We should give that to Liz, I think. OK. Hey, gentlemen. Can I start? OK, so we're underway. Pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12, 2020 order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law, General Law Chapter 30A, Section 18, this meeting of the Amherst Board of Assessors is being conducted via remote participation. Is everybody on? Is everybody's video and audio working properly? Ken? Everybody hear me OK? Yeah, all right. This meeting is being recorded to the web and could be shown on Amherst Media and Broadcast. And now I call the meeting to order. So I think we go first to the February 11, 2021 meeting. Gentlemen, have you all had a chance to review those minutes? Yes. Yeah, I just have a few maybe clarifications on the residential exemption paragraph. Certainly. OK. Where we say 58%, maybe we add the words of the town's total housing units. So we know what that means. Are we going to say total housing units or total taxable housing units? I guess it's taxable. The figure is 10,258. You want to throw that in there? 10,258. And then I would delete the nine residential properties, about one million. That's nice. There's nothing to do with the exemption. And then the residential exemption Lexington Mass Survey is a good resource just to say what that's about. You cut off there, Ken. I'm sorry. You said what? The residential exemption Lexington Mass Survey is a good resource. OK, just to say what that's in there for. OK. Any other changes to the minutes or adjustments to the minutes? All right. I move that those minutes be approved for February 11, 2021. Second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. OK. Now we go on to the motor vehicle abatement reports. Can everybody see the shared screen? Yes. Yes. We've got three weeks of them right to do. OK, that first set. Anybody want to say anything about that? That's $518.44. I recommend we approve those nine abatements for February 18 to February 12. What is it? Second to the 12th. Second to the 12th. The upper left. OK, OK. On the agenda, it's a little it's been there's been a mistake on the agenda. I was reading that February 2 to the February 12. Yeah. OK, I should make a make up. Yeah, there's a document to the agenda. Yeah, there's a new miracle on the agenda. Because I thought I had covered everything. I moved to approve those that that set of abatements. Second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. OK. Second screen. I move. We approve it. We did. We need another screen, Liz. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm coming. I'm here. I'm here with me. My screen. There you go. This is our second group of abatements. OK, this is from February 22 to February 26. 31 abatements totaling $3,162. Is it $100? Yeah, you're right. $162.94. I have moved to approve those abatements. Second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. OK. And one more. Can you see the next abatement, gentlemen? OK, this is for March 4th. Five abatements totaling $233.84. I move to approve those five abatements. Second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. OK. Now we have to go to lean releases. We have two lean releases, and these are releases that are old releases that should have been filed on a land record for transfer of property from the Saltz family. OK, we're having trouble with your sound, Liz. This is a release that should have been issued back in 2011 when the Saltz family transferred property to the town. And the attorney, attorney, Zomek contacted me and said that these releases were not received. So here is the lean. And are there two of them? Is that right? This is the first lean. Yeah. And this is the release that will be filed to release that lean. OK. Tell me if I'm going too fast. No. This is the second lean. And this is the release that will be filed on behalf of the Board of Assessors to release that lean as well. And I thought perhaps considering our last conversation, it might be good to show you what property we're looking at. Can you see that map I'm putting up? Not yet. OK, can you see the property? It's actually this property here. It's running along the river. Oh, OK. Three C 22. Highlighted 25. All right. And at one time, this was chapter 61 a. Is that right? That's correct. And that's why we're giving the release. So they've been paying normal taxes since 2011 or whatever. No, they have not. Just that now they want to do something else. Well, help me out as far as if we had done it according to one, we should have done it. They would have been paying higher taxes since then, right? They were recategorized by the assessor's office. However, the lean releases that were on the land. They were on the land. So they've been paying normal taxes since 2011 or whatever. No, they have not. Just that now they want to do something else. Found these. Well, help me out as far as if we had done it according to one, we should have done it. They would have been paying higher taxes since then, right? They would have been paying normal taxes. They would have been paying normal taxes that were on the land records. Were not filed in the Hampshire County file. So these are notifying. Anybody that's doing a title search. Of these, these properties formerly owned by the Stoltz. That these properties have been transferred to the town and the lean against them has been released by the town. And are there, there are two, are there, there are two leans that have been transferred to the town. Are there two leans? There are a couple of different parcels. There are a couple of different parcels. And they were. Parts out. To. Parcel 22. And parcel 25. And if you look at this map, that's one of the reasons I'm doing it. Okay. One and a half acres. That's. That's 25. Parcel above it. Okay. Okay. So those are the two that were releasing. Help me. I'm slow this morning. Okay. At one time, the own homeowner owned these. And he put them in the, in the chapter 61 at one time. That's right. And then in 2011 or you're saying. December 21st of 2011. It was transferred to the town for $140,000. Okay. Okay. So we, we got it transferred to the town. And at that point, it came out of chapter 61, but officially it legally didn't because the town forgot to file. I did not release the lean. Part of the process. Okay. So these two recategorize the property. We did transfer the property to the town. So there wasn't continued tax. However. The situation was that the lean was still present on land records. And then there was no, no, no, no, no. That's right. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what I'm saying. I don't know what I'm saying. Okay. So currently these properties are in the title or owned by the town of Amherst. That's correct. Okay. And then. Did these homeowners pay taxes for the last 10 years. And they shouldn't know. That clarified. No.  Because you still pay some taxes under 61. They're not all. But the town is, the town has been owning the land since 2011. I understand. I'm just under. I, I'm struggling to understand why this didn't come to anybody's notice. Like they haven't been paying taxes and. Are the assessors records show this is owned by the town. Right. The assessor's record showed this is owned by the town since 2011. 1061A is farmland, right? That's right. Also agricultural land, farmland. So it wouldn't have been paying taxes anyway, right? If they were still owning the property, it would have been still paying taxes, but they transferred the property to the town making that portion of the property exempt anyway. So no one would pay taxes on the property since 2011. Well, under 61A, don't you pay reduced taxes still? Yes. Yeah. So they would have been paying some taxes. Okay. That's fine. As long as the town owns the land, and I understand, I'm just trying to understand why this didn't come to anybody's attention before now. Mostly because it was transferred. You're fading again, Liz. It did not get transferred to another individual. It was transferred to the town. But I would have thought when you did your taxes, when you did your changes to the tax assessment base, I would have thought something would have rang a bell. Not you, but whoever did it. Normally what happens is the attorney will ask for that clearance, but it was transferred to the town. Yeah. So in some cases that falls through the crack when we're dealing with exempt property. Okay. Going from a taxable to an exempt status. Okay. So are we approved to release the liens? I move that we approve both of those lien releases on those two on those two parcels. Thank you. All right. Do I have a second? Second. Okay. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Discussion about the residential exemption. Unfortunately, we had scheduled in a meeting, but both David and I am actually here. Okay. I really cannot hear you, Liz. I don't know what the problem is on the air at, but... Fading in and out. Yeah. Don't know how to increase the microphone. I think if you look right at the microphone when you speak, you might not fade. If you turn your head at all, I think you fade. Yeah, it seems to be that every time I turn my head at any point to look at anything else, it makes it difficult for you to hear me. Sorry. Basically, the residential exemption committee, which is Ken, David, and myself, we were supposed to reconvene, but David and I have been sent. So I apologize. We're not able to reconvene. However... Are you feeling better now? I am. Good. Good. How about David? Boy, I don't know what's going on. Going to the doctor. Yeah. Because of HIPAA regulations, I think. Yeah, Liz, we're not hearing you, Liz. Basically, nothing serious, I think. It's just that we are very cautious, as you can imagine. We're getting almost to that last laugh to get those shots out. Gentlemen, did you get your shots? I got mine scheduled tomorrow. Good for you. We're finished. Good. Young. They're too young. No, we have to go. We're too old. What I would like to share with you is the latest draft of the survey. But one of the things that I found out through our investigation, if you will, the majority of the towns that have implemented this residential exemption did not do a survey of the community before they instituted it. They used statistics from the census, which at the time were more current. And they used other demographic measures to determine whether or not they moved forward with their residential exemption. So when I was asking them for surveys, they were looking at me like I had two heads. They just did not go that route to determine their population before they instituted such a major exemption that will impact quite a lot of people. But in light of that, I did draft the exemption if you all would like to look at it. This was drafted. I can't take credit for this. Most of this was done by David and Ken. I just did a few things to kind of format it. And I was like, now what will happen is before the survey goes out, and I have looked at a couple of different ways of doing this, we can put it on the survey monkey. So folks can reply to their survey on the survey monkey. But I don't think we get around sending it. You just have to send out the paper survey and give them that option to reply via paper or survey monkey. If we want to do that. Liz, a question is, are you sure this is the latest one? It's the latest one. OK, because this is the one I thought I did with. And when I printed out your latest one, it's a different. Maybe it was something different. You know, I had initially looked at one that was just simple. Yeah, that's the one I printed out. I didn't know. I think this one's more comprehensive. I can bring up the simple one. No, my thought right now is we need to stop on the survey thing until we get more feedback from the town manager and vice president, your boss, and put a bigger group together. Now, my question is, could that be approached by you, Ken, or should that be approached by myself or David? Who should bring this to this? I'm happy to help in any way, but I think you need to lead it. OK, and approach your boss. The last time I mentioned expanding this group for residential exemption, the town manager said he was not in favor of that. That's why I was wondering whether or not perhaps yourself would like to bring this to his attention. He was not in favor of the survey. He was not in favor of bringing in other citizens. Oh, OK. Well, that's his call.  