plan for a chapter sixty one. As you see here, it's the Amherst poor farm and the intention is basically just to continue farming. And there's rules and regulations again with with meeting with a forester and the work that needs to be done on the farm to keep it actually farming. So this is just is this the document you want me to come in and sign? This is the document. Yes, we would need you to come in and sign. There are three copies, one for us, one for the forester, and one for the owner of the property. So we'll need to autograph on all three of those. And we'll just need the vote to approve this application. And actually this move from sixty one to sixty one. This was in sixty one I apologize for the stumble. This was in chapter sixty one without a forest management plan. So it was just people farming the land and they've decided that they actually wanted to speak with a forester and make a plan for the property. So they expect to do this amount on this this acreage and they expect to do this here and there. So if you see I'm going forward, they have the application here that they have applied for, which they have to do every year. And then they also have the actual plan. Ops, that's just another copy of the certificate and the lien that we've recorded because they're in chapter record. We did the sixty one portion several years ago. Yes. Yeah. Yep. This has been been in chapter sixty one eight. They just wanted to have someone actually put it in the forest management plan, which it's not. It's not a forest management plan. I guess it's it's called a management plan because it can be for forest, but it could also be for farming such as crops and such. Somewhere down here is. Another copy of that is the plan so you can actually see. So here's the actual management plan coming from the forester. So there's two parcels involved and they're saying that there's twenty three acres on this parcel, which is the entire parcel. And then there's thirteen point six eight on this other parcel for a total of thirty six point six eight in this management plan. And so this just goes. These are contiguous parcels. I believe these two are, but in the case of the acreage amount, it doesn't matter at this point because you have to have at least for chapter sixty one a in a management plan, you have to have at least ten acres. So both of those would qualify even if they were not contiguous. So here you'll just see what their plan is, what they what they expect to do with their plan. It does look like they are going to have some forestry happening on the property. And then this is just a description of exactly what they're doing. What I was trying to show you was the map. So just bear with me for a minute. Let me go through all these and it will show you the two parcels and see there's a bird habitat in this particular one as well. We find the map. Sorry about that. So here we go. So let me make this a little smaller so you can see it all at once. So here we're doing a part of town. This is is this. You know where this is? This is off. This is off Shea Street. No, this is off. I'm right. Yes, I'm right. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Sorry, I'm thinking of a different farm. Yes, this is off Pomeroy. That's correct. So you will see basically what's included in the forest management or the management plan is this chunk down here where it's labeled three. So this here. And then everything outside of this shaded area. So this goes along. Here you do that. Welcome. I like to color. I have a three year old. Actually, you're ready to do NFL, NFL commentary. I do have that on in my house frequently. OK, so anything inside that yellow is going to be included in the management plan and then here excluded area is the hay field and the actual house. So part of this house lot here is still being farmed. I believe if I'm not mistaken, it's a piece in the back as well as a piece down the side next to the driveway. And then this whole back lot is still a hay field. So for some reason, they just decided not to include that in the management plan, but they're still going to continue farming that as well. So this management plan excludes those pieces and they would just have to fill out their application separately for those two pieces rather than this whole thing. So that's basically what we're asking you to approve is that they continue farming the lands, they just put that trunk in a management plan. So the management, the chapter 61 and 61 egg covers what's inside the yellow or outside the yellow. So the plan that they've created with the forester is everything inside the yellow. All right. OK. And then they're going to still continue farming this area here. OK. And this area and this area in and around the house. But they are not going to have that in the plan. So they'll just submit an application for 61 A for those parts of the property. So another way to say everything since 61 A, but just the forest has a plan. That's right. There's I think this might be fields as well over here. And I think. I'm sorry, you know what? I think that is the forest part and right here is the forest part. You'll see those little things that look like trees. And I believe those are the actual forest parts.  So it's anything that they can load on to the back of a truck easily. So as a practical matter, what did they why did they do this and what affects what affects has the management plan versus just leaving alone? Why they did this, I can't answer. I don't know. Some people will do it because, you know, they want to sort of protect the land from from it's basically one step away from putting it in APR land where you are required to farm it and or leave it at its natural state. This is just saying for for the next 10 years, this has to be farmed. OK, they pay the same taxes before and after with the plan or without the plan. Yes, they would pay the same taxes because it's still in 61 A. Had they changed it to a different use, you know, that might change the taxes a little bit. But being that it's the same use, it's going to be exactly the same. So why go ahead? I'm just say so. Why are the assessors signing off on this? I'm a little unclear. So the assessors have to approve any chapter applications that are submitted to the office. And the basically the forest management plans need to be approved because the forester has created this. And we are basically saying, yep, we agree that this is