For most of us, automobile excise bills mailed in February for vehicles registered in Westfield are due on Monday.
Okay, probably not the first thing you wanted to read in a newspaper article, but I figured I’d at least give you a reminder that if you received a bill last month, which most – but not all – vehicle owners did, Monday is the last day to pay it without incurring a penalty. Some excise bills get mailed later in the year, but for most owners of vehicles which have not changed ownership in the past 12 months, you probably did received a Valentine’s Day note from City Hall with your name on it.
The city of Westfield collects over $3.8 million dollars in automobile excise taxes every year. Just for a little perspective, that’s about three-quarters of the annual budget for our Police Department, so even in a budget of approximately $116 million dollars, this money plays an important role.
The excise tax is a tax authorized by Chapter 60A on automobiles in lieu of a personal property tax. The levying of the tax is through the Assessors’ Office based upon information contained at the Registry of Motor Vehicles (RMV.) The excise is based upon where the vehicle is primarily garaged (which comes from your insurance forms) and to the last recorded mailing address of the person to whom the vehicle is registered (from the RMV). Any changes in either status should be forwarded to both institutions on a timely basis to avoid misdirected bills, which if unpaid can lead to penalties, interest, and difficulties in re-registering your vehicle or renewing your license.
The excise is based upon a formula to allow for consistency and efficiency. While the formula uses the Manufacturers Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) as a baseline, the ultimate bill is not a bill based upon actual value of your vehicle, but a percentage of that original MSRP. The formula is:
Year Before Manufacture 50%
Year of Manufacture 90%
Two Years Old 60%
Three Years Old 40%
Four Years Old 25%
Five and Older 10%
The use of a formula frees up the assessors’ office from the tedious and invasive task of visiting every house in town and peering at the odometer, looking for scratches and dents, after-market customization, etcetera. It’s not perfect of course: it overvalues some older cars, while severely undervaluing certain classics and antiques. Still, it’s state law and the city is bound by statute to use the formula in lieu of actual market value and issue the bills as they are assigned by the RMV. One of my favorite excise stories comes from Longmeadow, where I was standing in line at the assessors’ office where a gentleman walked in and argued with the clerk at the counter for over half an hour, screaming that the assessed “value” of $47,000 showing on his excise bill was overassessing the Porsche he had just bought at an auction over in Europe for only $42,000. It was a doomed argument from the start on just so many levels….
Speaking of cars, many of us have probably become amateur rally course drivers after what had been a relatively quiet winter finally decided give us a few storms to deal with. The combination of precipitation, cold, and thawing was the worst possible combination for our roadways, and potholes have bloomed like dandelions. I saw the same pothole patched three times on Notre Dame Street in just one week, so our Department of Public Works is out there, but until the asphalt plants reopen for the spring, all we can do is fill – and refill – with cold patch after every snow or heavy rain event. And with over 500 streets in a city of 38 square miles, it’s an endless task for the DPW. I do recall driving all of the streets and neighborhoods of Ward One after last spring to inventory the worst and most dangerous potholes, only to discover that DPW had beaten me to many of them, and using the hot patch from the asphalt plants, that the fill had held remarkably well. Until about last month anyway….
One thing that might take the pressure off of heavily traveled streets like Notre Dame and Moseley Street (which is an absolute mess) would be the reopening of the Drug Store Hill Bridge. I’m pleased to report that finally – finally! – the state’s selected contractor has begun the replacement work. It’s been far and away my number one frustration as an elected city councilor to watch that bridge sit idle because of the stultifying bureaucracy of the state and the Commonwealth’s Department of Transportation, which claims and exerts total jurisdiction over the bridge. It’s depressing to think how much longer it would have remained untouched if it weren’t for the efforts of State Senator Michael Knapik, State Representative Don Humason, and Mayor Knapik in working with the DOT to expedite the process to the greatest extent possible. Still, we could be looking at another year before that bridge finally sees its first passenger car again. Until then, please be mindful that Notre Dame and Moseley Streets are residential areas, and be respectful when driving along these streets and through the surrounding neighborhoods.
One last car thought on an issue relative to Ward One: Chief Camerota was good enough to allow the city to temporarily establish Sammy Lane off Bailey Drive as a one-way street to see if it would reduce the amount of “cut through” traffic driving through the neighborhood. So far it seems to have been successful, so I have petitioned the Traffic Commission to make the one-way status permanent, effectively restoring the “dead-end” status that whole neighborhood had enjoyed when Eggleston Road has a cul-de-sac established just before the connection to Servicestar Way.
Lá Fhéile Pádraig Sona Daoibh – Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!
Christopher Keefe
Westfield City Council
Ward One
