Good evening.

My name's Peter Bazade, and I am the chairman of an ad hoc committee of the City of Danbury Common Council to review a payment in lieu of taxes agreement that is proposed, and I think in a draft stage between the City of Danbury and the Housing Authority of the City of Danbury that's before us tonight.

In the room, my co-members of this ad hoc committee are Councilwoman Mia Spain Reichel and Councilman Michael Coello.

From the corporation council's office, we have Tracy Norris.

And from the mayor's office, we have Jason Nova.

We have our tax assessor for very brief appearance.

We have also our tax collector.

And we have our director of finance.

Those three people will be here briefly.

I'm not going to require them to stay.

And we're going to ask them some few questions because most of uh this meeting doesn't really pertain to them necessarily.

And finally, uh, we have the housing authority of the city of Danbury in the room, represented by its executive director, uh, Devin Mara, and she's accompanied by two other people whose names I did not write down, so I apologize.

Um her counsel, the counsel for the housing authority of the city of Danbury is somebody we're familiar with.

It's Joseph Mortaletti.

So tonight, even though he's in the room and he's in this room frequently, he represents the housing authority.

He is not the attorney for the City of Danbury.

Um that said, um, I I just want to start this off with uh just some observations, and and and then I'm gonna go to Devin first for a little brief brief history and background as to why um after so many decades we have this uh payment in lieu of taxes agreement from the housing authority.

So so the little background is um the housing authority, the city of Danbury uh is an independent agency.

Um it has it owns property and manages property in Danbury.

It's been around for decades in the City of Danbury.

It has a long history here in the City of Danbury uh with several notable properties.

Uh it it it uh things that have happened over many years are not necessarily responsible, they're not the responsibility of the people who sit here tonight in this meeting, but they exist.

Um the payment of lieu of taxes agreement uh before us is not the first one.

There was a much earlier one that goes back to 1964, um, which didn't include many of these properties.

To my knowledge, um there has been never any update or changes to that agreement.

I do know that in 2016, the City of Danbury um

uh

entered into an agreement to abate taxes, which doesn't necessarily make sense for certain major properties that belong to the housing authority.

So the count this went before the city council at that time, and they agreed to abate taxes for a 40-year term for all of what we know as for the Fairfield Ridge project and all of what we know has the former Hotel Green Project is it 190 uh Main Street, 198 Main Street in Danbury, and those are 40-year agreements for an abatement, which doesn't make sense because uh you abate taxes and not necessarily payment pay pilot payments, but but that went before the council.

Um that checkered history um uh operates under state law, and state law exempts all housing authority property from the payment of real property taxes.

And um, and and there's special it it mandates to under state law that we have a pilot agreement or a payment in lieu of taxes agreement with the housing authority.

Um that hasn't really happened on a detailed basis.

Payments, if there have been any, are erratic.

Um and before we get to you, Devin, I just want to rule a few people out so I can excuse them from the room.

So I'd like to just ask quickly, um, and my members of my committee can follow up any questions, the tax collector.

Um, and it's my understanding, Sean, that um the City of Danbury collects water payments from the housing authority.

Is that correct?

That's

correct.

And to your knowledge, are they current on all the water payments due for their properties?

Yes, all bills are current.

I actually went back all the way.

The last delinquency I found was in 2015, so a great payment history.

Okay.

And and and you should know that the same state law that exempts um the housing authority from paying property taxes, also sort of exempts them from paying sewer use fees.

So they pay the water bill, but not um sewer use fees.

And Sean, do you collect any other monies from the housing authority?

Just the water, that's it.

Just the water.

Correct.

Does anybody have any questions of Sean?

I see no reason why he needs to remain in the room.

Just

a quick question, if I may, through the chair.

So the since they don't pay uh on the sanitary sewer fee and just the water, is it a discounted rate for

them?

Same rate

as everyone else pays.

And that goes to those individual bills are paid by the tenants or the housing authority itself?

Uh by uh the housing authority.