Right. And especially that's the hard thing about trying to institute something like this is that there's so many directions it can take. I guess did everybody get a copy of the draft of the one pager that turned out to be four pagers? I did. Yeah.  I mean, just going up the chain of command and ask him, OK, this is where we are. We need feedback from you, at least. And if you want to talk. Just so you have clarification, Sean was supposed to join us. I don't know if he's in the audience. Oh. Can anybody tell if he's in the audience? I can. No, there's just the four of us. OK. Well, he was trying to get to us today. But you know, everybody's doing a million by himself. Sean Magnano is my boss. He's my supervisor. Yeah. So I would have to go to Sean. And then Sean would have to appeal to Paul. Yeah. Well, I'm not pushing for Paul. I'm just saying Sean needs to make a decision here what we do. And if he needs input from Paul, then he needs to go seek input from Paul. But if he thinks he can make the call. Well, what I would do now that Sean is in office, I would ask him, then he will decide whether he can make that decision or whether he has to run it up the ladder. Liz, we missed what you were saying. I will give this information to Sean. Sean will make that determination as to whether he can expand the committee or leave it as is or run it up the line to Paul with his input. That is the four pager. I will send him the four page analysis and the application of the survey. Yeah, Ken, I would just like to, if you could look it over and make any proofreading corrections you'd like to make. Well, I guess I'd put it out to you guys. Well. Do you have any thoughts about how we should change this or not? Because this is just one cut. I'm not. You have some uncertainty about some of your data, apparently. A lot of questions about that. Because I can't tie numbers together. We have different spreadsheets. OK. I don't think it's, I think it's in the ballpark, but it's not good enough to share with anybody beyond Sean or Paul. OK, all right, so let's leave it at that. And so it's not going to the council, in other words. No, no. All right, so basically the survey will be sent to the analysis thus far. Yes, I just want to speaking as the chair, I would just like to be able to deliver on the promises that we've made to the council. And if this is as far as we need to go, that's fine. I'm I'm a little. I guess I'm a little. What do you want to call it? Hesitant. Unsure about the value of a survey. OK, I am too at this point. Yeah, I agree. So perhaps the survey should be next. Yeah, I wouldn't send that. I wouldn't send that on right now. We're primarily saying based on rough data, this is what we see. But to go any further beyond this rough data, we need more we need more people involved. And it may very well be that from 35,000 feet, which is what essentially we have here, you can tell that an exemption would not work here in town would create problems. Well, I'm not sure we want to jump to that conclusion. Well, I don't I'm just saying that maybe maybe Sean and Paul can tell that. OK, that's fair enough. Right. I think this is what you've done, Ken. And thank you. What the committee has done is is. A high level overview without specific conclusions. Right. Yeah, and that's good. It points us in a direction that says, hey, we need more detail. I agree. And I think you're right on. We can't come to conclusions unless we involve more people that dig deeper into a lot more information. Right. For example, I didn't really understand. Also, I want to echo what Leah said. I really appreciate the work you've done, Ken. I was a little uncertain about the the the conclusions you drew about rents. Well, there's no conclusions here. I was trying to just answer some questions that people have come up. OK. Then the rents were from David. He looked at what rents would go have to go up to cover the increases for the apartments. Yeah, he actually ran math mathematical.  Ken, Ken, that paragraph that that talks about the rent, it says, it is likely if competitive rentals markets allow it, maybe that sentence. Does go towards a conclusion and maybe somehow that can be softened. OK. You say landlords will likely try to pass the tax increase. Which I think is true. But if there's too many apartments and they can't rep their apartment, they're not going to. They're going to reduce the rent to get more tenants. Yeah, I see where you're going. Yeah, that goes towards a conclusion that that would actually happen. OK. So this has not been shown to anybody else at Town Hall. Is that correct, Liz? My understanding, it's just between this board. And David and me. OK, so is there some particular action that the board needs to take at this time? Well, I think the board needs to determine what exactly you're going to have to speak up, Liz. We're not getting that. We're going to need some kind of guidance from the board. What exactly we're going to give that. So at this point, you've said no survey. You've been distributed the four page analysis that was done. Do you want me to distribute it in that way directly to Sean? Yes, I guess speaking for myself. No, I agree. I would like Sean to see it. And then perhaps Sean and the town manager can then indicate what further information they want. How do you want me to represent the expansion of the committee? It would have been really helpful if Sean had been on this call with all of us. I understand that. And maybe we just need to set up another call. We could have him. It's going to have to be a public meeting call. But that's all right. We can still send him. It's public now. Yeah. No, I mean, I wouldn't want to wait another month for a next meeting. OK, so you would like me to set up a meeting? Yes, I really want everybody to hear what Sean's saying, so we have some guidance all of us. I am going to bring Sean in if he's here. That's the nice thing about having him here. OK. But they can check to see if he's become free. So that he can join. Because when I come in to the meeting, I close my door. Another department head is going to say, he's in the meeting. I can't welcome him to the meeting. Well, I don't know what's going on today, Liz, but we're not hearing it at all. We've just left the room, so can you hear me better? Oh, yeah. That's a lot better. I'm sorry. I just don't want to be in the room with him and not be respectful and have my mask on. OK, well, that's a lot better now for me. Unfortunately, this is the downside about having someone physically with me. I can have him work at his computer if that's the only other thing I can do. So let's see if he's ready. You've been a call with him. OK, so Sean, Sean might be able to join us before we conclude. He's in a call right now. OK. But Stephen's just stepped out, so I can. So maybe. Well, part of it is Sean, unfortunately. Sean needs to read this and think about it before he can really react to us. Yes, I think that's true. So I guess what we've come up with want me to share the Lexington study with. No, I wouldn't go there. All right, I move that we share this draft with Mr. Mondano and if Mr. Mondano thinks it's appropriate, Mr. Backelman, speaking guidance on where we go from here. Yeah, correct. Seeking guidance on where we go from here include. Yes. So are we are we unanimous on that? I'm fine with that. OK, is there anything you want to do to this draft, Ken, before you send it off? That was my other question. Well, it's up to you. If you guys have inputs, you want me to change it. Well, it's your product. So well, I mean, we because of the open meeting law, we can't really be we couldn't really be involved in generating it. So but you can't you can be injecting with open meeting. Now, I mean, I see question marks. I see some question marks on the report. And I wonder about those. That's because I don't know what I don't have good data. Yeah. So should we just instead of a question mark, put it and not available? Well, I think I had the question marks before I put that big thing at the top where I the the latest draft says the data is still being worked on to develop a single database. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Those question marks were before I put that. Right. So I could take the question marks out if we leave that data thing on the beginning. OK. Is that our right list? Fine with me. Whatever. As I ever makes this as clear and concise as possible. I can take the question marks out. I think in most cases, all right. And as I understand it, the break even point stays the same no matter what the percentage exemption is. Correct. Correct. OK. Oh, yeah. That was my only other comment can that you state the break even in the second point with it. Well, let me take that back. No, help me out list. I think it moves, but it moves very little. It's only based on the percentage change. Yeah. It might move by a couple of thousand up and down. This break point is specifically for 20%. It's 570,000. Is that right? That was 570,000 or something like that. Yeah. OK. Well, we have good news. So he's going to join us as Sean. It's going to join us as an audience member. Oh, OK. Don't have to set up. But I want to bring up that report. I have that report ready to share since he's going to join that. Yeah. He's going to have to read and think about it though. I don't want a quick reaction from him. So you don't want me to put it up to share? Because when I put something up to share, it's going to be shared with the public. No, I'm not ready to do that. No, I don't think that's a good idea. All right, then. Why don't we, you know, wait till he gets. So there was a motion. We're moving to share Ken's draft with Sean. Is that? Yeah. OK. All those. Yeah, to get guidance. