Minutes of the Board of Assessors Meeting of November 15, 2018

A meeting of the Board of Assessors was held on Thursday, November 15, 2018 in Room 208, 2nd floor of City Hall. The meeting was called to order at 8:15 AM by Chair Dominic D’Antoni.

Members Present:

Dominic D’Antoni Daniel Hansberry Robert Earley

Assessing Staff Present:

Jon Duhamel Doug Dame Michael Mandile Louise Brown Amanda Mazerolle Cheryl Walley

Abatement Requests Presented:

A complete list is available in the Assessor’s Office.

Minutes of the Meeting:

Regarding the minutes of the previous meeting, the following motion was made:

MOTION BY Daniel Hansberry to waive the reading of the minutes of October 18, 2018 and accept and place them on file. SECONDED BY Robert Earley MOTION PASSED

Supervisor of Assessing Administration, Ms. Louise Brown, introduced Assessing Administrative Specialist I, Ms. Amanda Mazerolle, and advised she will be presenting the personal exemptions and credits to the board in the future. The members thanked Ms. Brown and said they will look forward to speaking with Ms. Mazerolle on these exemption and credits presented.

Appointments:

8:30 – Ms. Laurie Ortolano – regarding procedures in Assessing

Mr. Dominic D’Antoni began by introducing the board members to Ms. Ortolano and advised that each member of the board has received the material she submitted for their review.

Ms. Ortolano began by saying that she and her husband have concerns there is a real lack of policy and procedure and that really reflects what information the public is allowed to know on how this office operates. There was an article that ran in the Union Leader (October 10, 2018) which stated that Mr. John Griffin, the City of Nashua’s Chief Financial Officer, made a statement that the City of Nashua has written policies in place for using the mass appraisal system. Since that article ran, she said she has been requesting Mr. Jon Duhamel, the Chief Assessor, give her a copy of these and has gotten no response to her request. She came into and asked staff for a copy and they looked at her like she has two heads and said we have no policies here. On a Friday evening Mr. Duhamel sent her two procedures that were the office ladies’ procedures on entering permits into the system. She said her question is what is going on behind the front office when you get to management and assessors? How are they valuing these permits? She is seeing huge variations. She said she also has a big issue also

1 of 4 with the printing costs of $1 per property card. She has spent over $500 and it tells a story of a not so controlled office. She advised she is now working with a lawyer. She received an email from (City Counsel) Steve Bolton that says they are not required to give me anything that is not in writing. She said she thought well, how convenient when you do not have anything in writing. She said she is ‘coming out swinging’ and will keep on going. It is not fair to the public. Taxpayers do not stand a chance going in there with an abatement. She said she read a set of minutes where a representative from KRT Appraisal said we have not been in some houses since 1991. She does not think there is an assessor in city hall who knows how to value the properties on Berkeley Street. She told the board she gave them a spreadsheet of forty properties out of 55 that have not been measured or data verified since 1991 and when someone new moves in like they did, you use MLS and take them to the moon. She said they had their assessment go up $230,000 and all of these other properties are not even looked at. She talked with a representative from KRT Appraisal and he said they were doing drive-bys only and he also said this is a case of sales chasing. We have a problem here. She asked the representative from KRT how he knows that and he said he has been a victim of this by his assessing department. He said his assessment was changed when he purchased his home and he felt it was sales chasing and brought this to their attention and his assessment was adjusted back to what it should have been. Ms. Ortolano said she did bring it to her assessing department’s attention and they told her the assessment is correct and this is where you should be. She came in and printed the property record card and asked if they capture permits and they said ‘oh yeah’ we updated this year so she thought she was covered. She got a letter on 1/17/14 notifying her that her assessment again went up. She found out the assessing department does this to other people and no letter is sent to some. After receiving the letter she called the office and an assessor came out. While he was still in the house he just took his pen and crossed out $707,300 and hand wrote in $699,400. How did he know it was $699,400 to right there make the change. I thought there would be $80,000 in changes or maybe even $100,000 but $6,000?

So KRT comes in and says some of these properties have not been inspected by the assessing department since 1991. They say is it because we are not getting permitted work. She says she does not think so because there have been so many permits pulled and they are getting closed without visits. They stay in the office and look at the drawings and do not visit the property. Ms. Ortolano then went through some permits comparing the amounts added to those assessments and said they are absurd. (As an attachment to these minutes is a chart provided by Ms. Ortolano entitled ‘Berkeley Street Permit Capture 2010 forward’). Ms. Ortolano continued and mentioned a property where the owner let the assessor in and they still do not assess. The assessor went out in 2017 and $0 was added to the value. She talked to the owner and was told he came in and looked and said everything is already excellent on the card but after she looked at the property record card saw everything on the card actually says average. Everything that was built in 2000 or earlier has an effective year built (EYB) of 1969! Her EYB got jacked up to 1995! Regarding Mr. Duhamel, she said she is ‘gunning for his job’. His attendance is horrible! He is not at work enough to justify his position.

She said another thing is the city does not value land like other communities do. She has a third of an acre and the difference in the land assessment between her lot and her neighbor with an acre of land is maybe $10,000. They cranked up the valuation of land in the Tanglewood area but land is undervalued in her area. It is almost a waste of time to have them type it in. She told the board that she and her husband have owned properties for 30 years and have always pulled a permit for all work done. They own a house up at the lake and the assessor was at their house within a month to six weeks after they pulled a permit. Her assumption here was that is what Nashua does too. She never expected they do not value. She said she does not understand why a house sells and it is $100,000 difference in the assessed value. How did it happen that the Ortolano’s property went up so much? They do not have any standard procedure on how to determine ‘average’ or ‘fair’, etc. This same assessor uses MLS verification tool to update data. This is a good tool if used correctly but in this case it is like

2 of 4 giving a 14 year old the keys to the car. They are not looking for equity and she does not see why. It is the same pot of when the tax rate is set. Ms. Ortolano mentioned a lot of examples where the disparity in how these are rated is obvious and said there have been times that the assessor has not even officially visited houses to make these changes.

Two assessors spoke to her and she asked how they got her at $699,400 when other properties are so low. Regarding the owner of one of these low properties, he said I am very good friends with that guy and he goes there all the time. She asked him ‘so that is your friend’s deal