North Adams Council OKs Affordable Housing Trust
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The City Council on Tuesday gave final approval to creating an affordable housing trust and adopted a state law that would allow the city greater control over certain funds.
Some of those funds could be directed to the new trust, which does not yet exist.
"Our first entry into the account will be the net proceeds from the sale of the Church street properties and High Street," said Mayor Jennifer Macksey. "We have to pay ourselves first, we have to pay off our tax possession account for our tax claims, and then if there is any excess it will go into there."
The other funds could be tailings, or uncashed checks issued by the city to vendors. The mayor said it sounded odd but there are vendors who do not cash their checks. The assistant treasurer as been diligent in tracking those down, she said.
Councilor Keith Bona asked how the funds from the tax-takings are held in case of heirs. The state requires municipalities to compensate the dispossessed for excess profits and hold sales receipts for at least a year.
The mayor said Land Court would not have issued the decree until it had covered everything. She said there had been a nephew who "came out of the woodwork" on the Church Street houses but didn't have the ability to pay the back taxes. (The owner died years ago and no direct heirs could be found.) Even so, there would not be much left on the houses once the taxes were satisfied, Macksey said.
"Once the time passes, we would take that money and put it into the sale of city land account," the mayor said. "But that doesn't mean at a later date that we couldn't take money out of a reserves to fund the trust, to kickstart the trust, which we are exploring different options to see how we could kickstart the trust."
in other business Macksey read a proclamation declaring October as Breast Cancer Awareness Month that she presented to Jo Anne DiLego Cowlin, who said the support from the community has been "absolutely overwhelming."
• The mayor also declared Oct. 20 as Community Media Day, giving a shout out to staff at iBerkshires.com, The Berkshire Eagle and Northern Berkshire Community Television Corp.
"We always forget the people behind the scenes, the people who sit through all our meetings and really get the information out to people," she said. "So this is a recognition of all our community media."
• The mayor also announced the appointments of Deborah Benoit to the Historical Commission, term ending Jan. 2, 2028; Jason Vivori to the unexpired term of Amanda Hartlage on the IDEA Commission ending Feb. 8, 2027; Lisa Lescarbeau to unexpired term of Tara Jacobs as a library trustee ending Jan. 2, 2026; Sara Bloom to the unexpired term of Dean Bullett on the Planning Board ending Feb. 1, 2028; and Matti Kovler to the expired term of Amanda Hartlage on the Public Arts Commission ending May 1, 2027.
• The council set the election for Tuesday, Nov. 4, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. at St. Elizabeth's Parish Center, and approved the police chief to select officers for the day and a list of election workers.
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