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Oppose? OK. I see Sean is with us as an attendee. Welcome to the board of assessors, Sean. Can we give him a voice? No, I don't see him here yet. Fendi, ah, here we go. Allow to talk. There you go. Ron, can you hear us? Yes, can you guys hear me? We can hear you. Thank you all for letting me listen in today. I looked at the agenda and it seemed like it would be a good meeting to participate in. I do have to leave it noon, but it's nice to see all of you. I got to talk to all of you a little while ago. And so here, if there's any questions or otherwise, I'll just listen. Well, we've had a study of conducted by Ken. And Liz and David, the three of us. Yeah. On the residential exemption. And just a quick high overview shot is we are able to put some data together. It's not complete, but it's in the ballpark. The data. OK. And this is on the this is on the number of owner occupied or non owner occupied properties. Right. OK. And we prepared a one pager that turned into four pagers. When I say we, it's really me working with data from Liz and David to put together this draft. And I've shared it with the other two members of the board. But it's still primarily my draft using numbers. OK. What we're seeking right now is guidance from you. After you look at the draft, where we go from here? Because there's no conclusions drawn in this draft. It's just data that is very rough data. But in the ballpark of what we think might be found. But what we're saying is we can't really go beyond this data without bringing in some other people to work on it. OK. No, absolutely. I think I can take a look at it and A, see what work you did and what the data looks like now. But I can also give some thought with Liz. And I can also connect to the town manager about what are our next steps with sharing this information out, working with the council. I know we talked about maybe bringing this to the council earlier to help them get an understanding of this before the tax rate vote and all that thing later in the fall. So yeah, absolutely. That'd be great. OK. Sean, is it this council that will vote on the tax rate or the next council? I believe it is out the double check. I believe it's this one, right, Liz? I think we've had that vote in December. This one, it would be the December one. Does this council have a lame duck period after the November election? I'll have to double check. I thought the terms for, you know, if there's any change in the council membership, that they begin on January 1st. But I'll have to double. And so therefore, if the vote was, if the vote on the tax rate was in December, then. Well, the vote for the tax rate is after I do my classification. Right. Do you remember when that was this year? Yeah, that was November. It was November and December. OK. So I think it would be the current council, but that'll be when I get come back after reviewing this with some of my thoughts, I'll confirm all that about what council would vote on it and roughly when. And again, we may want to separate a decision on this from the tax rate decision, because, you know, this is going to take a while to implement if it is, if it does move forward. So we almost want that to be its own discussion track with the council. Yes, I would assume, for example, that a even consideration of a residential exemption would involve public forums. Right. Yeah, I think that makes sense. And there would have to be some kind of a process of educating the public on on what it involved. And there and I have to look and see if there are any subcommittees, you know, there may be some subcommittees of the council that would also have to get involved out to, you know, I'm thinking they potentially the finance committee and potentially like the town services outreach, the TSO committee for something that sort of would be a sort of a big out to see what the data looks like, but could be a big change in sort of how the taxes are gathered. OK, so just so you understand what happened before you arrived, the three of us agreed unanimously to share this report with you. OK. All right. This draft. Yeah. And, Sean, I'd stress this draft is only for you and the town manager to look at it. Shouldn't go anywhere outside. No, yeah, it's not finalized. I understand that. Although I don't know what the effect of talking about this in a public meeting is, Sean, but. Yeah, I mean, it's public now. But I think to your point to reiterate, it's very it's draft form. It's not finalized. So until it's a final report, you know, we shouldn't make decisions based on a draft. No, this is like the first inning of a nine inning game. I'm serious. This is just. Well, it's spring training. They're only they're only seven innings. So that's great. I've heard that talk used to talk about the virus. So that's because these are rough numbers with no conclusions and no thought process of what the effect might be of doing anything. OK. So yeah. So it seems like this is this is sort of send the baseline for us to then take, you know, think about what our decision decision tree is going to be on this. I mean, I don't know what other members think, but I believe that if you look at this, you may decide that this is the end of the fact finding process. In other words, you might decide, OK, we know enough now. And then on that and then you can make a recommendation or whatever to the council. But OK. But I think what we need is guidance. Do we do we continue? Is there going to be a continuing fact finding process and who does it? OK. How I didn't how long is the report as it is right now? Four pages. OK, that's not too bad. All right. Oh, it's very high level. And I well, I'm happy to answer any questions you have, Sean or Liz or anybody else about because I pretty much did 99% of this except for the numbers. Liz and David helped a lot in getting the numbers together. OK. The numbers are still they don't tie the we're using spreadsheets, different spreadsheets, and they don't add up right. So we know there's something lacking. OK, so a little more work to do on that. All right. When you say they don't add up, can that means they don't check? They don't check against other numbers. Is that what you're saying? That's correct. OK. And the the would it be fair to say that the the statement about rents is a bit of a stretch. In terms of the basis for making drawing that conclusion or drawing that tentative suggestion. Well, rents impact rents. Yeah, I didn't view it as a conclusion. That's where we differ. I just said if the rental markets don't allow the landlords to pass it on, they're not going to be able to pass it on. That's the only point I was trying to make. I was trying to conclude they would or would not pass it on. So is it one thing? One I mean, that is one of the big questions that I've had in talking with Liz and in David. Does your report look at the impact on apartment complexes? At a very high level, it takes what the taxes would have. It takes the increases the apartments would have. OK, and spreads them among their units. And therefore it says how much a unit would have to with the potential increase in rents could be OK. If the landlord could pass it on. So and again, I'm happy that the part of the challenge, Sean, we've had is the rest of the three of us haven't been able to talk because of the public law. Open right. And so we can't work. The three of us can't work together. I just wanted to do some work and do it. But, you know, it's been so Lee and I are like second and third wheels here and can work with Liz and Dave. So but as I understand the open meeting law, we're not allowed to deliberate on it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, don't worry. We'll we'll have projects for you two to work on. Well, we got we got some other stuff we can give you. It's not the work. It's the lack of input. I mean, yeah, yeah, too much. My input without other people's input, which. Yeah, I think one way we can. I mean, I'll have to double check and make sure it's OK. I mean, one way I think we can, you know, if Liz is sort of the hub and she solicits the input from people directly and on these. And then when you have your meeting, she can kind of bring it all together, you know, so as long as you're just communicating directly with Liz, you know, you share a document out at a meeting and then your feedback goes directly to Liz only that, you know, that's one way at least you can kind of keep things moving in between meetings. And that's what we've done to this point. OK, good. Perfect. Because, Sean, I have a strong feeling that I'm not going to. I'm not going to want to be tied with anything going to the council unless we get more input from other people. Because I don't know. Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, we'll we'll come back with next steps. You know, those next steps may be, you know, it'll be obviously we're finding this report and and then deciding, you know, is there going to be a recommendation made and who's making that recommendation, whether it be staff, the board of assessors, you know, both. And and then working on, like you said, what's that next those next steps for outreach with the community and with different subcommittees? But but just getting the survey updated was a nice accomplishment and moving this forward because we really needed that to get the updated numbers to drive, you know, how big of an impact this is. So so that's great. I said that, though, maybe we should let them. We're losing you, Liz. You may wish to express to him what we've decided on the survey idea. Oh, Sean, you were talking about this report, not the survey, right? So yeah, what I just said was in regards to the report and the numbers that were updated as a result of the survey. There is no survey. There's no survey. We haven't done the survey. OK, so how are the so so we have so we haven't updated the sort of inventory of owner occupied properties yet? No. OK, so that would be potentially a next step if we wanted to get updated numbers would be to do that. OK. Yeah, to do a survey that would cover a lot of things. Right. They clean up the data more. OK. Yeah, the report does make reference to what can be said. OK. All right. No, this is but again, this is this is good. This is a big project. So I think if we just keep moving it forward, you know, keep making progress on it, you know, I don't think anyone's in a rush for this that I've heard of as long as we're making