Clerk's office reports 734 short-term rentals registered; flags staff workload and new code platform launch

Jamie, speaking for the clerk’s office at the Rules Committee meeting on May 14, said the municipality has 734 short-term rentals registered and is processing about 65 new applications per day. "It is taking us about an hour to process about every 20 applications," Jamie said, and projected that if 2,500 units are ultimately registered, that would translate to about 125 hours of staff time (roughly three weeks of full‑time work over three months).

Jamie explained a major time sink is address validation: the registration pulls from the GIS and if an applicant doesn’t select the auto-filled address (for example, forgetting a condo number), the submission comes in as a temporary address that staff must manually reconcile. Jamie said staff will explore clearer on‑form instructions and other fixes but described the current process as a heavier lift than initially anticipated.

On elections, Jamie reported the risk‑limiting audit — in which 5% of ballots are hand‑counted to validate electronic totals — was performed May 7 and that the audit report will appear on the May 26 agenda prior to certification. Jamie also said the clerk’s office is rolling out a new municipal code platform with automated link updates; training for attorneys and clerk staff was completed in early May and the platform is slated to go live around May 26.

Jamie told members the clerk’s office can produce a short‑term rentals summary after the July 30 registration deadline and suggested an early September snapshot to allow additional time for processing and quality checks. The committee did not take formal action on the report.