5th Annual Asset Builder Awards

Clearing the Streets

With big snowstorms, I tend to get three types of constituent requests:

1) "I live on a small street and it hasn't been plowed."
Easy enough to handle...I call someone at DPS and it is done.  Sometimes it is done before I even make the call, which makes me look super awesome.

The next two types are two sides of a coin:

2) "The plows haven't plowed my street wide enough."  I will make a call to DPS and then two hours later someone on that same street will cal to complain:

3) "The plows keep pushing snow into my driveway and I have to keep re-shoveling."

Folks, please have some patience.  There is a lot of snow out there.  DPS crews have been working all night. 

Even though the Governor has lifted the ban on driving, Newburyport's street parking ban remains in effect.  By not parking on the street, you will be assisting the plow drivers in getting the streets cleaned up.

Feel free to notify me of any issues you may be having.

edcameronNBPT@gmail.com or cell 978-518-0786

Election Season

From Daily News:

January 25, 2013

City announces dates for elections

Newburyport Daily News

NEWBURYPORT — With fall elections and winter inaugurations concluded, city officials have released dates relevant to municipal election in 2013.
Some local leaders, including Mayor Donna Holaday, have speculated that the number of this year’s candidates for City Council might be larger than that of 2011, in part because local issues may have inspired some residents to run for office.
All six ward councilors ran unopposed in 2011.
Also, seven residents volunteered to fill a vacancy on the 11-member council earlier this month, perhaps an indication of increased interest.
The position of mayor will also be at stake.
The mayor’s term will now be four years, and the position will pay a historic high of $98,000 as the result of the passage of a new charter.
The following is a timeline for political activity relating to the municipal election:
The last day to obtain nomination papers for local office is Friday, July 26.
The final date to submit nomination papers is Tuesday, Aug. 6.
The last day to file withdrawals or objections to nomination papers is Thursday, Aug. 22.
The preliminary election is slated for Tuesday, Sept. 17. The last day for voters to register is Wednesday, Aug. 28.
The biennial municipal election is scheduled for Tuesday, Nov. 5.
City officials say that certified signatures of at least 50 voters are the minimum necessary to register as a candidate for the council.

Vacant Council Seat

These are the people who have submitted a letter of interest in filling the vacancy soon to be created when Councillor Ives leaves as of Jan 1, 2013.

I believe this will be on the Council agenda for our first meeting of the year.

First	Middle	Last	Address
Paula	Hudson	Chambers	31 Federal Street
Larry	G.	Giunta, Jr.	139 Crow Lane
Steven	R.	Hutchinson	76 Longfellow Drive
Larry	V.	McCavitt	5 Madison Street
Ralph	P.	Orlando	4 William Hall Drive
Robert	R.	Rothberg	15 School Street
Warren	P.	Russo	182 Northern Blvd
Mary	E.	Zinck	6 Laurel Road

Death By A Thousand Papercuts: 14 Russia

Zoning Board of Appeals Agenda for December 11, 2012
http://www.cityofnewburyport.com/Planning/Zoning%20Board/Agendas/12-11-12%20zba%20agenda.pdf 

2012-047 Brown Square Realty Trust - Al Clifford, Trustee 14 Russia Street Special Permit for Non-Conformities demolish existing structure and construct new 2 1/2 story single family home 

You can read the P. Preservationist's comments here: http://brickandtree.wordpress.com/2012/12/04/demolishing-one-house-at-a-time/

Here is the house:

Public Transportation in Newburyport and other Boston Suburbs

This is something I stumbled on and it's a great way to visualize how people get around in general.

From http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/11/transit-visualizations/

Tiny lights swarm like fireflies, representing trains, buses, and ferries shuffling people across different metropolises over the course of a day. These videos show off 24 hours of public transportation in cities such as Boston; Chicago; Washington, D.C.; Auckland, New Zealand; and Montreal.

Programmer Andrew Walker, who runs the Vancouver-based Sumus Technology, made these videos using a custom-built software program in his spare time. Because he works mostly on scientific satellites, his original idea was to design a program for satellite-tracking visualization.

“As part of the learning process for that, I started thinking about visualizations for other things,” he said. “I just happened to go a local transit meeting in Vancouver where I learned about the GTFS format.”

GTFS stands for General Transit Feed Specification, a file format for mass transit schedules that Google maps uses to calculate how to get from point A to point B when you click on the public transit option. Google gets the information from transit authorities in cities around the world and provides them to make our lives easier. Walker has thus far made visualizations for more than 40 cities and said he plans to continue uploading new ones. Eventually he hopes to include more features, such as the ability to highlight one route and real-time data rather than just transit schedules, but only two or three cities have made such data publicly available.