progress and keeping, you know, providing information. But I do feel there's some sort of accountability moment for us in at no when we get to November. Right, we have to come back with we we definitely have to come back this year with, you know, additional information from what was provided last year and what progress has been made on this issue. Yeah, so I agree with you on that. OK. All right. Just to be clear, you know. Liz, you're cutting out again. Just to be clear, Ken did develop a plan that was established back or that. They're cutting out, Liz. I don't know how I did. I did get a plan in November that was shared amongst the committee by Ken. So can do. Can I share that with? Well, I view that as sort of that was a gassum. Like an organizational at that time. Now I think we need guidance from Sean saying, OK, what's the next step? And again, I think we need more people involved and that those people would put together the plan then. Well, I think the criticism of our of the residential exemption was are we do we have a plan in place? Are we are we proceeding and organized fashion? And that was the criticism that I was getting. Oh, yeah. I mean, for my blind, I just I want to make sure we and this speaks a little bit to what Richard said earlier about when we go back to the council in the fall is I just want to know what milestones we may have over the summer and in the fall so that when we go back, we have something tangible. And it may be that it may not be complete. But, you know, if like if we could get the survey updated and if we could have, you know, an analysis of the impact on the apartments, which I think is a really big piece of this to inform the decision making of the council. And then we also need to hear from the council as to what they're trying to and maybe this has been said in the past when I before I was here, you know, what are their goals for something like this is the goal to lessen the burden on. On lower valued properties. Is it to, you know, is that the soul at the expense of potentially raising rents on apartments and and then again, digging into that impact of, you know, people of lesser means potentially, are we going to be creating a greater burden on them? And is that really what the council is looking for? OK, I'm going to just going to say, since I think maybe I watched the council more than the other two members of the board, that there are probably no more than one or two council members for for whom this is not a settled issue. OK, so there are there are only one or two members of the board that I that the council that I think are curious about that that really under that really have uncertainty. Let me put it that way about the effect of a residential exemption. I think most members of the council from what I can tell don't really believe a residential exemption would work here. And there are one or two that are uncertain about it. OK, I know this is again, this is great. And I don't do you guys meet once a month or twice a month? Once a month. OK, no, I think between now and your next meeting, I can definitely review it and work with Liz and the town manager to come back with an update on next steps and thoughts on the report. So that should be no problem. OK. You know, I'm thinking along what Richard just said is you might want to consider some power or you or somebody just touching base with the council sometime this, you know, late spring, like June or something, just give them an update and say, OK, what are your goals? I mean, to get a better idea of what the goals are, the council. Yeah, I think that's good. The town manager has a report where he provides updates on various topics. So I could definitely see, you know, once maybe one more month, once we come back and talk to you all, you know, maybe giving them an update on this and the and the town manager's report to the council and then maybe, like you said, trying to get it on a maybe a summer meeting.  They never have any light agendas at the council level. But, you know, if there's an agenda where maybe we can get this topic on there just to do it, you know, sort of an update and kind of read, you know, refocus. What are we, you know, we've got this data, we've got this report. We're going to do some outreach. What are what is what are we trying to answer for people? I think that's key. That's key. Yes, I mean, I I think the one thing that the three of us and our assessor cannot answer is the impact on rent. And my sense is that that's kind of the nub of the issue. Yeah, you can't say for sure, right? That the rents will go up. But, you know, that may be some of the outreach that needs to be done is working with some of these larger complexes to say, you know, what when we do this outreach here from everybody, you know, and that they would be one of this, obviously, the stakeholders that we would want to hear from. Great. Thanks, Sean, for joining us. No problem. Is there any other topics? I've got another 10 minutes and the other topics I should hang around for. Was this the big one? This was the big one. OK. Exhausted this topic, Liz and Ken. OK, well, so I'll keep an eye out for an email. With the draft report. So, Liz, I'll send you a new one today. Thank you. You can send it on to Sean then. All right, thank you all. Have a good rest of your day. Thank you, Sean. Thanks for coming in. So what is our next what is the next topic on our agenda? Topic is really is there any public comment? And there's no public comment at this point. What about I see a here approve? Well, first of all, is there a budget discussion to have to? Well, the budget. We really haven't asked for much. We've asked for them to the biggest thing for our budget was to expand my part time personality here. We really want to talk to him frequently when you call my office, instead of wonderful addition. But I only have 24 of them. I've asked that, you know, give him a full position in the assessor's office. Currently, I share him with the tax office. But, you know, I think sharing is a wonderful idea and that was only clerical. I think that would be great. But we were lagging as we've lost our professional appraiser. He was certified and she was experienced in the community. And we'll cut our appraisal staff in half when we did not replace her. And while Stephen needs training and appraisal, which I'm providing as best I can. And also through the Massachusetts Association of Assessing Officers and the International Association of Assessing Officers to really absorb that information and focus on that profession because it is indeed a profession, just like appraisal is a profession. Assessment is a profession. And it really does take full time. So that's basically the major component of our of the assessor's budget, not the board of assessor's budget, but the assessor's. Well, actually, I am part of your board. So I guess it's our budget. Well, you know, see, this is the thing. I've never we've never really discussed budget. The assessor's budget in the board of assessors before. I don't know that this is in our bailiwick. Well, you're member of the board of assessor. I'm a member of as our budget. How we proceed to the other than that, there is some minor adjustments. You're cutting out again, Les. Other than that, there's some minor adjustments to our operational budget that I've recommended. I've always looked at, we sort of relied on David to wave a yellow flag if he needed help. Otherwise, he never waved a yellow flag that I recall. I just wanted to give you an overview. Okay, well, that's fine. I think that, you know, being a member of any organization, where the money's coming from. Yeah, I guess I don't know. Are you playing ask or recommend the additional resource? I have recommended based on a thorough overview of the office and comparing myself to other communities of this size. We have over 40,000 people in our regular population. We expand to 61,000 on a daily basis. So would it be a replacement? No. No. It would be an addition. What happened was the position of the other appraisal position, which was held by Lori Turotti, when she retired in December, that position was cut period. End of sentence. So this would go back to what David had. Right. But we don't have Pelham. She worked on Pelham too, right? Yeah, but Pelham actually did not have a large amount. Okay. Of the work that was done. The other thing is that they want us to expand our database to include the college information. We're losing it. We're getting all we need from the reimbursement for state on property. So in order to do that, I'm going to have to have more man hours and work into that process. So can that additional work actually pay for the person? Oh, absolutely. Don't worry. Absolutely. I don't know. I don't know what the confidence. I don't know what the mechanism is for the board of assessors to express a concern about the principal assessor's budget. Well, let me ask you, are you doing some kind of justification memo for the additional person? Yes, I did. Well, can you share that with us so we can sort of maybe sign on with it? I don't know. Richard, well, she's pulling that up. I want to, before we end this meeting, make visible the end of my term. Yeah. The, I believe this is for the town manager to handle. The vacant, essentially your seat, there's a vacancy at the end of your term. Right. Right. When does that happen? In June. Yeah. And is it correctly to assume you're willing to stay on? Well, that's one thing I might want to discuss. Oh, okay. Okay. Well, I mean, right now I'm thinking for a limited term, maybe not for them another four, three years. Okay. Well, I'm feeling like, especially if, you know, just what we're doing, what Ken has done to this point with regard to the, what should happen with the study? I'd like to see that through. So, I can't seem to put my hands on what I'm looking for. So I really, all I can do is send it to you or I can bring it up at our next meeting. Well, look. Didn't seem like there was any objection on the four part of the, the part of who? Didn't seem like there was any objection on it. I guess some way next time, Liz, you got to figure out whether you have to have a microphone to speak into. Well, the only thing is, if I have a microphone, then Stephen can't hear you. Okay. Well, I don't know. We're not doing well. This is not working out well. Sorry about that. I will try and do it differently next time going forward. I'll have him at his computer. All right, if you could share with us between now and the next meeting, any budgetary concern you have, and I'll have to figure out whether the board of assessors, I think there's probably a state statute that governs what we do as to whether we have any say about your budget because I really don't know whether we do. So. Well, I figured that that was a primary issue at this time. So I figured I'd bring it to you.  