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Board of Aldermen 05-28-2019 Page 14

R-19-145
Endorsers: Mayor Jim Donchess
Alderwoman Mary Ann Melizzi-Golja
Alderman Jan Schmidt
Alderman Richard A. Dowd
Alderman Linda Harriott-Gathright
Alderman Tom Lopez
Alderman-at-Large Michael B. O’Brien
AUTHORIZING THE CITY OF NASHUA TO ENTER INTO AN AGREEMENT FOR EMERGENCY
AMBULANCE SERVICES WITH AMERICAN MEDICAL RESPONSE, INC.
Given its first reading; assigned to the FINANCE COMMITTEE by President Wilshire

R-19-146
Endorser: Alderman-at-Large Lori Wilshire
Alderman Richard A. Dowd
Alderman-at-Large Michael B. O’Brien
Alderman Linda Harriott-Gathright
Alderman Tom Lopez
Alderwoman Mary Ann Melizzi-Golja
AUTHORIZING THE GRANTING OF EASEMENTS TO PENNICHUCK WATER WORKS, INC.
FOR
THE CONSTRUCTION, UTILIZATION AND MAINTENANCE OF WATER LINES
Given its first reading; assigned to the COMMITTEE ON INFRASTRUCTURE and the NASHUA CITY
PLANNING BOARD by President Wilshire

NEW BUSINESS — ORDINANCES

O-19-046
Endorser: Alderman Richard A. Dowd
Alderman Jan Schmidt
Alderman Linda Harriott-Gathright
Alderman-at-Large Michael B. O’Brien
AMENDING THE ZONING MAP BY REZONING 610 AMHERST STREET FROM PARK
INDUSTRIAL (PI) TO GENERAL BUSINESS (GB)
Given its first reading;

There being no objection, President Wilshire accepted the first reading of O-19-046, assigned it
to the Planning and Economic Development Committee and the Nashua City Planning Board,
and scheduled a public hearing for Tuesday, July 16, 2019, at 7:00 p.m. in the Aldermanic
Chamber.

PERIOD FOR GENERAL PUBLIC COMMENT

Lori Ortolano 41 Berkeley Street. | wanted to address some of the comments raised at the Ward
Meetings, at the Town Meetings, last week. The big issue that stuck on my mind was the Mayor spoke
with some passion about the demoralizing nature of the investigative report that was done. He had
heard from departments outside of assessing and received a number of comments from | think probably
management that said it was very demoralizing and it was a real morale killer to the offices. | have a
pretty different view of that and what is demoralizing really when you have a situation like what has
happened in the assessing office. | will relate it to my very early career when | became an engineer 35
years ago in a field that was pretty much male dominated. | got a job in a company down south and |
was very motivated, | had graduated from WPI and had done really well in my field and enjoyed it. | got
assigned to a job with a project engineer that was 5 years older than me. Busy job, big deadlines and
required some overtime and very early on it was very apparent that the older engineer was not a worker.

Board of Aldermen 05-28-2019 Page 15

He was a 20 hour a week guy and | was pretty motivated to do my job and he had a girlfriend in another
state so Friday at lunch he split and took on a road trip to the other state and rolled in Monday after
lunch when he left from that place and came back to work. Every week | would have to listen to the
details of what was happening in the shower between him and his girlfriend before he left and when he
came back. And then | had to carry the load, Thursday was 18 holes of golf in the afternoon and
Tuesday and Wednesdays were work outs at the gym.

| put up with it for about 8 months and then | was all set and | went in to management | said “I’m all set
with this, here’s what’s going on”. You know that was a very demoralizing situation for me in my career
because | worked and | had to deal with somebody who didn’t work. The gentleman left after a couple
months and moved closer to his girlfriend which was a good thing. Fast forward 5 years and | moved
my career into a new area, in a new department that had never had a woman in the department. | got
put on a very busy, classified project that was over budget and behind schedule. Management made it
very clear that there was no money for overtime and we all had to work overtime. | again get assigned
with an engineer who is probably 7 years or 8 years older than me and again wasn’t an overly motivated
person. Certainly not as bad as the first one, half-time work was pretty bad but could easily shave off 10
hours a week and never came in on a Saturday. Part-way into the project, the Project Manager, an
older gentleman ready to retire, wanted me to learn Project Management and said, “I’m going to start
sending you the budgets; | want you to look at the budgets and get familiar with them so you can step
into Project Management someday”.

