Board of Equalization Meeting   6/2/2023

So I'd be in favor of it.

Anthony, I believe that the other than the board is only the board members who can be remote according to the

But those are not strictly required legally.

All three of those things we've got to, I guess, decide.

The quality of those is varied pretty widely in my view.

Any other thoughts on recording?

I don't think it necessarily has an impact on what we say and how we say it, but it may.

Sometimes the minutes are a little dry and you miss small inflections that you might think are going to be useful at the circuit court level or whatever the appeal process is.

Any other thoughts?

I guess we'll start getting off the name.

I guess the last thing, I'll double dip here and just say, you know, in general I favor like transparency and openness in the meetings and the spirit of FOIA and the recording is probably a step in that direction, so.

Karen, do you have a?

Transparency, but I also recognize what Mr. Lynch is saying that, you know, we need to be able to, you know, debate and discuss these issues and, you know, without worrying about, you know, our own, well, I don't know, I guess I'll just fall on the side of transparency.

Going on to having the applicants and the observers appear via Zoom.

Do we want to give that as an option to applicants to appear via Zoom?

Any thoughts there?

I think due to the large number of hearings, we should make it an option.

Well, what would be the criteria?

or if it's just for convenience sake.

Any strong feelings on this one?

Appellants to have that same ability to appear remotely for a reason.

Should it be a medical issue, limits the medical issues, or should we do the, do we want to actually know why they're doing it?

How about that?

Any thoughts on limiting it to that situation?

and that that might be difficult or make some of these things even more contentious than it would be to just say we have a blanket policy of allowing zoom participation if requested you know within a certain number of days ahead of time or something similar.

I don't think necessarily we have to make that determination if we make that the rule.

I guess that could work.

Do we want to add any other possibilities or that's going to pretty much fit medical issue and inability to travel?

You open yourself up, you know, I can't travel because I ain't got nobody to watch my dog.

So any other thoughts?

And if you're saying that only in these certain situations, even pretty limited medical situations, that's not necessarily going to stop somebody from Arizona from coming in and just saying, well, I've got a medical issue.

Anyone think that we should just say everyone

It's just a little more skin in the game when you kinda show up.

Karen or Evan, any additional thoughts there?

No.

Nothing beyond what's been said.

Is that correct?

That's correct.

I might have to go down and make that assumption, but I was, I mean,

I don't think it's any different, really, watching it live than if you're going to make a recording anyway for them to watch live.

OK, so those are those three issues.

And then 4.6, we would keep the first half of that, administer remote meetings throughout

I think we can keep the language there and then

so it's clear that a quorum must be physically present.

Something to that effect for the next sentence and then maybe do a third sentence and saying that, or as long as the quorum is physically present, I don't know, or just.

the board members may participate remotely subject to 5.4 being met and a reason is provided.

say that board members may participate remotely in accordance with, I believe it's 2.23711, but Pete, you and I will, we can go afterwards and make sure the citation's correct, but my suggestion would simply just to be to cite the provision of FOIA that allows remote participation.

So that I'm assuming, let's say it's 3711, has that set out in terms of all the requirements that you had mentioned earlier?

So we don't have to talk about them specifically, just follow the code and we're good.

Well, the quorum physically present, but even that, I mean, 3711 sets that requirement out.

Okay.

All right.

So that works.

Should we remove only as required by statute based on our discussion?

Electronic recording is not in fact required by statute.

Okay, so that's, I think our consensus here was that we will go ahead and allow for, go ahead and have it recorded.

I think you want to just make the statement that you're going to.

Yeah, so we'll just delete only as required by statute, just shall be electronically recorded.

And then the.

Applicants appearing,

where should we must appear in person except it's under 8.3 maybe because it says the owner of a property who says was under a peer personally or be represented yeah I think it would be under 8.3 yeah I believe I agree take that out of the end of 8.2.2 which one oh any person appearing before the BUE including per hearings must appear in

and then something to the effect of accepts in the event of a medical issue or inability to travel may appear electronically.

Does that work?

That sounds good to me.

I would just say a new sentence.

The person appearing, yeah, may appear electronically in cases of, if they have a medical issue or inability to travel or something, I don't know.

Where are we at right now?

We are going to get more.

Does anybody else have any objection to that?

Just no objection from me.

I don't know if you want to allow that kind of flexibility but I know there's going to be a desire for some of it and typically it's going to be your commercial properties that are going to be take more time and your residential properties that take less generally.

Those are kind of the three options I see on the table.

And just out of respect for everybody's time, I would favor a shorter period, a highlighting, if you will, instead of an exhaustive review of the papers already presented.