I just, I'm trying to figure out whether we have a mechanism as three of, between the three of us to express anything about your budget. And I don't know whether we do or not. So that's probably something I need to figure out. So if you can just send out the memo individually and we can get back to you individually, Liz. It's okay. We'll be glad to do so. All right. Now as I look at the agenda, I see approved deny real estate personal property abatement applications. Is there any, are there any today for that? No, what you've received is what we have. Okay. All right. Cause I'm looking at it on the agenda. So I just wondered about that. So do you have any, do you have any feel Liz?  Well, we have abatements that we have received from the, mostly from the condominiums because the condominiums had an interim adjustment when something goes over 10% then the assessor is compelled to raise the assessment. That's the law. So we are getting a number of real estate appeals. I'm trying to bring them up so I can give you a count. Oh, that's all right. But I don't think it'll take more than a couple of days. It's nothing more than we had from the previous year. Okay. How do you stand with commercial owners? How about our commercial owners? Our five of them that have come in. Okay. You know, next time, Liz, maybe have, do an invite to Stephen to join us on Zoom. That's what we were discussing. So he could be in another room or something. Understood. Okay. But being that this is his first meeting to join you. No, it's fine. I thought that it was for him to be with me today. We're glad to meet you, Stephen. Yeah. It was. Thanks for you. I think you should probably make a call to the town manager and indicate what you would like to do after the end of June's so that we could have maybe a, if either, if you are going to be stepping off or if there is going to be some kind of a nationwide search for your replacement or whatever. Yeah. So that that can happen seamlessly between June and July of next, this summer. All right. So if you, if you have a, if you want to express to the manager what you'd like to do, that would probably help. Yeah. Okay. And I want to do it in the time we've got. Sure. Lee, personally, I'd love to have you stay on as long as you can. I would like to express that too. But you know, I appreciate that. Yeah. I have a feeling that neither can nor I count. No. I don't want you to misconstrue. We don't want to move on to somebody new quick. But there is, I know that the council has had some conversation with the manager about vacancies and essentially what happens is your term ends and there's a vacancy. Either you fill it or somebody else fills it. I don't know how that works. It's going to work. Okay. Okay. Yeah. All right. Anything else to, let's talk about the next meeting date. April 8th, I propose. Okay. Second Thursday in April. April 8th at 11 p.m. Yes. I'm sorry. A.m. A.m. 11 p.m. would be kind of exotic.  That's fine. It's Amherst. We're breaking them all, right? Sure. One suggestion, Liz, can you get that agenda topic change so it doesn't read residential exemption and means test senior tax relief study? Would you like it to stay just residential exemption? Yeah. Like that. Well, I don't know what the, I don't even know what the means test senior is. Yeah, I don't know. Basically that is just whether or not we're addressing the folks that are in need. Okay. Well, I'm sure not addressing them. Okay. So not in this study anyway. All right.  It's everybody. Renters, it's not just seniors. That's right. So, but just call it residential exemption study. That's fine. Thank you. Okay. I move to adjourn. All right. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Thank you, Liz, for your service to the town. Oh, thank you, gentlemen. I appreciate it. And it is 1205. Thank you very much. Bye-bye. Remember, all of these videos are available for you to review should you want to go over something. Okay. All right. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Have a good day, gentlemen. Okay. Have a good weekend. Right, see you.


Hey, welcome back to another episode of Let's Play, Dragon Quest XI-S, definitive edition on the Switch. Last episode, we defeated the tricky devil over there and we saved this guy who got turned to a dog. So now we need to continue our journey onwards through the mangle grove so we can get to get the red orb and do something with it.  Oh, Kingsbarrow. Oh, we should visit. We should visit the hometown because King Carnelian said he would send Jasper over there. We got to make sure everyone's okay. Oh, who's this guy? Oh, it's that same dude. Let's see what he's got. Nothing interesting right now. The Heliodor region. There's only really one way to go, to be honest. So just head onwards. Is there...what are these things called again? You want an attack one? Let's fight. Why not? Sham hat witches. Ham sandwiches, sham hat witches. I get it. Okay, we're gonna attack A. Ending. Oh no. Oh no. Are they not? They're not that tough actually. If it wasn't for the Shy Pox, I'd probably beat them. Shy Pox really screws you up in this game sometimes. I'll try to test the hardy hide for killing the Sham Hat witches. I don't know. There's a block here. Oh, we can climb it. We got to get through the mango grove. We got to move onwards. Oh, look at that. A little mouse. Lindstone, copper ore, and let's see how close are we. It looks like I went the wrong way. I should actually climb back up the...I should climb back up. Around the corner, it should be Heliodor. So, yeah, just through here should be where we need to go. Heliodor region. And it looks like there's a loading screen there, like a small one. This is right around Cobblestone. So what we're gonna do is we'll visit Cobblestone after we're done getting the red ore because I think there's some...ah crap. Stark Ravens. Alright, let's go. Oh, that was nice. One hit kill. Okay, we're getting pretty tough actually. Eric gets all thankful if you go to do his business first. Let's see what he needs to say. Well, you know what?  Well, thanks for that. Now we should probably head over to your place. Where's Kingsbarrow? That must be the Emerald Coast if I could get through. Here we go. Treasure. Someone just left here. Reactionist 5. Wow. It's not bad. So this must be the Emerald Coast and the Kingsbarrow is just around the corner. Oh, look at this. That's an interesting looking rock. Huh. Isn't it kind of interesting looking? It's all triangle shaped and stuff. Wonder why that's there. Wonder what the significance of that rock is. Alright, Jogafresh Water. Yeah, it's very interesting indeed, that rock. Alright, we are going onwards and look at this world, look at this huge world, honestly. Alright, Kingsbarrow should be down there. But we should probably save at the campsite down further before we go into the Kingsbarrow. That's the Kingsbarrow right there. Out of some goblins here. There's one around. Alright, let's rest up and save at the shrine. Alright, it's night time now and we're going to save. Alright, let's head onwards towards the Kingsbarrow.  Global walking guy. Okay, so here we are at the Kingsbarrow. It looks like there's a tent here. Break a couple out here with a single file. I think that restores your magic. That might be useful. We're not very prepared for this, but we're going to go in anyway. I feel like the shybox is going to screw us over in the end. This is a very old school dragon quest dungeon we're going to be going to. Back up all these people. That's a corpse, they all got killed. Those must be the two eagles that represent Heliodor. It looks like we skipped cobblestone and came straight to Kingsbarrow. See, he has unique dialogue if you skip cobblestone. Very role-playing game, you know. Very choices. Alright, let's head right down. I mean, he's dead, so it's not like it makes a difference. He kept talking to a corpse and he got shybox. I'm pretty sure this place is monster infested now at this point. Yep, there's monsters here. Around to go around.  Spooky devil. Buddies. They live around him. Oh, heal slime. Now there's some special stuff out here you want to look for. A lot of people don't know this, but there's actually some stat boosting items around here. I can just find it. Okay, it should be around here. I think there's a chest around here. Oh, this is going to be like a ring, I think? Oh, I thought it was a ring. I can't remember. It's been so long since I played this. Alright, let's head back in. It looks like they're having a little meeting. Don't want to really disturb them, so we're just going to walk around here. That's room. Don't need to explore this entire room. I'm going to walk through here.   I don't like him. Okay, there's another exterior out here. No, I ran into another one tonight. Little devils. Alright. Stuff.  I die, I swear. Oh, not Rubble Rouser.  Alright, we're going to flame slash this guy. The main character is actually a lot weaker than Eric, if you noticed. I can't be using all my magic. Nice, level up. Now we should use the skill points. Alright, so swords. Attack power on wielding. You want this. This is what you want. As high as Eric's. Eric is really tough. You're going to find out that Eric is actually like a monster in this game. Cannot be beaten. When you start hunting metal slimes towards the end game, you'll realize how good he is. Take by these guys and go up here. Eric is an essential part of the team. This must be the good stuff. Strength ring. Alright, let's do this. You can wear two different rings, right? Jemish Charm will actually help a little bit. And then there's the strength ring. Look how much attack power that gives me. It's crazy. Now, of course Eric doesn't need anything because he's himself. He's really tough. He doesn't care. Even looks like he doesn't care. Alright, let's head back down.  