When | got my first budget and | looked at it, the engineer that | was working with was being paid 60
hours of overtime a month. | was shocked, | was told there was no overtime, | was working overtime, |
never saw my constituents come in once on a Saturday and he was getting paid on a military contract. |
was floored, marched into the manager’s office and said “what’s this” you know “how is this happening’.
And the answer | got was his wife was having a baby and he was under a lot of stress and he was trying
to help him out by giving him a little extra pay. Needless to say, you know my personality now, it really
wasn't different back then and it didn’t fly with me at all. | went two layers up and | shut down that
overtime. That was very demoralizing for me. That's what a demoralizing work circumstance sounds
like to me and feels like to me.

When | look in the Assessing Office and | look at the front end of the office with the four clerical staff
women you have there; they work endlessly. They are tied to their computer screens pretty much all
day. And | think if you look at any one of their desks you are going to see just piles of paper around
them, they are just wrapped in paper. They have very set breaks; I’ve never seen an abuse of any
break time with them. | think it is pretty demoralizing when you have a Senior Assessor who leaves like
this Senior Assessor does and tells everyone “I’m heading out to the field” and signs out on the board,
“I’m going to check properties” and then you find out he’s in the park for 2 % hours or let me include that,
driving and in the park or in the Holiday Inn lot for 2, 2 % or 3 hours at a time.

President Wilshire

Ms. Ortolano, this Board does not have anything to do with personnel matters, so | would respectfully
ask that you keep your comments to what the Board has purview of. We don’t have purview of
personnel matters.

Ms. Ortolano Well that’s ok because what you do have purview of is performance issues? How do we
address performance? And that to me is reasonable. And | am addressing something that was
addressed by the Mayor at both Ward meeting; the demoralizing nature of this report. | am going to
submit to you tonight for the record, which you all received e-mails, the four reports that | gave you. I’d
like them to go in the minutes. They will be available for the public to see and read for themselves. | am
also concerned by the minimizing | think of the issue by the Mayor. And what | mean by that is | listen to
the comments at the Ward 7 Meeting where he mentioned that the investigation was only 2 weeks, that
there were only 2 data points above an hour that he was out.

Board of Aldermen 05-28-2019 Page 16

| don’t Know the content of what he was referring to, but it was a month-long investigation and you know
| don’t want to debate what it was, | want the report to speak to itself. All | have done with this report is
give 50 copies out to business leaders and members of the community and shared it through e-mail,
without a cover letter. There is nothing to discuss on it. Read it for what it is and that’s it. Let it stand
on its own.

Regarding your issue Ms. Wilshire on personnel, | received an e-mail from Ben Clemons that was very
pointed that what | provided was very incomplete for the accusations | made. Please get the expense
reports, please get the logs, please bring forward the data, show us that what you are talking about is
real. Ok? | didn’t know what to make of that. | mean is that something | am supposed to prove?
Because that’s what | brought tonight; | brought the data that Ben Clemons said “show us, substantiate
what you are doing”. And | think if an Alderman is telling me | need to substantiate, | came here to
substantiate. So | am not certain if you are telling me | can’t, | shouldn’t or | am out of line?

President Wilshire

What | am telling you Ms. Ortolano is this Board does not deal with personnel matters for City
employees.

Ms. Ortolano Well I’m not asking you to deal with it and | am not asking you to reprimand, but | am
asking you to listen.

President Wilshire

We have been listening week after week and we just keep hearing the same thing from you about this
employee. We don’t deal with employee issues in the City, we are not the employer board.

Ms. Ortolano | don’t think you’ve dealt with this week after week with me, the report came out 2 weeks
ago. Really, | didn’t say much about this particular employee. And | addressed any concerns | had with
your administration and Ms. Kleiner. | didn’t come here specifically, the only time | addressed this
individual was on the anti-nepotism policy. Right? | challenge you to find the minutes where I’ve been
in here talking endlessly about this individual. | don’t believe | have.

Ben, you raised the issue regarding Expense Reports. And the interesting issue on Expense Reports is
back in October, | went to Finance and | pulled Expense Reports from 2014 up on Assessors. This is
Assessor became a Commercial Assessor 3 years ago so he took on a different role. So the assessor
he replaced, Commercial Assessor, | pulled his Expense Reports, and looked as his travel mileage
which Commercial Assessors typically travel very low mileage relative to residential because permits,
and properties ...

Alderman Dowd

Can | have a ruling from the Corporation Counsel as to whether this is something the purview over or
should it go to the HR Department and City Hall.

Attorney Bolton

This is General Public Comment, you’ve opened it up to speak on any topic.

