Agricultural community cries foul regarding property reassessments

NORTH EAST — Property owners in Millerton and North East are up in arms regarding the reassessment project the town is currently in the process of wrapping up — none more so than farmers — many of whom have seen their property values jump double, some triple, digits. Their ire led to the Town Board’s adoption of a resolution, drafted by local attorney Robert Trotta, to instruct Assessor Katherine Johnson to “defer from filing the proposed tentative 2011 assessment roll to permit further review of the same, and that the assessor file and utilize the 2010 assessment roll as the tentative 2011 assessment roll,” until the matter can be addressed.Johnson responded to the resolution the following day. Her answer came swiftly and surely.“No,” she said. “By law, the tentative roll must come out by May 1st, and it will. The Town Board has no authority over me and my office. It’s my decision. The Town Board authorized me to do the reval. I was authorized by law. My roll has been approved by the state to be at 100 percent of value and I am going forward.”Written complaintTrotta presented the resolution to the Town Board at its meeting on Thursday, April 14. Trotta, along with the Poughkeepsie firm Corbally, Gartland, Rappleyea, LLP, represent “several agricultural owners,” according to an accompanying letter he submitted.It was during the public comment session of last week’s meeting that Trotta, and then several other community members, spoke about their concerns regarding the townwide property reassessment. A letter from Ledgewood Kennel owner (and newly appointed Planning Board member) Chip Barrett, which was read into the records, kicked off the discussion.“The major problem I found [with the reassessment] is that the agriculture land values are way too high,” Barrett wrote. “When I asked how the assessment was determined on land, [Consultant] Deborah [Whitten] stated it was done from land sales and not just farm to farm sales. This is absolutely against real property tax law; this means that our ag land is now being assessed at best and highest use, which is how many houses you can place on the land. Even some unbuildable conservancy land has gone up greater than 500 percent.”Johnson responded to that statement the next day, saying it was “absolutely unsubstantiated.”“Without seeing everyone’s values, I’m not sure how anyone can comment on that,” she said, adding that 52 percent of the properties examined were below the overall average increase of 8 percent, which means those property owners should see a decrease in their values. Johnson also said people were complaining too early in the process. “The numbers haven’t been published yet,” she said. “They’re not available to the public yet, so you can’t make judgments until you see the numbers. They will be public May 1, when the tentative roll comes out.”Farm bias?Back at the board meeting, after Barrett’s letter was read, Trotta had the floor. He referred to a portion of Barrett’s letter that read as follows:“To my disappointment I also feel that [Assessor] Katherine [Johnson] is biased against people who own farms,” Barrett wrote. “She had made her feelings quite clear in a letter she presented to the Farmland Protection group last year. I have also had conversations with her regarding this issue; she feels land owners who get ag exemptions are not paying their fair share in taxes. I think we can all agree that open space is not free — it costs to keep it open. The alternatives, as we know, can be very expensive to the local taxpayers.”“I read Chip’s letter,” Trotta said to the board and to the filled-to-capacity crowd. “And I thought, what could we do to help? The tax assessor is autonomous, and has a lot of authority, rightfully so. She is elected and can be wrong. I became very concerned when I saw Chip’s letter about possible bias. I don’t know if it’s true, but he says it is.“We’re marching down the road to May 1, and if that roll goes in, that’s going to be it,” the attorney said, adding the assessor must file the tentative roll by May 1 under New York state law. “There’s the cost of grievances, and the town is going to have to defend those lawsuits [if it comes to that].”Although Johnson did not respond to accusations of bias at the Town Board meeting, she did do so the following day.“I’m not sure where it comes from,” she said. “Maybe there’s a small group of farmers unhappy with the way I assessed their properties. As long as the law states farmers are entitled to exemptions, I grant them. But there are people who have issues with me because I have denied several, but only because they are not entitled to them, but I didn’t write the law. I only make sure it’s enforced.“But I also do more to help farmers than the law requires — I have no obligation to send applications for ag exemptions out or to call them up and remind holders to apply, but I do,” Johnson added. “I can’t tell you how many people thank me for that.”96 percent is pretty goodTrotta reiterated his request was for the assessor to simply “slow down,” and to see if “what we think may be happening is happening.” He added that last year the town was at 96 percent equalization rate, and that if it remained at that rate for this year it wouldn’t be so bad. If the town does not review its procedures and opts to do nothing, he warned, “a complaint will be filed against the town,” and there could be potential “financial consequences.” If that were to happen, taxpayers would get hit with a double whammy, the attorney warned, having to foot the town’s defense against a lawsuit and also the settlement costs. Johnson said she did not want the Town Board to be swayed by the threat.“I understand the Town Board should always listen to their public, but all I ask as a property owner and resident of the town is that they don’t let one small segment of the population with its own agenda lead them to make decisions for the entire town, without hearing the whole side of the story,” Johnson said. “I wasn’t given any time to defend against any of the untruthful exaggerations and accusations that were put forth. The resolution was put forth during public comment without any discussion,” she continued. “As far as I am concerned, going back to the 2010 roll would be going back to more inequity of what we’re trying to resolve through this reassessment. Absolutely not.”