Board of Aldermen 10-23-2018 Page 7
really a disturbing piece of information on sales verifying. And also, | could not track a pattern like if you
... 2013 was an assessment year, if you bought your house in 2013/2014 and everything had been
equalized to 94% and did they take the home value if it sold that year and bring it to 94%, because that
was the equalized ratio? No they didn’t; they did some, they did us at 97 but they left other homes at
85, 82, you know, $100,000.00 differences.
In neighborhoods that you know down in Tanglewood, nice neighborhoods, big variations. So | could
not understand what was going on. | want you to know that | wrote a letter, | sent an e-mail into the
Assessing Office more than a month ago, maybe 5 weeks ago, asking for what the MLS policy was and
how are they using this sales information to adjust the data base. | was never able to get a response. |
also asked them if they had policies in general that they could provide me in an e-mail; | was never able
to get a response.
Last week your CFO gave a response to a Union Leader article that we have policies in place for the
capturing of permits and updating the cards using our mass appraisal system. That prompted a
number of us in my neighborhood to go to the Assessor’s Office and to call in and say, “We'd like
copies of your policies”. As it turned out, there are no policies. | was flat out told, we really don’t have
them. What they have is a task list in everyone’s computer that tells them what to do. | called the Chief
Assessor out and asked if he was available and he came out. | said “Hey, | want your policies, your
boss has said you have got policies, this is what | have been looking for, | want the policies”. He really
didn’t know what | wanted, he said, “We really don’t have policies’.
| think it was on a Saturday, this was a Friday | was in there, | got an e-mail back from him and he sent
me two punch lists basically out of two of the ladies in the front office’s computers that tell them what to
do when they get a permit; go into WebPro, push this button, enter this data, look to see if it has value.
If it has value, send it over to Gary. So it is a task list, that’s not a policy. When | look at your Board of
Assessor's web site, it says “The Board of Assessor’s responsibilities include reviewing the Assessment
Department's policies for compliance with statutes”. | agree with that, I’d love to find the policies,
because | really believe a big part of your problem in that office is not having any policies.
It has made my life very difficult. I’ve had some people in City Hall be very critical of the data | produced
telling me it wasn’t truthful and, in fact, | have been very open with my data and if | have a mistake in
my data, Trish called me up and said, “Oh you have got to look at the 8 in the verify column, that means
MLS verified”. | had to go to Alderman to figure that out. Nobody in the Assessing Department could
tell me that for the time I’m there, when | send an e-mail so | could understand it?
| care about my data, you really all have to stay to yourself, what would this lady’s purpose be in
producing a whole bunch of lies and throwing it out there, why would she do that? | wouldn’t. | wouldn’t
do that to myself and | wouldn’t waste your time either. One thing that really bothered me when |
moved in here and my assessment got raised, | received a letter in January from the City letting me
know it happened and it was going up $229,000.00 and | had until July to pay the bill. | discovered
looking through all your cards that | was the only one that | can find given a letter.
And, in fact, in the Assessing Office, they said “We don’t tell people when we do this, we just send them
their tax bill and if it goes up five grand, they get it and they’ve got a month to pay, come up with the
money or else”. | was shocked and | kind of resent living on Berkeley Street and being picked to be
given a letter, if it was because | was special or in a high priced neighborhood, | deserved it. I’d like to
be treated like everyone in this City and | think every person in this City deserves to receive a letter if
their assessments are changing by massive valuations that really cause hardship when you get that
information and you’ve got four weeks to come up with the money.
| find that it has been very much an obstructionist process for me and City Hall. The ladies in the front
office of the Assessor's Office are great. They really are, they are really great, but when you get to the
Assessing point it really falls apart with finding anything that makes sense.