Ms. Ortolano | share all this information today, | had an hour long meeting with the Union Leader and an
hour long meeting with the Telegraph. They were both interested in writing reports. And issuing a story
on these issues. So! am sharing it with you because | shared it externally as well. And because | was
asked by an Alderman about this. And | do think it’s relevant and you’d want to hear. | want you to know
| did do my homework. | went and gathered these reports that were commercial assessors. And when |
looked at the Commercial Assessor who left, the mileage travel is very low, 20, 40, 50 miles a month.

Board of Aldermen 05-28-2019 Page 17

When | look at the Commercial Assessor who is in our Assessing Department his mileage is very low,
80, 20, 40, 30, low mileage. The Residential Assessors have much higher mileage going to individual
properties, 175, 150, the month of April our Residential Assessors covered 226 miles because April was
a busy month to gather data. So that’s fine. When | look at this individual who moved into Commercial
Assessing, his mileage is higher than anyone’s, 220, 200, 210, 180. That’s very unusual and when |
saw that in October it was red flag for me. | went and called John Griffin and | said, “I think you have a
fraud problem over here, there’s an issue”. OK? It’s hard to prove, OK, other than giving it to him and |
got the response, “I'll get back to you in a week”. | never heard back from him again. But then | pushed
that aside, because | said, “that’s too big an issue, it’s too hard for me”. Then | started looking at the
property cards more and | started seeing property cards that were so off.

For example, property cards that had visits to homes written in the activity section that were not visited.
So those were potentially mileage charged for properties that were not visited and they could be easily
sat down in a round table with anyone who would want to see them to know, to see how | know that and
how | am able to ascertain that. But! am; there is amethod. So that mileage was very concerning and
it is very interesting to me that in April when Kim Kleiner asked for the field logs to be attached, the
Residential Assessors attach a field log, they go out to 78 homes, they attach 226 miles. The
Commercial Assessor now, who has been charging last month 220 miles, suddenly charges 45, 43; way
down. Guess how many properties they visited in April? The very month that we are the busiest we
could possibly be in Assessing, because we have so many permits to capture, A9’s, exemptions, all this
property work, it went to 7. Seven, that is startling. So the expense and the mileage logs from March
would tell me that this individual had to be out at 100, 150 homes.

But the data, the records don’t support it. And | want you to understand that, that’s the big red flag for
me. How do you go from 200, 220, 280 down to 43? And a busy, busy month? The second thing is we
could look at that and say you know what, there’s a lot of work going on in assessing, this assessor
didn’t go to properties, what is the big thing happening in assessing? Abatements; abatements are huge
right now. Everyone got those abatements divvied up, each assessor got about 90 files they had to
work on. When you look at your Junior Assessor, your Junior Assessor in Assessing, who is not
certified yet | don’t believe, who is in training, since January he has done about 225 pages of
abatements. And they are complete abatements, these are heavy duty sales intensive abatements
where he had to do comps, go out to the homes, take measurements. So there is a lot of work here. |
am going to venture to guess that this Assessor is going to get through 70, 75 abatements, challenging
ones. When | look at our Senior Assessor who is supervisory level, look at the packet, 25 pages. And
what are these abatements? Most of them, well there were 14, actually there are 8 abatements and 6 of
them are fire probations or dilapidated mobile homes that had to be re-evaluated.

President Wilshire

Ms. Ortolano, there is one minute left to our public comment period so if you could start wrapping it up,
I'd appreciate it. Thank you.

Ms. Ortolano Sure, so there’s a big issue and a disparity between why is a Senior Official, a Senior
Supervisor unable to really put a bite into the abatements and take on the ones that are challenging and
get any work done. There are actually no abatements here that required any work at all. Six of the
abatements in here are people who filed after the March 1* deadline. So we had to tear the front sheet
off, stamp a “D” on it and put it in the file and you get credit for work done. That is three minutes of
work, 6 of them out of the 8; that leaves 2 in 5 months. That’s pretty startling, so it is not abatements he
is doing, it is not traveling to properties he is doing and it is not MLS adjusting because | checked that
too. This is where the concern comes in. And as far as morality and demoralizing, | know what that’s
about. And it is demoralizing when you are a hard worker and you are doing your job and you see
somebody who gets breaks like this who doesn’t appear to be. Thank you.

Board of Aldermen 05-28-2019 Page 18
REMARKS BY THE MEMBERS OF THE BOARD OF ALDERMEN

Alderman Lopez June 15h is the Tree Street Block Party. It is from 2:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. on Ash
Street and we are featuring Mighty Mystic, a Reggae band this year, so everybody is welcome to attend.

