Board of Aldermen 11-27-2018 Page 10
land valuation and the factors on the property card and | think there is a legitimate issue there. One of
my neighbors has been hot on it. He went in, he got the assessor to meet with him, the assessor could
not answer his questions, the assessor said, “I'll get back to you’, the assessor called back three days
later, he gave him an answer on the phone, my neighbor wasn’t really satisfied with it, but was super
appreciative that at least he got a response. That is more than we ever got in four years and we
happened to be with the assessor that doesn’t do that, that didn’t do it from the beginning.
| think that difference in the assessors should not exist. Even three years that should not have existed,
| shouldn’t have felt like | needed to get a lawyer to get RSA information. | didn’t know how to word my
questions to this administration without having a lawyer do it for me. | didn’t know how to ask for a
document, because | have asked, |’ve asked for the qualifications of our assessors because the CFO
has said they are all certified. | don’t know if they are, we all here have stuff on ... people walking into a
doctor who isn’t a doctor, we all here are being duped because we are told what the right answer is but
we don’t really know. | said, “Well when were they certified and what are they certified in, who are
they’? No answer nobody knows, but they are, just trust them, they are.
| want to point out one thing when it comes to assessing and assessing fairly and | told this to the Board
of Assessors, when | looked at our street, on Berkeley Street, there were a lot of permits that were
missed. But when | finally laid out all the permit data and | looked at what it showed, KRT came in and
met with the Board of Assessors and the Board said to him, Rob Tozier, “are all these problems caused
by people not pulling permits and they are doing work to their homes and we don’t know about it” and
Rob said, “I don’t know, I’m not certain it could be the problem”, right? How would he actually know and
in reality when | went into the Board of Assessors, | said “Let me tell you what | see. | see lots of
permits being pulled but | see the assessing people not going out to check on the permits or to close
them with a visit’. Tons, they are assessing at the desk off a picture.
On Berkeley Street there were 16 out of 35 permits pulled that were never visited or looked at. And |
am talking significant valuations, they didn’t go and in the process of not going they missed full home
renovations, major changes, because we know we cannot just trust what is written on a piece of paper
on what is happening with the permit. So 16 out of 35 were just never visited or seen and about 10 of
them of those permits were simply not valued, forgotten to be valued for new kitchens and stuff. That is
a lot, that is a lot of missed data that creates disproportionate assessments, it is very significant. You
know, | was culling through the extra hundred permit cards | printed a week ago. | am going to tell you,
| just scroll through them, scroll through them, | create a spread sheet and | take a look and | hit a
property card where there were 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 permits pulled, a lot done. Three big ones and the
rest were mechanical, electrical and plumbing and | said, “Oh this is a house that has a lot of work it is
in my neighborhood” and then | look at the activity section and there hasn’t been a measuring list since
1994 and they hadn’t done a data verification since 1998. There are absolutely no visits on this card,
all of that work and there isn’t a visit out there. The valuations are so flipping low it is crazy, a brand
new kitchen in an old home, yielded $1,500.00 on the assessment.
When | see a card like this and this is a card that they don’t go back to all the time, three big permits, no
visits, no visits, no visits, you Know what | do? | look at the name, who is this? It is a Board of
Assessor's member, you know, do they understand how hard it is for us? That to me is a conflict and |
don’t like seeing that. They don’t understand on the outside what is like for us if you are not having
anyone come to your property or that assessing office isn’t going to these properties’ to capture this
stuff. They are missing it on a big level so it is really disappointing. | am going to continue to work at it.
| don’t really care if you stonewall and | am sure that the City is going to provide nothing and | am not
going to get any answers and | am going to go back to the questions I’ve asked and | know | won’t get
answers. Over time | am going to try and verify the data by going back down there and obtaining
information but the only reason that | am doing that is because the City won’t give you any answers and
| am not going to sit back and just accept that it got taken care of or somebody looked at it. | am going
to verify it. And | am going to continue to verify it. And | do everything | can, | haven’t spent much time
