Graham, Donna
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From: Laurie Ortolano <laurieortolano@gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, May 09, 2020 9:13 PM
To: Board of Assessors; Board of Aldermen
Subject: Assessing Concerns and the Hiring of a Chief
CAUTION: This email came from outside of the organization. Do not click links/open attachments if source is
unknown,
To: Board of Aldermen
Board of Assessors
] am writing this letter and asking that this be placed on file as part of public input.
I am concerned that the City has not acted prudently on filling the position of the Chief Assessor. This is an
extremely important position and we are currently experiencing some serious issues in our assessing office.
Ms. Kleiner informed the Board of Assessor that there were 2 candidates who have applied to the position and
that the City would be interviewing those candidates once the stay-at-home orders were lifted. Why isn't the
City abie to interview these candidates remotely or on-line as most companies are doing?
Why is the public not told who the candidates are? When a new superintendent is hired, the typical process is to
do a public meet and greet with the finalized pool of applicants. There names are public. Full transparency.
I think this position of Chief assessor is as important as a Superintendent of Schools. Please be transparent and
provide the public with real information so we know the process is really moving forward.
Let me share a problem that is happening now in the assessing office that highlights the need for a strong chief.
Abatements have to be filed with the City by March Ist. Once the applications are received, they are input into
the AssesPro system and the VAX system. We are double inputing and have been for 10 years. Once the new
software is online (AP5), the coordinator will only need to input the data once.
The Chief of Assessing has been responsible for assigning abatements to the assessors. Once Jon Duhamel left
on or about March 1, 2019, Ms. Kleiner authorized Greg Turgiss to assign the abatments. Ms. Walley was the
coordinator at the time and helped to gather all the records to be sure all the abatements were recorded.
I currently have a 2018 appeal in process with the BTLA but I filed a separate 2019 abatement. I asked legal
who would handle assigning my 2019 abatement and was told Kim Kleiner was responsible. I have learned that
Greg Turgiss is responsible.
I wanted to follow up to find out the assignment of my 2019 abatement. I received the list from Ms. Kleiner on
Friday. The list was missing abatments and was iricomplete. My abatement was not listed. I had a back and
forth exchange with Ms. Kleiner, who apologized that 12 abatement had not been captured and were in the
process of being assigned. In looking at the new list, I noticed a property on Berkeley that filed a 2018
abatement was not listed in the updated version. I am concerned that more are missing and the office has lost
track of the paperwork and assignment process.