Alderwoman Kelly

Thank you. A little bit later in the month, June 29", at 2:00 p.m. we will be having our second annual
Pride Parade and Festival. It is longer this year, we are expecting a great turn out. We are still looking
for sponsors, volunteers and the t-shirts just went on sale. So you guys can go on an get all of your
memorabilia before the big day. So NashuaPride.Org has all the information.

Alderman Jette

So | know that a lot of us don’t like hearing what Mrs. Ortolano is reporting to us because it is disturbing.
| don’t know, at this point these are all allegations, | acknowledge and the employees involved are
entitled to their due process. But! would encourage us to listen to these allegations and hopefully the
information that she has provided will be turned over to the Attorney we have hired to investigate this
and that an investigation will occur. I’m not schooled in the ways of Labor Law where Unions are
involved, so | know it’s not, you know, | know there is a whole process that is involved. | did take a look
at the Collective Bargaining Agreement that regulates this Union and | do see that there is a provision in
there that the City is entitled to terminate an employee for good cause. Whether or not “good cause”
exists here | guess is what the Attorney we have hired will show us.

| think that and I’ve heard from other employees of the City who far from being demoralized by this
investigation are welcoming it. They resent if these allegations are true, they resent what this, I’m trying
to be careful here. If this employee is guilty of what he is being accused of, and it is still an allegation,
they are not comfortable being looked at by the rest of the City. We've always heard people malign our
employees and we have a lot of good employees. But when we find a bad one, if we found a bad one,
then we ought to act appropriate. We ought to take the measures that we should to eliminate that
situation. So | just want to say | for one thank Mrs. Ortolano for all the time she has spent looking into
this situation and has brought to light things that | had no knowledge of and | don’t think any of us had
knowledge of. And | think we owe her a debt of gratitude for bringing it up. I’m not saying that what she
has brought up has been proven, but | think there is probable cause for us to look into it and investigate
it and ask the Mayor to do that and | think he is. | am looking forward to the result of the investigation by
Attorney Broth. The second Public Comment period is not limited to the legislation that we have before
us, | think it is the only opportunity the citizens have to address us. | would hate to discourage people
from coming forward with legitimate complaints that we maybe should be hearing. Thank you.

Alderman Lopez

Madam President, can | claim personal privilege? Attorney Jette just inferred that the rest of us just
don’t like hearing it because it is uncomfortable. | would like to clarify | dislike it because | don’t, | see
this as an HR issue and | think that’s where it needs to be. | don’t want to try navigating the Public
Comment field of “what did | accidentally say about an employee who may or may not be innocent or
may or may not be guilty”. And | believe at least two weeks ago the Mayor told us that he is
investigating it. | Know that multiple claims have been brought up against the Assessing Department
and that Ms. Ortolano has very thoroughly researched what their activities are and every month there
continues to be more and more issues. So | don’t have a problem with her reporting them, | just think
that the Public Comment is for Public Comment and not lengthy expositions of information. If she feels
like she doesn’t have a voice and isn’t able to send this information, then she should be working with her
local Alderman or she can be sending us information and we should be putting that in Public Record
certainly. | just think that this particular personnel issue should be brought up in Public Comment,
introduced but then let be investigated. There has not been time for any of that to be done.

Board of Aldermen 05-28-2019 Page 19
Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja

Thank you. | will just make one comment regarding the last Public Comment. | think it has been very
clearly stated that we as a Board don’t investigate and we don’t get involved in HR but | do feel that the
Mayor recognizes the importance of this and is moving forward with an attorney to investigate. | am
looking forward to hearing the results of that investigation. | think that the responsibility for that
investigation clearly is with the Mayor's Office and his HR Department and not with this Board.

Two things, unfortunately we had hoped Alderman Gidge would be with us this evening and he’s not, |
regret that. But a couple of weeks ago the Artwork Studios at 14 Court Street had its ribbon-cutting and
again | would just like to acknowledge his work in bringing that forward and thank him and look forward
to sitting across the horseshoe and thanking him personally. So hopefully he will be joining us soon.

