TOWN OF EVANS
Owners ask help fighting assessments
Some Town of Evans property owners resumed their complaints over the past year’s property assessment at Wednesday’s Town Board meeting.
In addition to asking for help appealing their assessments, there were several challenges to the fairness of the process and calls to scrap the current roll.
“It’s not fair that there are people out there that have lower assessments than what they should be, either,” Tracy Tavakoli of Lakeshore Road, one of several critics, said after the meeting ended.
Tavakoli, who owns two properties in the town, said she had no quarrel with one of her assessments, but the other, which rose to $190,000 from $72,000, is well above market value.
Town Assessor Jeanne Ebersole said it was not unexpected that there would be complaints after the first revaluation of properties in the town in 20 years.
“We’re going to full value and annual reassessments, so this type of sticker shock will not happen anymore,” said Ebersole after the meeting.
Ebersole said only 12 percent of property owners went through the process to appeal their assessments on June 1. Property owners who disagreed with the Board of Assessment Review’s decision had until Aug. 1 to file for a legal action through Small Claims Court, which 104 property owners in the town have done, Ebersole said.
“But the appeals process is closed,” she said. “July 1 was the final roll, and if you weren’t involved in the rest of the legal process — the Board of Assessment Review or small claims — the ship has sailed for 2008.”
However, Ebersole said, that although the final assessment roll was submitted July 1, assessments can be argued next year.
Tavakoli said that having 12 percent of property owners appealing their assessments is an indication that the process was flawed.
“If you had a 12 percent problem with a drug out there, the [U. S. Food and Drug Administration] would be recalling it. Here you’ve got a 12 percent problem in your community. Why not address it?” she said.