You want to save all your energy. Okay, is that going to be worth it to jump in the middle of those three enemies to grab that thing? Is that worth it, do you think? A wing of bat. What am I going to do with that? That wasn't worth it. Okay, we want to go through here. It looks like there's these owl-looking dudes. Alright, we're going to go through here. Sneak around the corner. Take back that tricky devil. Right, a little devil. Alright, here's the thing. I haven't explained this yet, but you can ride those things right there. See those? Sparkles. If I kill that thing, right? I can... And these guys can jump, which is a cool thing. So we're going to attack him. You want to kill both of them now. That's the plan. Aim slash. Nice. Alright, nice, you beat him. Alright, so we're going to be riding this guy. Look at this. He's like in there. And he can jump. See a defense. That'll come handy. Alright. Put a feather in your cap. Because now I know how to make feathered caps. Magic water we got. Alright. Item bag. I want that magic water. So we're going to be giving that to myself. And we'll be using this. Whose defense is... I think I need more defense if I'm being honest. Eric kind of is fine. Okay, is there any other good stuff we got? Alright, there's an enemy in the next room. I'm just going to keep wearing this because I like wearing it. Hope I'm ready. Uh oh. Some bad guys still trying to steal the red orb. Big reward. This is going to be really tough. It was tough the first time. I'm on draconian quest now. Grimm Griffin's drawn near. I missed. Okay, that's not bad. Right off the bat we can do a pet power. We'll do an A. Okay, that wasn't too bad. Is that gay? Alright, we're going to have to heal Eric now. I got a little risky with that one. Alright, I hope. You got to heal up, you know. That would have killed me. Damn it. Damn it. No. No, no, no. No. Damn it. Damn it. Okay, so we got wiped out. Kingsbarrow. Yeah, I might as well. I think we should fight some more people, maybe. Alright, I have the strength ring, which means... That actually wasn't too far back. I feel like death is a lot less punishing in this game. Like, I'm just down here now. Maybe I should fight some people, though. Alright, you're done for. Alright, so we're going to be doing some stuff here. The agility. His agility is already fast enough. I should make my own higher. I was going to skip this real quick. I think I might be strong enough. If I don't do it this time, I'm going to do a little more grinding. Alright, the real decoy. Put a nice blockage. Damn it, don't hit me. No! I could have won. Alright, what we're going to do is we're going to go back to autosave.  Attack first. How are they getting the first three? Okay. I think these guys are tougher. Okay, okay.   I got to go outside and grind a little bit. The draconian quest is way too difficult. Alright, so what we're going to do is go downstairs and grab all that stuff. Like the defense seat and all that good stuff. And then we're going to go outside and then go back to grinding. Alright, I know. They went over multiple times. Alright. Wait, why is it those two? You just killed Aaron. No. Do not.  Stupid. Of course he's going to just keep healing himself. There's no winning this.  Alright, I'm going to get back and I'm going to kick these guys asses.  These guys are not going to win, okay? I'm telling you this right now. Alright, we're heading back out now.  We are not going to take this from these guys.  Are they talking?  Maybe we should go back to Kingsbarrow. We are on Kingsbarrow. We should go back to Cobblestone. I'm sure there's more monsters around here. We can fight. Well, the campsite's over there, which means we can just keep fighting these dudes until we get bored. Okay, that was the one I killed. Wanna kill again? Who has the statue? How much more exp we need? 230, oh, we're close actually. Okay, so this guy right here, this is a campsite dude. He probably sells good stuff. That's not actually that good. It's a great sword. That would help. That would make us a lot tougher, but you know how it is. Rest a little bit. Cotton top. Alright, sleepiness and viscous. What's going on over here? People like to go to the Kingsbarrow. I'm just gonna walk around his house and, oh, 13. That's a lot of money. I think I might as well spend it. So slow. You get to the next level as soon as possible. Bad, not bad. Oh, that wasn't a lot of exp. Oblin.  You did a lot. Alright, let's use the skill points. Alright, so let's see. Critical one wielding. Half inch. Who's Bruiser? I don't feel that that would actually be a better move using boomerangs. Not really much to do, though. Alright, he's dead. He missed. Alright, we'll heal again. Alright, you're dead. You are soon to be dead. Okay, these guys are tough. Alright, we should go heal up now. I'm using herbal items at least 20 times. How much longer until the luminary grows? 116? That's a lot. Just one more level ought to do it, I think. These guys look tough. Grabbid. No. Don't you dare. Okay. I should have been hitting the heal slime. That damn... Oh my... This is the most...   Oh my... I'll lose my steep of gold. I don't want to lose my level I gained. We're still at level 7 and level 8. I'll bust this over here. I got the first attack. I should be able to attack first. Alright, fine. Let's go. 46. Alright, we're getting close. He missed. Missed again. I can't believe that happened. Okay. I'll just kill Derek. Flee. Let's try it. Come on. Flee. No. I don't care. I'll go back to the last save. I'll lose the gold.  Kind of. Okay.  One more fight and then that should be enough to level up. Nice. Agilities up. Sizz. Sizz. I think Sizz will be what changes this. Because now I have an attack that can attack all the guys. So wait. Hold on a sec. I can actually also use the agility on one of us. Eric's already really fast, right? I could be faster. So I'm going to use this on myself, I think. Let's try it. Let's try this move out. Sizz. All right. We're going to use Sizz now. I thought you got it, actually. Oh, you think you're cool? 30 preemptive attacks. If you want to kill, come on. Yes. He's close to being dead. The Crabbit has a really good defense. All right. Let's rest up until morning. A few more of these good fights and then we'll be a little up again. All right. This will be good. Oh, you're laughing flippantly. I'm going to be using Sizz on these Greblins. All right. Nice. Level nine. Let's use these skill points right away. Dragon Slash. Critical hit sword stance. Attack power unwielding. Metal Slash. All right. Critical hit chance going up. That's a good trade off. All right. Let's ask how long we take until the next level. 100. Okay. As soon as I get to the next level, I think we'll be ready to go.   All right. Rest until night. All right. A little more grinding and then that should be good. Let me just check with the statue again to see how long we need to take. 160. Okay. Sizz on these guys. Okay. I can't do that. Fine. It's fine. We're going to load up the save. It wasn't a ton of money, though. Back on where they're sleeping. Oh, I can kill them on hit now. We should be close to the next level for the luminary. As soon as that happens, we're immediately going to storm the King's Barrow again. Nice. All right. So let's see what the increase was. Higher agility, higher deafness, magical, magical man. And HP. Evac. That's a good spell. That means I can jump out of the cave as soon as I'm done with the fight. Okay. Yeah, I might as well. Critical hit chance increased. All right. So we are going to go and rest up and then go to the King's Barrow immediately. All right. So we're going to head right over. Immediately over the King's Barrow. Hope I remember how to get back there. Audis. Whoever did that needs to pay, obviously. Okay. Go this way. Okay. I know how to get through. Grab a little meeting. Devil. Oh my goodness. Oh, no. Okay. So we're going to have to run on through here. Here. Down these stairs. Around the corner here. And we should probably kill these guys. All right. Down to Roddy. The eggs just killed him. Bounce up here. All right. So we have feather caps now. The resilience. I need to make my own resilience a little higher. Because I think Eric just has more health. So he just in general is doing better. All right. One more time. Let's go. I've already seen this. Hey, that's going to stop me. Are you kidding me?   I'm going to just let them carry me down. Nothing left to do. All right. We're doing this one more time. Auto save. I grinded so much. That was like three levels I grinded. All right. We got to try this one more time because that's bull. Yeah. I think we'll just go to cobblestone. Let's just head on over to cobblestone. And then after we do the cobblestone thing, we'll head back here to Kingsborough. Maybe we'll find something that can help us over there. I was going to get our friend here before leaving off to cobblestone. Yeah. That should be the right way. Antidote herb. Herb. And this should be the entrance to cobblestone or just around the corner. Really, I should have checked up on the cobblestoneians before even leaving, before going to the Kingsborough because they got attacked by Jasper. I should have checked to see if they're okay. Okay. Up here. That should be where I need to go. All right. Let's see what happened to cobblestone. Hopefully everyone's okay. Oh, look at that. It's like nothing happened. Welcome to cobblestone. Not a lot goes on here, but I hope you enjoy your visit. Wait. What? What's this guy talking about? Oh, he wants to get married. Watch out for young chief. That's me. The heck? Why are they talking about me to myself? Avlairs. That's weird. They don't know me. I just left this place and they already... Wait, we should give him lots of sweets. What's going on here? He's lying to me. The mayor. Why is he introducing himself to me? What the heck is going on here? This is weird. Looking book. Okay. I want to check to see if items are still up here on the roof. Isn't that interesting? I thought I already got that. What the heck is going on here? Wait, isn't that my horse? Outlet. Why does everybody lie to me?  This horse is about to have a baby. I know he's covering for him. Something strange is going on and I'm going to have to find out. Let's head over back to our house and see what's going on there. I love you. I'll be right back. You're hungry, right? What? I'm telling you. Our child is still 6 years old. Wait a minute. Did we go back in time or something? Do you want me to help you out? If not, I'll call someone. Wow, that's the first character that ever kicked you out of their house for barging in, in an RPG. He's probably going on. What the heck? Nobody recognizes me. He definitely went back in time. That must be Gemma and Sandy when they were young. When Sandy was a puppy and Gemma was a little girl. The girl's had scarf. Nope. Okay, I'll get it. What if I just go down to the... I can't move. I'm a Sears Glung Barrier blocks the way. I gotta get the headscarper Gemma for a little Gemma.  So she's gonna take me over to Chucky now. Yeah, we definitely went back in time. She's so slow. I'm just gonna run past her. Is this the graveyard? I don't know who could that be. I wonder who that is. He's actually talking. There's Chucky. Illuminaries' grandfather. Adopted grandfather. Chucky's no dummy. He knows that that's him from the future. He knows. Now, I wonder how many of you say no. I said no in my first playthrough. I'll say yes this time. But he knew that that's his adoptive grandson from the future. Hmm. The three-sided rock. Chucky had something there all years ago. Back to the future now. The three-sided rock. Chucky had something there all years ago. Chucky's really smart. He could tell that the luminary was in the future just by looking at him. I'm gonna head back to some tour. There's a mysterious light blocking the way. I did not mean to break that by bumping into it. Sounds being destroyed.  