Also, this week, which is not shaping up to be a very pleasant week weather-wise, is the last week our
sculptures will be working. | thought of them today as it was cold and rainy and miserable. But they
have been working very hard; if you haven’t had a chance to go visit them | would encourage you to go
visit them at the Picker Artist Collaborative. The closing is at 1:00 p.m. this Saturday, meeting here
behind City Hall to then go to the locations for the 3 sculptures. They are each delightful and enjoy
talking to people. They break for lunch and break for dinner there at the location but are busy working
away. Some of you may have caught the YouTube Video of Jarod from Kenya singing to some students
who visited form Ledge Street, which was great. So | encourage you to go and visit them or at least
attend on Saturday. Thank you.

Alderman Clemons

Thank you. | just want to address a couple of things. So first | was mentioned in Public Comment and
all | will say is that | didn’t want to address this last time we were here but | guess my hand has been
forced. So when somebody makes an accusation against somebody the details should be there in full.
And what we originally got was not complete. And | am not saying that what was in there was not
accurate or that it wasn’t true; but | don’t know that. And there’s no corroborating evidence. | appreciate
the fact that Ms. Ortolano is bringing forward some more information so that maybe we can corroborate
that report that she paid $8,000.00 of her own money for. But | will look at it, | will make my own
judgement as | hope other people will but | made the comments that | made to her because we didn’t
have a full report. All it was, was accusations; pictures of | don’t even know what, somebody in a car,
somewhere. How do | know that the private investigator, why should | trust him? | didn’t pay $8,000.00
for it. What are his credentials, why should | automatically take something at face value?

Look we are talking about a public employee here who has the right to due process and when there are
personnel issues, they should come up in the appropriate venue. Thatis to the HR Director or to the
Mayor or to somebody in City Hall and you know it would have been appropriate for that to come out
that way. If you really feel like you want to spend $8,000.00 of your own money on something like that,
why do you have to go to the press with it? It makes me wonder, is this a political thing, is there an
undercurrent here that we should know about? | don’t know. But! do know this; | know that there is a
man who works here for the City who has been publicly berated by a citizen and it is really too bad.
What that tells people who want to come and work for this City is — you better watch out for citizens in
Nashua because they let them go crazy on you. They let them go after you. Your reputation could be
put on the line if somebody has enough money, they can get that out there and they can ruin your
career. So you know | don’t like this stuff; | don’t think this is the appropriate venue for it. | think there is
some kind of political undercurrent here and | am going to state that for the record. | will look at what is
presented to me but | look forward to the private investigator, or I’m sorry, to our City Investigator’s
report. The only thing that | will address is that basically what | have heard is we have an employee
that maybe at best doesn’t do their job very well. But beyond the other accusations, | can’t corroborate
them and | don’t think anybody else here can corroborate them with what has been presented thus far to
us. And | think the public should keep that in mind. When you hear these things and you hear these
discussions being had, keep that in mind.

Board of Aldermen 05-28-2019 Page 20

The other thing that | want to say is there was another speaker earlier this evening who brought up the
fact that in his opinion our Board President had a conflict of interest. Well | can tell you for a fact that
having been the Vice President of this Board, | had had another corporation counsel look into it and
there is no conflict of interest there for Alderman Wilshire to be Chairing that Committee. That is another
horse that has beaten to death and that is another political tirade of someone who knows that there is an
election around the corner. So | have had enough with this kind of stuff, we need to leave the politics out
of here and we need to do what’s right for this City. And we need to start doing it now.

Alderman Dowd

Yes the reason | brought up the challenge is because I’ve been on Labor Relations Boards before who
have the hiring and firing capability. When we have personnel issues they are discussed in non-public
for very good reasons. | was concerned that something was going to be said on one side or the other
that was going to jeopardize anything that a special investigator might have to do. So this is not the
place to discuss it, there is a special investigator that has been hired and that’s where it should stay. It
should not be being discussed at this meeting.

Committee announcements:

Alderman Dowd

Tomorrow night is the first Budget Wrap Up and | would like people to be prepared; if they have any
motions that they want to entertain please have them be written out in advance. Please be as specific
as you can, | can’t say any of them will pass but if they do, then the Budget Committee will get to vote on
it. If the majority of the Budget Committee feels that it’s OK, it will go forward, once we pass the Budget
to the Full Board of Aldermen, it will take the form of a modification to the Mayor’s Budget if we make
those modifications. Just to remind people, when it comes back to the Full Board, if it is an increase in
the Mayor's Budget it is going to take 10 votes; if it's a decrease it is 8 votes. So just wanted to let you
know that. | know some of the members of the Budget Committee have been talking to Department
heads, if there is any information that you have collected that is associated with a motion you are going
to make, | would prefer that you give that information to the entire Board as soon as possible so that
they will have that information to make their decisions on.

