Special Bd. of Aldermen — 11/26/2018 Page 18
million and $1.5 million dollars could be how many teachers or policemen and fire fighters that we are not
funding for that year as well? | mean that is something we all could consider here on the Board as we go
forward. And then | know this is probably not going to happen any time soon but | would hope that, and it is
probably and executive function of the Mayor’s Office, that if it is a policy if at some point the policy of the City is
that we are going go and seek administrative warrants to go into people’s houses, | would hope that would be a
broader discussion. | for one would be very much against that unless it is a worst case scenario.
Attorney Bolton
So you want me to tell you about the ones I’ve already done.
Alderman Dowd
Just a realtor, the MLS presumably has good data, because realtors check tax maps and go in to City Hall and
Town Halls and check the data so the data is pretty good. | wouldn’t go by the write-ups because there are a lot
of English majors that are also realtors that are trying to make it sound like Taj Mahal. And the pictures they
always take a ton of pictures and use the best ones, but it would give you, the MLS would give you the exact
measurements. | mean today realtors use lasers to do measurements to they are pretty accurate, to within less
than an inch. So it is a piece of information that if the assessing department wanted to, could at the time of sale,
take the MLS sheet, put it in the file. The MLS also lists the former sales prices and year built and all these
other pieces of information that would assist an evaluation to some degree. | wouldn’t rely 100% on it but it
gives you a pretty good start, especially if they are not letting you in the house.
President Wilshire
Anything else before we open up for public comment? Ok | am going to open up for public comment If you’d
like to come to the microphone and state your name and address for the record. The first person signed up is
Michael Ortolano.
PERIOD FOR PUBLIC COMMENT
Michael Ortolano 41 Berkeley Street. | just wanted to take a few minutes to address the Mayor’s opening
comments which confused me. The meeting this morning that | sat through in part of the assessing, of the
assessor's board, handed out information regarding the number of abatements filed this year. The numbers are
significant, there’s 376 abatements, not the 200 that were mentioned during your opening comments. That is
44% higher than the last update year in 2013 and it almost 20% higher than previous update in 2009. So | was
confused by the statement because it seemed to be positioning the issue as less of a significant issue than |
think the numbers would reflect.
A big part of this issue is the integrity of the numbers and the numbers are one as you look deeper at it, you
know there seems to be arbitrary methodologies that are used and | think that is pretty much flushed out in the
management audit that was done. The procedures and policies aren’t really in place to support having a strong
level of confidence that the assessments are equitable and the quality of the work product is good. So | just
wanted to highlight that.
| wanted to highlight to this organization that a lot of it is about the numbers. | feel like you know there are lots of
generalizations that are made with regard to the Assessing Department and | do hope that the next wave of this
gets to look more closely at the work product to make sure that gets converging on what should be a
methodology that can be transparent, can be displayed to the community. An ideal scenario, a tax payer that
has the interest and the time should be able to use the same method that the assessors are using to arrive at
the same conclusion. So that’s my only comment. Thank you.