going to be farmed and we're OK with that. And here's our signature. So that gets recorded through the through the the management. So if they were to sell this property, does the plan go with the sale? So the plan can go with the sale. So if they decided tomorrow, you know what? This is too much. We don't want to do this. We're going to sell it. They would need to let the assessor's office know in writing right away so that because the town being that the parcel is in chapter, the town has 120 days of the first right of refusal. So we can decide whether we want to purchase this entire property at market value or if we're OK with it being removed from or being sold. And so then what would happen is they can sell it if they decide to sell it in chapter and the new owners are going to continue farming. The management plan would transfer over to the new ownership if they decided to sell it and the new owners said, nope, I want to put, you know, my house on there. And I just want all that land to just be my backyard. Then we would issue the rollback tax for that. And I don't know there may be some sort of a penalty because it's inside of the 10 years to remove it from that that I'm not sure and that would be done through the forester. OK, thank you, Ken. You're welcome. OK, I see it's between Pomeroy on one side and Shea Street on the other. Yeah, I guess I'm I guess it's fairly close to my house. I guess I'm yeah. Yeah. Let me I can I may have to stop sharing for a minute and then share again, but I can pull it up on the note. No, it's OK. I think I get a sense. This is near the KC trail where it crosses Pomeroy. But I'm just that's my sense of it. But I think you might be right. Yeah, there's a dip in the road before it goes up the hill to the south. And I think that might be where it is. Yeah, down near Plumb, you know, the Plumb Brook where Plumb Brook crosses. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm looking at Google Maps here. All right, so with all that being said, we just need a motion in a second if we are OK with approving that we're approving the just to be clear, stating it for the public record, we're we're what are we approving? We're approving the the Forest Management Plan. Right, for this particular parcel. Yes, so moved. Second. OK. Wasn't fair. I OK. Excellent. All right, I'm going to stop sharing temporarily here. So basically what we have next on the agenda is the principal assessor update. And I don't have a lot to tell you right now. Basically, what we're working on is preparing a slide show for the residential exemption to possibly give to the council at some point. We're working on trying to work with you, Mass, to actually draw out all the buildings on our record cards and get a more accurate assessment of the the whole campus. Not it's it's being exempt. People would think, well, why is that even important? But if you mass comes to us and says, hey, we need help figuring out what our total value is of this area or of our whole campus, because we're trying to get a loan to do something and we can't give it to them, it's just not not helpful. Not, you know, we are supposed to value exempt properties just as we value everything else across the board, throughout the state and probably across the United States. Generally, those get left behind and sometimes ignored just because we're so busy and we usually are all short staffed. So just working on that excise tax, as you know, is getting ready to go out as you've approved those commitments. So that's a pretty significant time that that's going to take us to get all those bills out with the collector as well as when they start coming back in. We'll have not only the payments through the collector's office, but any abatements that need to be done for people who've sold or gotten rid of traded vehicles or anything to that nature. And then also, I've been working really hard on all the applications for over valuations. I have contacted just about every single person that's applied at this point. So, you know, I don't have that. I will get you that number while we're while we're going through things because I have a list of them. So I meant to grab that for you. That is, are you viewing that? Did you view that as a large number of people or? At first, I thought, oh, my gosh, but there's there's one particular application that submitted a. An appraisal that's very large. So when I took that one out of the pile, I thought, oh, well, this isn't so bad. I don't think there's from what I was expecting to see. I don't think there's as many as I thought. So I think that's a good thing. Was it like was it appreciably more than you experienced in Greenfield or? No, no, no, I would say it's in and around the same, if not, maybe less. Has the date gone by the file? Yes, that was the first of February. Unless, of course, it was. It was in the mail by that date in in the post office. Then if we receive it after that, we we are able to accept it so long as it has that particular date. So I have my chart up there were three personal property. Three commercial. And one, two, three, four, five, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20. Unless I've missed a few on my chart, which I'll be looking to see there was about 20 residential and or land, basically anything that was not commercial or industrial. So not bad. You have to visit all those places. I do. Yes. There is, you know, there's some that there's one in particular where someone took a barn down so I can just drive by. I don't really have to actually go there and measure anything or look at the inside because there isn't anything to look at. It's gone, you know, so there's a couple that are one specifically is asking about wetlands in the back. So I don't have to actually go physically look at that. What I did was contacted the conservation person and she's helping me figure out if that actually is wet and conservation. So I don't actually have to physically go look at every single one of them. I guess I do like to try to actually put my eyes on the property if possible, just because a, you know, being. Although I grew up here, I still there's plenty of areas that I don't know. And I'm not obviously going to know each and individual house, you know, what's there and all that part of a parcels wetland. So it depends on, first of all, the significance of the wetland. It also depends on how, you know, if it's a corner of your property. Now it's not going to it's not going to reduce the value at all. But if it's like, you know, if you if there's a stream or river, I should say a river running through your backyard and it literally cuts off a chunk of your yard and it floods every single year. You know, multiple times a year. Sure, that would be considered. And that might actually lower the value of your property. You know, just the land, not your house, but just the land. But would you ever get down to say those 10 acres or wetlands all the time and there's zero value on it? No. No, OK. Sorry, I was going to sneeze, but it went away. So no, a value would never disappear on a piece of property. It's still valuable.  