Any city dweller can appreciate the videos. There is something mesmerizing about watching the place where you live slowly light up in activity as the day progresses. Some cities buzz with action, especially New York, but surprisingly Los Angeles, which is more well known for its freeways than its metro. Interestingly, many of the cities’ subways appear to be converging on an ideal form.

Here below is the Boston area video from a typical 3am to 3am based on schedules from the MBTA.  I don't know if the Regional Transit Authorities are included in the data but I was struck by 1) that there seems to be no public transit along the circumferential (is that a word?) routes like 128 and 495 2) if you don't have a car and you work at 3am, you probably can't get to your job and related to 1 & 2 is 3) our transit system is very outmoded and presumes that people only go in and out of Boston.



Perhaps this explains why a relatively small percentage of Newburyporters choose to use public transit (commuter rail, Merrimack Valley Regional Transit Authority, and the subsidized bus lines like C&J and Coach) to get to where they need to go.  The scheduling and routing stinks.  Combined with higher and higher fares it's no wonder that even people who are interested in alternatives choose to get in their cars and drive.

Newburyport Property Tax Rate in FY 13

Here is a link to the story on Newburyport's tax rate: 

http://www.newburyportnews.com/local/x520553804/-184-hike-for-Port-taxpayers

Here is the link to the story on Amesbury's tax rate:

http://www.newburyportnews.com/local/x520554319/Amesbury-property-tax-rate-may-set-record-in-state 

Here is the link to Salisbury's tax rate:
http://www.newburyportnews.com/local/x1839363904/Salisbury-homeowners-to-see-112-tax-hike

One simple way to describe Proposition 2 1/2 is that overall local property taxes can increase each year by up to 2.5% over the previous year's limit, plus any new growth and any overrides/debt exclusions.The bottom line is that for the first time in a number of years Newburyport's overall property taxes were not increased by the maximum allowed of 2.5%.

Newburyport's new rate is $13.32 instead of the $13.42 allowed.   So that is a bit of a break for taxpayers.

In 2010 Mayor John Moak and the Council reduced the tax rate from the maximum allowed by $0.01.

In 2003 Mayor Al Lavender and the Council reduced the tax rate from the maximum allowed by $0.15.

Our FY 2012 residential tax rate of $12.80 was the 114th lowest in Massachusetts; in other words, 237 communities had a higher residential tax rate.

Our FY 2012 commercial tax rate of $12.80 was the 82nd lowest in Massachusetts; in other words, 269 communities had a higher commercial tax rate.

Late note: One reader noticed a key thing: just because the tax rate is low doesn't mean that taxes are low.

So (as I said) we have a relatively low residential tax rate and 237 towns/cities are higher than we are.

But (and I'll put this online soon) our average single family tax bill is higher than all but about 68 communities.  Because our home values are on average higher, the average bill even with somewhat lower tax rates ends up being pretty high.

Below is a chart I created of the historic tax rate each year per $1,000 of value since 1982. The table of data is further below.  The information and much more is at http://www.mass.gov/dor/local-officials/municipal-data-and-financial-management/data-bank-reports/

City	FY	Tax Rate
Newburyport	1982	23.90
Newburyport	1983	24.60
Newburyport	1984	22.78
Newburyport	1985	22.78
Newburyport	1987	11.79
Newburyport	1988	12.61
Newburyport	1989	13.46
Newburyport	1990	11.72
Newburyport	1991	11.99
Newburyport	1992	13.53
Newburyport	1993	15.49
Newburyport	1994	16.02
Newburyport	1995	16.62
Newburyport	1996	16.65
Newburyport	1997	17.03
Newburyport	1998	17.59
Newburyport	1999	16.37
Newburyport	2000	16.81
Newburyport	2001	17.44
Newburyport	2002	13.11
Newburyport	2003	13.65
Newburyport	2004	14.29
Newburyport	2005	10.52
Newburyport	2006	10.26
Newburyport	2007	10.09
Newburyport	2008	10.13
Newburyport	2009	10.93
Newburyport	2010	11.66
Newburyport	2011	12.07
Newburyport	2012	12.80
Newburyport	2013	13.32

Happy Thanksgiving

Our rural ancestors, with little blest,
Patient of labour when the end was rest,
Indulged the day that housed their annual grain,
With feasts, and off'rings, and a thankful strain.
~Alexander Pope

Newburyport State Senate Results by Ward...Great Job Katy!