Meetings Ahead
Most meetings in Eastham are in-person, typically with an online-attendance option. Go to eastham-ma.gov and click on the meeting you are interested in for details. All meetings are at Town Hall unless otherwise indicated.
Thursday, Oct. 5
- Board of Assessors, 11 a.m., Small Meeting Room
- Cancelled: Zoning Board of Appeals, 5 p.m.
Tuesday, Oct. 10
- Conservation Commission onsite, 10 a.m., Town Hall
- Conservation Commission, 6 p.m., Earle Mountain Meeting Room
Thursday, Oct. 12
- Affordable Housing Trust, 9 a.m., Small Meeting Room
Conversation Starter
Assessor’s Eye in the Sky
Aerial imagery and online permitting instituted this year have increased new growth captured by the assessing department by 121 percent — from $139,274 in fiscal 2022 to $307,129 in fiscal 2023 and $304,951 in fiscal 2024.
Principal Assessor Colleen Mercurio told the finance committee on Sept. 27 that her department has performed change detection analysis using software and images from NearMap, a subscription the town purchased in July that includes biannual flyovers.
“It’s allowed us to pick up a lot of little things, and little things add up,” said Mercurio. “If there are 300 little decks that you didn’t know about — there they are.”
One committee member noted homeowners might be more likely to pull permits if they knew the town was doing flyovers of their properties twice a year.
While the assessor’s department is the first in town to use NearMap, the town has unlimited licenses for the software and will be offering it for use by other departments, Mercurio noted.
Also new this year is the online permitting system that allows the assessing dept. to access permit details to gain a better understanding of a proposed project’s scope of work.
“With this, we’ve revisited which permits actually warrant a visit, so overall we’ve increased our field visits,” she said. Those visits have helped pick up discrepancies in data, said Mercurio.
“Maybe the shed is larger than it was on the field card or maybe you’re there to view a new roof, but you see there’s also a new patio under it,” Mercurio said. —Linda Culhane
