Danbury residents urge council to raise income threshold, drop five-year residency and clarify draft elder tax-relief ordinances

Danbury — Residents at a public hearing Monday urged the City Council to revise proposed changes to several elderly tax-relief ordinances, arguing the draft would reduce eligibility and leave some longtime recipients worse off.

Charlie Sotero, a lifelong Danbury resident, said the draft ordinance language contains a $10,000 figure "which gives you $10,000 above the state recommendation," and warned that "people are gonna be losing their status" under the new thresholds. He recommended increasing that figure to $20,000, removing any new five-year residency requirement, allowing certain Social Security treatment adjustments, and eliminating sunset provisions that could let the benefit lapse without further council action. "Line out 5 years," he said, urging the council to keep residency requirements in line with state guidance.

Mary Ann Strattner, a Danbury resident and certified public accountant, said she and other residents lacked clarity on key details of the proposals and asked why public attendees could not question the tax assessor during the council workshop portion. "If I am lost ... what are the residents that are elderly in this city?" she asked, adding later, "I can't get any answer today," about eligibility, median-value calculations and whether existing beneficiaries had been notified.

The chair read the public hearing notice at the start of the meeting and grouped the four related elderly tax items — amendments to ordinances 44-51, 44-53, 44-54 and a proposed new ordinance 44-71 — so members of the public could address them together. Sotero referenced an opinion of the Office of Legislative Research and said the proposed five-year residency rule conflicted with the state standard (cited as "statute 129n" in his remarks).

Speakers consistently asked for clearer, more specific ordinance language: Sotero noted that the draft does not lay out income tiers in the ordinance text and suggested the ordinance should explicitly restate assessor notification duties already required by state statute. Strattner pressed for clarity on what tax year would be used for eligibility (the draft lists a return period) and whether existing freeze recipients had been sent letters; she said the answers were "not provided tonight."

The council did not respond to public comments during the hearing; per the chair's instructions, members did not engage in Q&A with speakers during the public-comment portion. After public testimony, the council closed the public hearing by voice vote and recessed briefly to prepare for a committee-of-the-whole meeting where the posted agenda items will be reviewed further.

Next steps: The council moved to close the public hearing, recessed until 7:30 p.m. and said a committee-of-the-whole session will review the proposed ordinances; no final council action on the ordinances was recorded during the public-comment portion.