Special Bd. of Aldermen — 11/26/2018 Page 20
exploring. It may be a little too cutting edge for this City but you know people are looking at ways that they
don’t, you are not the only, or our assessors aren't the only people who can’t get in houses. But you know other
people in industry for property evaluation can’t get in there either but they somehow figure out how to make
automated methods that are reasonably accurate. And | think if it was any more accurate than what we are
seeing today that would be a step forward.
And lastly the last thing and this was brought up by Ms. Kleiner and | think was a very good point was seeing
customer input where the customer, you were referring to us, the citizens, right? And what | would just suggest
to you in a respectful manner, one thing besides figuring out how to send out surveys to people is maybe to
reasonably accept input from concerned citizens. There may only be a few and | think it is very notable we don’t
have to mention names, of people who have put in a lot of work and a lot of effort and have been really treated, |
think, disrespectfully in a lot of respects because they are bringing a message nobody wants to hear.
Yes, everybody is happy with the customer service down there. We are asking about the assessments. Thank
you.
Lori Ortolano Lori Ortolano, 41 Berkeley Street. Before | start, and maybe we can’t do this, but there is a lady
here and it is her first time at the meeting and she just whispered to me she’d like to talk but she didn’t sign up
on the sheet. So | don’t know if you can accommodate her, but | just wanted to say that before | ended.
I’d like to address the Mayor’s comments first. | Know you believe very strongly that the KRT numbers and this
revaluation that we just did produced equitable assessments. | really am pretty opposite you on this issue. | feel
that we have a lot of inequity in the City and that KRT’s work fell very short, really because the data that they
used was not that good. | can tell you from my perspective living in an old neighborhood, | think the old
neighborhoods are particularly bad. And we have a lot of old neighborhoods around Nashua. And | think there
is a lot of disparity in equity. | think there are a lot of people living in some of those homes that don’t even
understand the disparity that is there.
So | don’t like the idea of waiting 5 years, | think it is too long. I’m not even certain how well your ratio, your
median ratio is going to hold over that time to give you the 5 years to take that time, especially if the real estate
market keeps cruising along with some forward motion. So that is one thing.
Secondly, I’ve been at the last two Board of Assessor’s meetings and | have to be honest, they look pretty darn
disappointing. It is really tough for me sitting there. The meeting | went to two weeks ago had a little bit of a
show going on for me because at that point the number of abatements filed had been just over 100 so the Chair
and the Ex-Chief were commenting on how satisfied the public is — we’ve only got about 100 abatements in and
wow, you know, Lori that is a real good indicator that everyone is very happy, everything is good. You know
people are not upset at all, what are you talking about? And | wasn’t on the agenda so | couldn’t speak to that,
but | walked out really disappointed. | talked to some industry experts who said to me — that’s not an indication
of satisfaction at all and should not be used. A low number of abatements can actually mean that you are pretty
undervalued in your City which | agreed with that.
But now a week goes by and the abatements jump almost to 400. So this week we go into the Board of
Assessors and they are no longer saying — Oh wow we hardly have any abatements everything is fine. But
what they are saying — Well let’s conduct a poll and the Chair is saying you know what? Kim and John asked
about the community and has there been many complaints in their survey and their survey came up and people
seem pretty happy overall people seem pretty happy with the office. | agree with that. I've been down there a lot.
Your front end interface is outstanding. The three women at the front are outstanding, they do a wonderful job.
Every one of them is professional, courteous, makes you feel welcome. But that is not an indication that the
assessments are good and what is going on behind the wall. And so for the Chair to sit there today and say —
Well you know what, we are not hearing any complaints, everyone is pretty happy, that’s a pretty good
indication we don’t have a problem. You know, | have to sort of endure that for Round Two. And | think we are
missing the point.