Karen, do you have a

that require a little more information gathering.

But maybe we should allow for an additional 15 minutes if the board needs additional information.

So not necessarily right immediately after we hear the case.

I think you should do it all in the 30 minutes.

That's what I think.

I agree.

Right.

Kind of like, OK, this is how much time you have left.

How much time do we need to discuss it?

Because we're not going to be just working off of what they're saying.

Because when you build in there, rebuttal time.

Yeah, but we can always, if our deliberations go over, and there might be deliberations that might be really short, our deliberations go over, we always have the opportunity at the end of the day to come back to whatever we did and finish our conversation.

That's fine.

and it's I don't think that's like willing an argument and that could be in writing too they could submit to us a letter or with the attachments that we've asked for I think if they want to do it that way we should we give that I mean

My experience is the rebuttal time was not very well used, and if we just had one side then the other, that might simplify.

I think we will have some folks who are upset if they don't get their – are able to say

So those sometimes aren't the same thing but I think it's very important that you do give them the opportunity.

And that's the only, Karen please.

10-15 be there by 10-15 in case we can hear them earlier than 11 say.

Karen I don't know if we have only we're only doing 30 minutes I feel like we're not going to have extra time though.

Okay all right okay.

I think that's what's going to end up happening is hopefully we do have an elaborations to end within 10 minutes, but I would feel like we might be using that any extra time we have in between to finish up maybe conversations.

I feel like my concern is kind of twofold.

So I think just to be aware of that unless they have an excuse.

So do you want them to be early and give like a please arrive

We will see them right at the top if we're not going to.

So in this case, you're going to have the next person waiting and they're going to be you're never going to be deliberating, you know, alone.

I mean, we can't like.

Be aware of the fact that these people do deserve our time and attention, as much time and attention as it needs.

So.

Not necessarily.

OK. That's the kind of what people are bringing up is what we usually do is one person will leave and then the other person will wait and the hall will deliberate.

In this case, I think with an accelerated schedule, it would be different though.

I mean, we're going to be deliberating, but we're going to be deliberating.

So it's like we're looking at numbers.

to give ourselves 10 minutes.

Yes, I'm good with that.

Okay, so we'll do that.

But I think

If we want to request that they give us additional information, does it need to be under the order of procedure or is that just something we can just do without it being formally part of it?

I don't think, unless Anthony has any different

It can be quick, but it's got to be voted on whether to extend time or not.

or I think this goes to your letter.

So if the hearing reaches its 30 minutes and they're still deliberating and they're gonna stop deliberating to go to the next hearing and then finish their deliberation at the end of the meeting, are you saying they need to vote to stop their deliberation or is that, are you talking about something else?

One way you could handle it is at the beginning of a hearing, let's say, the board could decide to have the actual arguments take up to 30 minutes for that particular hearing and then push the deliberations till afterwards.

and we may have to just as part of our time minutes might be also hearing them argue that's why they need additional time and then we'll just say but I think in that event that we push back our deliberations on that.

Getting my terminology right.

So in this case then, would you want an eight, because this is very specific about timing for each part.

Well, somewhere in there that just gives you the ability and makes it clear how you would do it.

Because of the large number of cases this year.

Yeah.

I think we should request in advance or we'll get a request every time or people never can get everything out that they think they need to say when they've got a timeline like this so

If that's not part of the rules of procedure, are we limited in asking for that?

That's an Anthony question.

One more time?

And if, do we need to spell that out in these rules of procedure or if it's not there, can we still do it?

Yeah, you can absolutely do that without it being in the rules of procedure.

If they do make that request, then we have to deal with it.

And that's part of the question.

Do we need a rule for that?

I would not recommend going beyond the 30 minutes, the 30 minutes standard without there being a written rule contemplating the possibility.

the prior meeting, like at least a week in advance of the meeting, something like that.

So we would have to have an open meeting between the time of the request and the actual hearing happening.

But if when we call him next week or tomorrow,

and he says, wait a minute, I need more than 30 minutes, and then you can just in your next meeting, not when he's having a hearing, but in your next meeting, just- But that comes with a timeline, we just have to have, in terms of the request, because if we're making a rule that the request for an extension must be made, I don't know how many, it has to be made, at a minimum, it has to be made before the next, before the prior meeting, so I don't know how we want to put that in there, or do we say 14 days, or do we say, because we have to be able to consider it.

Oh, so I'm saying that he wouldn't even set up a hearing date prior to this until we answer this question.

We just have to have a time frame where before the actual hearing, we were able to consider that.

We'll have to know when we're setting it up how many time slots basically we would need to give them at that point.