After catching you, the soldiers from Delcadal came and burned you down. That's when you were on board. The wood that was wrapped around your back was shining. That's strange. You came to meet your grandfather and the villagers in the past. You must have the power to see the past through this. Well then, believe in your grandfather's words. Let's go to Ishino-Otaki. Ishino-Otaki is where you went to the east after leaving the village. Do you know how hard it is? Even if I stay here, nothing will start. Let's go. I don't really need to sleep in the bed here. There's a chest here. A holy night. Templar's uniforms. What the heck? The mayor's home is destroyed. Oh my goodness. That's Jemba's house. Versus monsters are large outside the village. I guess I'll sleep in the bed. It's like Eric said. We shouldn't be hanging around here anymore. Let's head on over to the Cobblestone Falls and see what's going on over there. It's time to head over to Cobblestone Falls. Here's Cobblestone Falls right here. And there's the three sides of Chaki who's talking about. And the Queen of Dundrasil. The Luminary. I'm sorry I couldn't be with you. Looks like it's your mother's letter. What about that letter? A letter of love. After I met you from the future, I decided to come here because I wanted to be your guide. Did you read my mother's letter? I was on that letter and headed for the kingdom of Delcada, but it seemed like I had a bad feeling about it. Why was the blood of the dragon attacked by a demon and called a demon? I couldn't even take a look at it. I had no choice but to look at it with my own eyes. I'll give you the magic stone that opens the door to the journey of the east. I'll use it to turn the world around and seek the truth. I can't look at it. I was happy to be your guide. The magic stone that opens the door to the journey of the east. Well, this is also a ship I've been riding. Your grandfather said that the journey of the east is where I want to say it, but before that, let me set my goal. The Red Orb is located ahead of this road. Delcada is a temple. Can you go grab the orb now? Now what?  I think we're gonna go try to find the next safe spot before we go off. The eel slimes around here. The Kingsbarrow was right next to it. I think that looks like a good spot to take a rest for a while. We'll continue next time going into the Kingsbarrow, hopefully defeating those two griffins and getting back the Red Orb. After that, we'll venture off into the world. Thanks for watching and I'll see you next time.


Congratulations dear Handler-Verlag on your 75th anniversary. The blue editions of Handler have accompanied me since my youth and I am still a convinced Handler fan today. Thank you for 75 years of tireless editorial work and excellent editions. I owe Handler an always fresh approach to classical music and I am already looking forward to the next 75 years.


This is the animation minute as always it's our jobs Super Spline is looking for a remote lead animator Unity is hiring gameplay animators of all levels icon creative is looking for animators of all levels as well Steam Ruler Studios is hiring as well from animators to riggers to developers and Steel Ruler Studios is looking for technical animators and Bioware is looking for a bunch of stuff including animation That's it for jobs.  It's a chrome add-on Another week another awesome threat by Edward here this time. It's directors notebooks as always great threat great tips great Anecdotes.  It's so cute. These are awesome SpongeBob SquarePants cast as humans I absolutely love this the colors the animation the look of it if you could just swim all the time Just doing this. I'm in that is a cool version of the alorex crew Also, Lord X is awesome and speak of Star Trek. He are Star Trek designer ill-strived Jim Martin's concept art for Enterprise I love these great That's cool Text up is always neat speak of awesome art. I love that. That's great. That's cool colors Love it Continuing with art animated dune would be something that's pretty cool. I would totally watch that. That's right We're gonna have pixel art. I love the staff though watch this again when it vibrates That's cool. I like it. Here's a game that looks like something I need to have I know I need it I need it, but it looks very cool 16-bit style pixel art Mediterranean called soldiers Not done with pixel art. Oh look at this. I know this is not real But this is so cool. I Everything's awesome and last but at least more pixel art this time. It's about Lilo and stitch I love that too. Very cute. Love that movie still that first one is so good That's it for the animation minute. You can find it every Monday on my channel at 10 a.m


Welcome into the Jason Taney show. I'm Joe Wombo, joined with Jason Taney, head coach of the baseball team. And coach, you guys, go down south again for another three game set, one and two this weekend. But scoring a lot of runs. We definitely scored some runs this weekend. We had, I guess, we scored 17 on Friday and a combined 22 on Saturday. So we're hitting the ball. Unfortunately, when you score that many runs and you lose, that usually means something else is going on. Pitching wasn't too bad. We struggled defensively. I'm really hoping that first weekend, we pitched really well. Second weekend, we hit really well. So hopefully next weekend, we'll actually put it all together and go 3-0 at our own home tournament that's coming up. And that home tournament, you're going to have another class of ball here. You're going to have Frostberg, Scranton, and Keystone. You guys are going to need to bring it. Yeah, we're going to need to bring our A game. And if you include the fact that Hopkins is hosting the other half of the tournament, Hopkins and Cortland as well. Good Lord, those are all World Series teams in the last five years, except for us and Scranton. But it was worth it. It's fun. We're going to enjoy it. Last time we played Cortland, we lost to them twice in both one-run ball games in North Carolina a couple of years ago. Keystone and us, we used to be in the same conference. We played good games with them. And same with Frostberg. We've beaten Frostberg many a times, especially when we were in conference together. A little more challenging now. We didn't play that well the last time we played them. So hopefully this weekend we'll change it around a little bit. You mentioned in the season preview video that you set the schedule this way for a reason.  What is this weekend do in terms of getting you guys ready for more games down the season along?  We try to play in three game sets, because that's what we do in the conference. So we want us to get used to playing one on Friday, two on Saturday, or something along those lines for pitching. But really what we're trying to do is continue to extend our starting pitching, continue to get more innings out of them. We're hurt this week with a couple of things. Dan Williams was not available this weekend due to an injury. Not season threatening, but probably missed a start. Maybe two, we'll see. But that hurt us a little bit. But other than that, we're trying to stretch out our other starters. So the come conference time in a couple of weeks, we're two weeks away from a conference opener, our starting pitchers can go seven innings comfortably. That's really what we're trying to build up to. That's what my next question was going to be, is lifting the pitching count or higher, hiding, making the pitch count higher for the starters and try to limit how much you need the bullpen. But is that the game plan as we go on this weekend? It is, it is. First weekend, our starters, 80 pitch max. We'll pull them out in the middle of an inning if we have to, with 80 pitches. Second weekend, we try to extend to 90. This weekend, we're trying to get up closer to 100. After this weekend, everything becomes performance-based. If you're pitching well, you stay out there. We never extend our pitchers too far. But it's going to be about how well you're performing. And then, yeah, that'll help limit the innings in the bullpen, because our bullpen was struggling a little bit. We think we may have found something here at the end of the game yesterday, at the end of the second game. We'll see how this plays out. But we have something special in the mound, I think. That's been hidden all year. And getting back to your home field, it's a tough field to play on, hitting-wise. Hopefully, the hitting that you guys had going on this weekend will continue. But the weather, being more up north, is going to play a little bit more of a factor. Absolutely. We've had some great weather so far. First, I guess, all but yesterday's games, we're basically in shorts as coaching staff until game time. Yesterday was a little colder, but we still hit. So we'll see what happens this weekend. But with us, the wind starts to play a much bigger factor on our home field. Friday is looking a little wet and a little windy. And we'll see what we do on Friday. We'll see if that's a conversation we have with their coach and try to adjust some things. But yeah, we'll see how the hitting goes. We've continued to hit the ball well, though. Guys like Kevin Copas, he's got 15 RBIs and six games. And he's adopted our hitting philosophy and what we've changed this year. And he hit his first career home run on Saturday. His first career triple on Saturday. I was even a joke he hit his first career double, but that was not the case. But no, he's been tearing the cover off the ball. And what's nice is it's not just him. It's been up and down our lineup. Freshmen coming in, bats right away, newcomers. We're just hitting the ball over the place right now. I hope we do this all year. It's a strong lineup, and it's a versatile lineup. Any of those guys could pretty much hit anywhere in those slots. In addition to that, we've got some speed guys, too. I think we have 18 stolen bases in six games. So that's three a game. We've got a couple guys that can really run the base as well. And they've got the ability to, and they're going to steal some bases. We're going to let them go. We'll take the base that they're going to give it to us. I was shaping up to be a pretty exciting season, especially with those numbers like that. And we're awfully excited for you guys as a home opener over on the Greenspring campus. Yep, where it's going to be the newly named sugar field is what it's going to be named. Our scoreboard is, I believe it was completed this weekend. It was supposed to be. I know we get out to practice here tomorrow. We'll see it. But it's going to be sugar field, and it is ready to go. Well, Coach, we wish you the best of luck this weekend. And thank you for your time this week. Thank you. He's Jason Taney. I'm Joe Wamba. This has been the Jason Taney Show.


