Town Manager and Tax Collector Report
I want to take this opportunity to thank all Town of Colebrook employees for their hard work and loyalty to Colebrook.
A Colebrook citizen came to me last spring and said they would like to anonymously donate $3,000.00 for a worthy project. They were concerned about the Mohawk River Retaining Wall falling into the river and the damage it would cause. Several other worthy projects and charities were discussed but the person left it up to town officials to decide how best to use the money. It was placed in an account until the town decided to utilize it to secure the $290,000.00 federal funds Senator Sununu set aside for this project. Even though the Senator had, the funds set aside, Colebrook had to file a federal application, which required studies and reports from the engineer.
The Town of Colebrook is very fortunate to have citizens and organizations donating money and volunteers donating their time to work on all the various committees and projects. Many Main Street buildings have been restored and the Arts Center and Williams Building projects are progressing nicely. The many events that citizens enjoy during the year take an enormous amount of volunteers. I want to thank all of you for making this possible.
This past year all department heads gave a quarterly report to the Board of Selectmen detailing what their departments had accomplished and how much money they had saved the town. It turned into a friendly competition between the police chief and public works director to see who could save the most. An attempt to list more town information, including the savings, on the web site will be made during the 2009 year. Town of Colebrook Web site is www.colebrook-nh.com.
It is hard for a department to save more than the public works department due to their advantage of being able to use materials or goods that has been dropped off at the transfer station. The metal and steel they used to fabricate or weld comes from the metal pile. Whenever anyone drops off furniture or appliances that are still usable, the objects are set to the side and made available to anyone that needs them. This procedure not only helps people in need; it also reduces the amount of demolition debris trucked to another facility.
Last winter Sheldon Gray repaired the exposed and broken water main in the Mohawk River at the Pleasant Street Bridge. Because this repair was completed with a DES emergency wetland permit, the pipe could not be placed underneath the riverbed. It is still exposed to the ice and whatever debris comes with high water conditions. The town needs to apply for a full wetland permit and relay this pipe underneath the riverbed.
The second broken water main crossing in the Mohawk River was at the Route 26 Bridge. The DES permit allowed this crossing to be laid five (5) feet beneath the riverbed. A twelve (12) inch water main and valve were installed by SCI from Vermont.
Chief Cass and Roland Cotnoir spoke with officials at the Berlin prison about inmate labor doing projects for the town. Inmates that are taken out in the communities to do these projects are minimum risk and close to release time. The men were very conscientious about their work. They scraped and painted the water building at the rear of the town parking lot, painted the courtroom and scraped, primed and painted 90% of one side of the town hall. This summer we hope to have them finish the building and do more projects for the town. While David Hicks and Bob Grant were gathering staging for the men to use, Millard Crawford finished a project and brought his staging to the town hall for them to use. I want to thank all the people listed in this project for making it come together and be
successful.
The town office was short staffed last winter with one person out for surgery and another on maternity leave. This made the budgeting process, balancing year-end reports and preparing the town report a very challenging time for the staff. In June Janey Moore became a full-time employee dividing her time between Deputy Town Clerk, general office, tax collection and assessing.
Another challenge for the town office staff was the completion of the town wide mapping project. For example, quite often deeds list acreage as ten (10) acres more or less and the town taxed on 10 acres. Now that Cartographic Associates measured the parcels with a GPS system, the parcels are listed as 10.2 or 9.5 acres. This created around 700 parcel acreage changes. Office staff worked with property owners and Cartographic Associates, Inc. to come to a consensus of which parcels were listed correctly. The 2008 tax bills were issued late for both billings.
The Town of Colebrook’s assessing firm, Avitar Associates, is conducting a property revaluation this year. This project is contracted to be completed by the end of October. The first bill will be issued in June and the second bill as soon as the town has the new assessments, enters them in the system and issues the bills.
Even though the economy is slowing down in the North Country, tax monies came in better than expected. This is due partially to all lending institutions requiring their real estate loans escrow property taxes. We have some families having a hard time paying their taxes. Please know that all payments, large or small, are welcome. If you have questions about your taxes or making payments on a bill, please call the office and talk to Melanie or Janey.
Fifteen (15) days after the 2008-second issue property taxes were due, 10.37% were unpaid and at the end of thirty (30) days, it dropped to 8.82%. Considering the economy, this is very good. We can only hope next year’s percentages will not be higher.
If you have, any questions please feel free to call the office at 237-4142 or 4070.
Respectfully,
Donna J. Caron
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