We'll have an opportunity to hear the issue of extension and then also then we can have it heard anytime after.

So do you need to make the decision 30 days before the hearing that they would have?

It might be the fourth or I guess we're doing the timing in there.

And we want that to be in writing with the reasons why it would.

Where are we calling them?

Appellant must submit.

The other thing to think about as we're thinking about timing, there are going to be people who withdraw or may not show up

with an explanation at least 30 days prior to their hearing dates.

Or it'll just be deliberated in the next board meeting.

Yeah, I mean, as long as they do it, then our mechanism is gonna just be deal with it.

Is West Mr. Canterbury the only

However, knowing some of the applicants in the past that were tax reps and how long they talked, I would not be surprised if we got more requests for longer time.

So what does 15702 say?

Because we certainly aren't going to deny anybody that applied after March 30th this year, because it's been our procedure for years.

Anybody have thoughts on the language there?

So what exists the language before was just simply said 30 days from when I was stated the letter, the letter as the assessor's letter as a response to the appeal to the to the review request.

But then the date that you have on your letter, you're mailing it right away, I'm

So please, anyone, if you all have thoughts,

That's kind of the current debate that's going on, or the situation that we have.

We'll have a lot less hearings, potentially.

I'll make a proposal then.

March 30th or 30 days after the date of the assessor's letter response to the review, you can change that word in a little bit, or the DOE shall not accept it.

You might want to say whichever is later.

That is the policy we actually have been following and it would be clear if it's here and we will clean up all the rest of the wording going into next year.

So Mars 30 days after assessor's letter of review is this response?

Review response, yes.

and if you want even more clarity, you can add another sentence that says that the due date, that it must be received or postmarked as of the due date.

It's our date.

Okay, sorry.

I mean, do we wanna use a different date on that, or do we wanna just go with what's on the letter?

I'll pay my tax bill and how do you determine if it might be late?

That'll be 30 days after the date of my letter.

so it's just a consistent thing.

That is a weakness of this

So whether you have a week to think about it or not, all you have to do is apply.

What's happening here?

Now the mail's gotten better, but was it last year?

And we didn't have that issue even then, because the 30-day window pretty much covers that.

And it should be, if it doesn't get to them, it should be, at least by that point, it should be returned to us.

You might have 27, somebody else might have

It sounds like we'll just keep the, I mean, between the discussion here is we'll just keep what it is, but do you all have any additional thoughts on this?

So I'm fine leaving things as they are.

Karen, do you have anything you want to add to that or?

It's fine.

So what's, I guess, Pete, since this is something you feel strongly about, I think,

are appropriate and I just believe that this scenario is one where that higher level of inspection is necessary.

Evan, I'm gonna turn it over to you because I know you had some thoughts here.

response on those issues or any other legal research that he's done on whether we could impose this requirement as part of the appeal process.

I see there's something in the chat here.

Yeah, so I put the case- Oh, excellent, thank you.

I guess one question I have is do you know of other localities around the Commonwealth that have conditioned the right to appeal an assessment on an interior inspection?

I think that separately is within Pete's purview to decide whether or not he has the information he needs in order to consider a change in assessment.

Doesn't that sort of have the de facto effect of blocking the appeal or conditioning it on the interior inspection?

Each tribunal including this board gets to make its own evidentiary decision and if it's this board's determination that it's willing to consider an appeal in the absence of a full inspection of the inside, that's this board's prerogative.

So I guess just to put a finer point on it, is there any concern in your mind that the red line distributed by Pete two weeks ago could be violative of the law or the Constitution as written?

and so they still don't have to allow, they still don't have to allow an inspection necessarily but in that case the tribunal or Pete for his purposes is not constrained to accept or consider the appeal without getting the necessary information to make his decision.

So just go ahead.

It might create more problems.

But having said all that, this was my idea to add 9.3 and I'll withdraw that request if that will help.

I would say property owner instead of must, I would just put make.

I think what we consider something like that is just we recommend that an interior inspection happen.

It might be a different way to do it.

And maybe there's a different version of 9.3 that draws that distinction and gets you the access if you're gonna burn the resources, if it were worded differently.

We have not.

But we weren't, it mainly came up during the pandemic, and we weren't doing it in the back.

That's right.

Well, one person really wanted us to do it.

So before I ask for a motion, any other comments or thoughts on this?

Can you have a motion on the changes that were proposed today subject to approval of it at the beginning of your next meeting after we actually put it in print?

So, okay.

Anybody else need a minute to step out?

I have an attorney who's representing 14th and it quite possibly

I mean, they're similar themes because most of them are conservation easement and that's part of it.

That's nine hours.

So it gets delivered at noon or whenever you're going to break.