What is going on guys welcome back to the channel critical overlord here So we're gonna be talking about the upcoming stranger trilogy from Lionsgate and Renny Harlan Which has now officially been confirmed from Entertainment Weekly who also gave us an exclusive first set of images to look at chapter 1 and Official titles they gave us official titles of the trilogy first set of images Comments from Renny Harlan himself and a confirmation that these films will indeed be arriving in theaters next year We're gonna be going over all of that in this video here today So I want to start off with Renny Harlan's comments and before I dive into that I do just want to say briefly these pictures. They do look fantastic to me I'm very satisfied with how they captured some of that essence of that first movie in these images when this Opportunity came to me Renny Harlan states in this interview the idea of not doing a remake or a reboot But doing a trilogy based on the original film I thought it was an incredible opportunity The strangest chapter 1 is close to the original movie in its setup of a young couple in an isolated environment in a house And a home invasion happening for random reasons the strangest chapter 2 and the strangest chapter 3 We'll explore what happens to the victims of this kind of violence and who the perpetrators are of this kind of violence Where are they coming from and why he also talked a little bit about the mass process He said we felt it was central to the movie that the masks are the same and I do want to remind you guys There was a time in the past where I did state that they were going to be keeping a similar Mass design and they followed through with that The mask in the strangers are not like the batsuit or something that evolves over years to us The strangers are the strangers and I as an audience member want to see them just the way they were in the original film Is there a place where you can find these masks? No It was a process of studying what they were like how were they made how they fit on the actors faces How to create that same impression? It was one of the real challenges of the movie He also highlighted how they wanted a realism aspect to the film with the characters We first meet with Madeline Pesh and her boyfriend Which of course is gonna be very important if you want me to invest in their bond and get me invested in this relationship That's clearly going to be at the center of this film I will say there again the images that were released they look fantastic Very reminiscent of that first movie and I'm going to assume that the characters We do not initially see in this first film because now the the casting and how stacked it was I know I am many many of you who messaged me were concerned that it seems kind of crowded But I immediately was neglecting the fact of course we're getting three movies So the cast can be spread out over these three movies So I don't expect us to have a crowded bunch in chapter one We'll meet this crowded bunch throughout the maybe chapter one chapter two and probably a lot of chapter three So I'm excited to see how this first film captures that essence of the original If it can stand on its own and if it can just be a gripping slasher film That's really all we need with some strong performances, which I know Madeline Pesh is going to knock it out of the park She's one of the best actors I recall from Riverdale even though I gave up on that show during season two so Harlan did state that this trilogy is based on the original film But keep in mind an actress who was also involved with these set of films did state that it's in the same world So I'm still expecting some sort of loose connections to these past two movies and I cannot wait to see how they tie it all up But again, I'm gonna assume that these characters that are featured throughout the trilogy some of them if not more More than one for certain are going to be one of our strangers one of our titular strangers what their motives will be I don't know I really sincerely do not want to see a cult angle where they're all tied into the previous films because they're part of a cult But if they go that route if it's executed well, I will say it's executed well and commended I just also at the same time would have preferred less cult stuff. I'm pretty tired of seeing cults I mean we got a cult in Jeepers Creepers 4 and while we're on the topic of these new redesigns If you're disappointed in the redesign, I will say that Jeepers Creepers fans who are also fans of the strangers You're probably far more pleased with this Than what you got with the recent return of the Jeepers Creepers franchise and how very little they seem to care about Preserving that original look at least with these new strangers designs You can tell that they are trying to pay respect to that original set of films and that original look Yes, there are noticeable differences, but not to the point where I'm like, oh, that's not the strangers The way when I see the Jeepers Creepers 4 and the Creeper makeup for the Creeper and Jeepers Creepers 4 I'm like, what the hell is that? So I like the new mass designs. I like the way they look I like how it's preserving what we got in those first two movies. Let me know what you think about this down in the comment section below What do you think about the new images? Are you excited to see the strangers trilogy in theaters next year? Why or why not or really do you not care if you haven't already? Of course, make sure you go ahead and subscribe turn on post notifications so that you never miss a video in the description I'll have links on my social media accounts. I am on Facebook Twitter and Instagram. You can message me there Of course, let me see movies news reviews like me to cover in the future and with all that in mind guys I will see you in the next video


Hello and welcome to day 65 of the Mindfulness Challenge. Today we're going to do a relaxing meditation. I'll see you in a moment. And welcome to day 65 of the Mindfulness Challenge. It's Saturday here and it's still in lockdown in Wales. England have lifted some of their restrictions, but in Wales it's stay home, stay safe, save lives. That's what it's about. So I'm here but I'm enjoying myself because I'm a very big sports fan and I can watch German football today live, which is going to be fantastic. But for you what are we going to do on day 65 of the Mindfulness Challenge? We are working towards cultivating this practice and discipline of being able to be in the moment mindfully breath to breath moment to moment. And this is going to be visualising a very peaceful and beautiful place. A place that you can visit. It's a guided meditation that allows you to have some rest, have some healing, have some peace and have some tranquility. What I want you to do at this point is just get comfortable. We're going to go straight into it and pop a picture up.  Just sit back and relax. But obviously you can't do this if you're doing anything and it requires your full attention. But when you find that comfortable spot just sit and just listen to my voice and just follow my direction. Take that moment now just to take a breath in and relax. Breathe deeply through your abdomen, through your belly and feel yourself in your body right now in this moment. And as you breathe, allow your body to completely and fully relax. Stress, strain, emotions just flowing out of you on each out breath. And as you breathe in you feel your body becoming more relaxed and limp and comfortable. Just breathing out. Just bring your attention to your forehead, your brow and just breathe it in and just let the tension from your brow go. Bring the awareness to your lips and as you breathe in just let the tension from your lips go. Bring your awareness now to your eyes and as you breathe in just feel your eyes becoming very relaxed and any tension or stress just going. Just relax in the comfortable, beautiful stillness that's around you. Just feeling that beautiful energy of stillness around you. Now you feel completely relaxed and centered.  This could be a place you've been before like a woodland or cool shading and there may be some towering ancient trees that protect you in this mammoth embrace or it could be a white sand beach where the ocean waves gently lap the shore and the smell of sea makes you feel at home. It could be a place built entirely in your imagination a lovely slowly swaying bridge that you stand on watching a babbling brook flow away beneath it or an ancient oak in the autumn something out of an old legend or garden leaves fall around you as you sit into the shade and watch the golden orange sun pass over the horizontal in the twilight.