I'm going to educate everyone on how a residential exemption a town or city votes to give relief to it's home owners works.

   Good evening, as many of you know I'm running for Selectman to not only get our budget and tax situation under control. I'd also like to do a residential exemption to give you, our citizens who stuck with our town through thick and thin something back.

   Here is the link to the residential exemption the city of Boston offers it's citizens. You need to apply every fiscal year and you must own and occupy your home to be eligible:

http://www.cityofboston.gov/assessing/exemptions/resexempt.asp

   There is talk that this would be just an exemption for elderly or folks who are in a hardship situation. Nothing could be farther from the truth. My brother, a Boston Police Officer who lives in one of the more affluent Boston neighborhoods gets this exemption. He works, his wife works for our Dedham PD as a dispatcher and they get this exemption by applying every fiscal year.

   The only thing that disqualifies you for this exemption essentially is if you don't live there. My plan would give this to the 9,000+ home owners once we figure out the budget issues and try to get a hold on the towns spending.
I would not do anything that would hurt our core services or our schools. The town needs to be able to operate. I just want to see that we use reasonable spending to operate and not continue to hit the taxpayers with continued overspending. If we can't see any blue books with line items we have no idea where that money has gone. We need transparency first to see what we are spending and why, then figure out more cost efficient solutions and then as the debt continues to decrease from projects coming off the books give our citizens the exemption I feel they deserve.

Here is some more info. This is the City of Somerville's residential exemption. Similar to Boston. Again no language stating this is only for certain people. 

http://www.somervillema.gov/sites/default/files/Res-ExemptionFY2014.pdf

   This exemption is also for all citizens that owner occupy their home. There is not any language that this is just for elderly people or folks with hardships. It was voted on by their mayor and alderman group and they give this to their citizens. Their biggest stake holders. They're home owners.

Dr. Teehan responded to my letter about my take on taxes and the residential exemption. This is the link he provided.

http://www.massresources.org/real-estate-tax-exemptions.html

He is grouping this program into my plan. I never promoted this plan. If I am elected and after the budget propose and exemption. We would give residents in these categories the option of choosing which ever program benefits them more so if the state program paid more than our exemption they would only get the state one and vice versa. 

This is not the same thing as what I'm proposing. This program is specifically for the elderly and for folks that fall into a hardship situation or have a disability or have lost a spouse/parent. This is a program anyone can apply for. This isn't a program I can propose. It already exists. Any Dedham resident that falls into this criteria can apply for this and this has nothing to do with my plan. They have every right to apply.

Here is Brookline's exemption:

 http://www.brooklinema.gov/index.php/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=171:residentialexe...

   Brookline like us has a Board of Selectman. If you read this they give this exemption to their residents to promote owner occupancy. Their language is they value their homeowners and reward that loyalty with an exemption. I've been pretty loyal to Dedham, my fellow 9,000+ fellow homeowners as well. Shouldn't Dedham value us the same way? I think so. Their's is done by assessing a lesser value by a certain percentage.

Let me delve further. This is a report about Cambridge from FY 2014:

http://blog.charlescherney.com/real-estate-cambridge/how-to-read-your-cambridge-massachusetts-tax-bi...

This is a Realtor who quotes the Cambridge property tax as $8.38 per $1000 of value. So they essentially pay half of what we do and they also get an exemption. If all these towns and cities can do it why shouldn't we value our citizens that are stakeholders by virtue of owning a home? 

   You see folks Dr. Teehan doesn't understand what I'm trying to do or he is being ill advised. I'm not trying to tax anyone further. Quite the contrary I'm taxing you less if I can. Where Dennis, myself and the six other candidates do agree is that we do need to look at the budget first. I can't just wave a magic wand and propose an exemption. That would be ill advised and could create problems. Step one we figure out what we actually spent the last three years and start the process of creating transparency, the next step is we see where there is potential for waste and we also look for more cost efficient solutions to these line items so that we can lower our budget. After we do these two steps then we look at proposing and implementing an exemption everyone can live with and one that doesn't hurt our core services so that that town can not only operate, but we can also afford to live in. 

   I personally can't stand the fact that we've been increased 13 straight years going back to 2002. These increases will reach 80% or more once the fiscal year 2015 budget is finalized. This is unacceptable to me. It should be to each and every one of you. I won't stand for it and will be your voice on that board if you would give me the privilege of being one of the two candidates you cast a vote for on April 12th, 2014. Thank you so very much Dedham.