DIXFIELD – At Monday night’s meeting, selectmen granted seven of eight tax abatements totaling $2,891.20.

A recommendation by the town’s assessing department to abate Robert and Kathi Knowles $387.40 was tabled until the board could learn more about depreciation as it pertains to mobile homes. The recommendation stated that the assessor didn’t take into account the depreciation of the dwelling.

Chairman Hugh Daley, a carpenter who built his home according to mobile home specifications, argued that mobile home owners should be paying more in taxes than they are.

“I don’t see why mobile home owners are getting these tax breaks just because they’re called mobile homes,” Daley said.

“They pay one-tenth of the tax that I do and my home is built the same way. They’re not paying their fair share. People are getting more and more mobile homes because they don’t have to pay taxes on them,” he said.

Abatements approved include:

• $1,209 for Ronald Whitman, for having his home taxed twice.

• $483 for Jeffrey and Alisa Knapp, regarding a depreciation issue and other incorrect items.

• $379.60 for Owen and Brenda Bernard, regarding being assessed for renovations that had yet to be finished.

• $361.40 for Thomas and Doreen Kelly, for an upstairs garage that had yet to be finished.

• $319.80 for Lyle and Esther White, for a mobile home that was assessed as a 1993 unit instead of a 1979 unit.

• $91 for Patrick C. Smith, regarding a base lot deduction that wasn’t applied.

• $46.80 for John Windover, who was errantly assessed for a lot which was taken by a state road project.

In other business, selectmen learned that someone shot out all of the night lights at McGouldrick Park with a pellet gun three weeks ago and “completely shattered” the back door of a nearby residence with the projectiles.

Police have suspects and are “very close” to making arrests, said Chief Richard A. Pickett.

Pickett also said that parents who allow their children to ride unlicensed dirt bikes up and down public ways is still an ongoing problem.

By a 3-0 vote, selectmen OK’d a 5-year Key Bank loan at 2.87 percent interest to buy a new plow truck and pay the $45,000 town-meeting approved share of the East Dixfield fire station expansion.

Town Manager Nanci Allard reported that state grants are now available for homeowners with failing septage systems.

And, during a brief discussion about the town not having the money to fix water quality problems for Water Department customers, Daley said, “We’re so poor that church mice don’t even stop here anymore.”

A real estate issue that selectmen were slated to discuss in an executive session was tabled to the board’s next meeting on Monday, Nov. 10.

tkarkos@sunjournal.com

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