Alderman Clemons

Will Treasurer Fredette be there tomorrow?

Mayor Donchess

| think so yes. You are the Budget Committee Wrap Up? Yes if you’d like him, | will be there as well as
Treasurer Fredette and Mr. Griffin.

Alderman Clemons

Great thank you.

Alderman Dowd

It might be a good thing to have the CFO as well.
President Wilshire

Yes he said that.

Board of Aldermen 05-28-2019 Page 21
Alderman Dowd

Oh I’m sorry, | missed that.

Alderman Caron

Personnel will be meeting Monday, already, June 3” at 7:00.

Alderman Jette

| do have a question of Alderman Dowd if | could. So is tomorrow night’s meeting limited to any part of
the budget or it the whole budget, tomorrow night?

Alderman Dowd

When we are done and we will be passing on the entire budget, but if you have any motions relative to
any part of the budget it would be for that specific part of the budget. Hypothetically if you have
Department X and you want to add $10,000.00 to it, | am going to ask the CFO what does that do to our
end budget number. Without any other changes that would be above the Mayor’s budget so anything
going forward would require 10 votes of the Full Board. But yes, you can make a recommendation on
any part of the budget and | would hope that there is some rationale behind the decision.

Alderman Jette

Thank you.

Alderwoman Kelly

If | could just follow up on his question, so we didn’t go into wrap up sessions last year, we just passed
it. So what is the cut off? You have one for tomorrow and then you have one on Thursday like is it a
time or just wondering.

Alderman Dowd

I’m hoping that we wrap it up tomorrow.

Alderwoman Kelly

| agree with you. | am with you.

Alderman Dowd

The reason that | scheduled other meetings is in case we don’t wrap it up tomorrow because we have a
very busy calendar. Mrs. Lovering, we blocked off dates so we would make sure we had them. But |
would prefer that we wrap it up tomorrow because I’d like to bring it back to the full board and have it
passed at the June 11" | think it’s Tuesday June 11", yes, Full Board Meeting. We have to get this
passed in June, that’s getting awfully close.

President Wilshire

No other Committee announcements? Do | have a motion?

Board of Aldermen 05-28-2019 Page 22

ADJOURNMENT

MOTION BY ALDERMAN O’BRIEN THAT THE MAY 28, 2019, MEETING OF THE BOARD
OF ALDERMEN BE ADJOURNED
MOTION CARRIED

The meeting was declared adjourned at 8:57 p.m.

Attest: Patricia D. Piecuch, City Clerk

Fouo Law, PLLC
121 Bay Street
Manchester, NH 03104

FOJO-

Robert M. Fojo
Direct/Fax: (603) 473-4694

rfoje@fojolaw.com
May 8, 2019
BY EMAIL
Mayor James Donchess
City of Nashua
P.O. Box 2019

Nashua, NH 03061
RE: Assessing Department/Greg Turgiss

Dear Mayor Donchess:

fam writing to you concerning Greg Turgiss, an Assessor III and commercial assessor
(and formerly a residential assessor) in the City of Nashua’s Assessing Department and
developments concerning his daily behavior that my client, Laurie Ortolano, recently discovered.
Greg is among the various individuals within the Assessing Department that Ms. Ortolano has
focused on during her recent, months-long campaign to identify deficiencies in the Department
and promote change and course correction within it.

Ms. Ortolano has raised concerns about Greg in the past, but the City has largely ignored
them. For example, Greg’s brother, Gary Turgiss performed the initial assessment of Ms.
Ortolano’s property, 41 Berkeley St., after she purchased it in December 2013. Gary informed
Ms. Ortolano of a sudden 50.3% increase (from $469,800 in 2013 to $706,300 in 2014) in her
property’s total assessed value after the sale. Ms. Ortolano thereafter requested a review of that
assessment. Greg visited her property to perform the review. During Greg’s visit, Ms. Ortolano
provided him with intricate detail concerning what she believed Gary had done wrong in the
initial assessment. Greg seemed disinterested, failed to answer any of her questions, and told her
he would get back to her.

In early March 2019, the Chief Assessor position in the Assessing Department was
eliminated as the result of an internal audit, and our understanding is the City intends to re-
instate the “Administrative Services Director” position to oversee the Assessing Department and
several other departments (subject to approval by the Board of Aldermen). That audit also found
several critical problems existed within the Department, including ineffective management, and a
lack of internal policies to guide its operations. Accordingly, after the Chief Assessor position
was eliminated, the Department had no one with any assessing expertise or experience
overseeing it.!