So it would never be valued at no, no value. So anyway, those are the really the most important things that we're working on right now. We're getting ready to all the income and expense are still coming in all the personal property form of lists are still coming in. Teresa has been working her butt off entering all of those things in the computer. And so we're really just kind of getting ready for more busy season. We're getting ready for the cyclical program, which is due every 10 years is due this year. So during our revaluation, which is also this year, they'll be checking in to see that our properties have been inspected as we're supposed to. Obviously, with COVID being the past couple of years, a lot of communities are seeing a little bit of a struggle with that particular. Meeting those requirements, the state is very, you know, aware of that and willing to obviously work with us because there's so much, you know, we can't make people let us in. And especially during a pandemic, it's not comfortable for people to let us in. So they've been OK with, you know, virtual visits, which which is something new, they've never been OK with that before. They've been OK with people being slightly under the requirement for the cyclicals just because, I mean, there's only so much we can do. But they'll be looking at that as well as our revaluation. So we're getting ready for those two things. Just, you know, day to day processes. And that's pretty much the most important things for right now. But do you feel like you have enough resources to do everything you need to do next six months to a year? Um, I think so. You know, we have Roy Bishop, who will be coming to help us. We do have to put out a bid for the cyclical program and the revaluation. I can assume that that he will bid. I don't know if anybody else will. But of course, at that point, we'd have a process to go through to see, you know, who would who would win the bid. But but assuming that we get someone, assuming that someone bids on it. And then seeing the fact that we have three simple time. We have Stephen part time. We have me. We have David at our fingertips if we need him trying not to use him as much as possible because he's trying to be retired. But if we have, you know, things that are happening that I'm just not sure about, or I want to get some background on, I have been able to reach out to him. And I thank him so much for that. So I think David's working for another town right now, isn't he? He is working for regional resource groups. So they're basically the same as Roy. They just work in multiple communities. And actually he's working in Greenfield. I don't know where I've said that or I don't know. They don't have an accessory yet. No, no, no. So I do think that we're in good shape. You know, could we use another person? Sure, I'm sure that we could. We, you know, we're always really, really busy. There's times of year that it's a little slower for us, along with every other job in the whole world. But, you know, for the most part, we're usually pretty busy all the time. So could we use a full-time person instead of a part-time person? Sure, absolutely. All right, do you have any sense of when the council wants to see your slideshow? I'm hoping to be able to get that slideshow to Sean and Paul by the end of next week. Totally understanding that the overvows have the deadline of April 1st. So I'm trying to get those done first. But I think within the next two months, I would say to be on the safe side is when they would like to at least schedule something, whether that actually happens or if it ends up being three months away. I think that's that's the plan is to do it before summer. That's great. So OK, well, with all that being said, if there's no more questions, we can look at the calendar for the next meeting. Let's see. So that we get exemptions or we will do exemptions. And over valuations in our executive session. So our next meeting would look like it would be if we want to stick to Thursdays or Wednesdays, it would either be the 9th or the 10th of March. Oh, yep, that works. OK, yep. Any preference Thursdays? Good for me. Me too. Does that work? Good long term, too. Let's just do Thursdays every month. Want to do that. OK. I think we had switched to Wednesdays actually on behalf of me when I was still working in Greenfield. So if you guys are OK with going back to Thursdays, I'm I'm completely fine with that as well. And do we want to keep 11 o'clock? It's fine. So nobody nobody's going to Florida. Or for we got zoom, it doesn't I'm up in Sugarbush today. Oh, really? OK. I'm next step is as soon as we're done, I'm on the ski hills. You look like your next door. Yeah. All right, then. My daughter's doing important work up there, working on on Sugarbush. Sugarbush forests. Really? She's working on the she's working on the ecology of maple sugaring. Oh, good for her. That sounds like a fun job. Yeah, like agency snow last weekend. So it's nice. Yeah. Nice. OK. Yeah, so we'll we'll go to we'll go to 11 11 a.m. on March 10th. 10th. Yes. All right. Yes. Right. OK. March 10th, 11 a.m. As far as we know right now, it will be still on zoom. And I suppose we have to we have to stay to reason for going into executive session. Yes. So executive session today, we will be discussing two of the personal exemptions and a pile of over valuations, giving that we have enough time. We had no one from the public here today. That's correct. OK. So I move that we go into executive session. Second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All right. And it is 11 52. OK, with that being said, I will stop the recording unless anyone has anything else to say for the public session. OK, hearing none, I'm going to stop the recording.