We're talking about 17 hearings a day.

Is that doable?

We can do it all in five days.

It's 8 a.m. to 5 a.m., that's fine.

5 a.m. to 5 p.m. in terms of hearings.

So we need to have more days because, so that there's dates when people are available.

Because if we're doing too many, like extra days, we just want to make sure, like, yeah, we're not.

So maybe seven days, maybe?

Starting in three weeks, right?

And we need to be able to

My schedule generally is flexible.

I know Evan's going to have a limited, I know his schedule is probably going to be on the more, I guess he just has more hearings.

Does that work for everybody?

I can't be here.

You can't?

My vacation starts.

What's your vacation date?

25th through July 3rd.

What about the 5th, 6th, and 7th?

That's cool.

Everybody, people have...

I'm fine with it.

Or maybe the 6th and 7th?

Or we can make, we can advertise all three days to see if you fill it up, if we don't.

Okay.

Week of July 10th.

Sure.

I have a feeling we still have eight, so we have still six more to do.

I can do 13 over the following week, but any other day is fine.

What about the 12th and the 14th?

Evan, are you good on that too?

Yes, miraculously 12 and 14 are also good.

There we go.

Okay, I'm out the following week.

Is that something where are you available via Zoom or?

Yes, well, I'll be on vacation, but I'm certainly available by Zoom.

July 24th, week of July 24th.

I'm free the whole week.

Any conflicts that week, Mr. Mayo?

Would that work?

Can do 26, 27, and 28, I cannot.

Okay, and then we need two more dates, and now we're gonna go, first week of August is gonna be enough for you, Pete, or you need further into August?

I'm out of town the first week off.

Any conflicts?

Nope.

August 1st and 2nd.

Evan, Karen, August 1st and 2nd.

Okay.

And August 1st works for me.

Okay, I think it works for all of us here.

Okay, great.

It was August 1st, just one day that week.

July 31st?

No, we're not doing the 31st.

Were there conflicts July 31st?

No, there's no conflict for me on the 31st.

No, I can do July 31st.

Yeah, week of the 14th or later.

I can do the 16th, 17th, and 18th, and then I'm

gone the following week.

16, 16, Evan.

Yep.

We could meet at 2.30.

This is an extra day anyway.

Can you check 2.30 now?

Okay, so I think August 16, 17, 18, I think, Evan, I think we're waiting for you on that one.

I've got trial 16, 17, 18 is clear.

Give us a date in September, Evan, and let's see if it works for everyone.

I could do September 11, September 12, either of those.

mid-October sometime, I guess.

I could do 12th or 13th of October.

Go back to you Evan.

Sorry what's the ask on this one?

November and then December.

Um a half day?

Yeah morning half day.

The middle of the month or later or?

Yeah well not I guess

13, 14, 15 are all clear.

I'll be away that week, yeah.

How about the week before it, then the week of the 6th?

6th is clear, 7th is clear, 8th is clear.

7th.

Remember 7th?

and then December, plus through December early, so then you can call this.

September, or sorry, December, I've got December 4, December 5.

No.

Okay.

That works.

July 6, 8 a.m. to 5 a.m. Should we put those six on

Remember, but if we do, we'll put six.

10, 12, 9 a.m. to noon, 11, seven, 9 a.m. to noon, and then 12,

Did you say July 17th?

July 14th and then the 24th.

OK, perfect.

All in favor?

And before we adjourn.

Nothing here.

You want to talk about it or just

I guess would be my question.

Do we give the appellant the benefit of the doubt and say,

I would defer also to Anthony on this, the county attorney.

Did he drop off?

He's not on.

Should we just table this for our next meeting or you want to wait to hear?

Yeah, I kind of feel like we need the county attorney to weigh in on whether we have the authority to hear this.

I certainly wouldn't want to color outside the lines.

Can we reach them right now before we go?

Those big bucks we're not getting.

I know, right?

Wait a minute.

So is this regarding your neighbor who wants a hearing, right?

They want a hearing.

His response was, we'll see postmark after the.

It was postmarked April 5th.

So they post-dated a letter?

No, they said that they had a date of the 5th on the letter and then put it in the post office and it was postmarked on the 6th.

Right.

The rules, right?

Can you check the monotunes now?

It would be shown as unavailable at the moment.

a timely appeal as to the amount of the assessment that that would be in somehow predicated as it were on a factual determination that we made that maybe beyond our authority and then I don't know what the effect of that would be but I mean it's not the type of question it seems to me that we were kind of was in our training that we're in charge of I'll just put it that way.

Okay, so do we have a motion to adjourn?

I move to adjourn.