Richmondville is moving ahead to resolve its longstanding assessment controversy.
Town leaders are going ahead with plans to advertise for a full-time assessor, while the Board of Assessment Review has scheduled a public meeting to explain its practices.
Town board members earlier this month agreed to look for a full-time assessor to replace Matt Richardson, who resigned in November.
Residents and BAR members had sharply criticized Mr. Richardson for property assessments that didn’t appear fair.
Also, Mr. Richardson, who worked part-time, was often unavailable, drawing more criticism.
A full-time assessor will have more chance to straighten out Richmondville’s assessments, Councilman Roy Bilby said Saturday.
“We agreed we need to do it,” he said. “A lot of people think part-time would be okay, but we really need a full-time person to address this now.”
He said the town attorney is writing advertisements for the post.
“We’re going to look very hard at qualifications and go for the most qualified,” Mr. Bilby said.
Mr. Richardson worked 10 hours per week and a technician worked 30, Mr. Bilby said. The new full-timer would likely work 40 hours and the technician would not have as many hours as previously, he said.
Controversy over assessments has raged since the town did a property re-evaluation several years ago. Residents and town officials should now give the new assessor time to work, Mr. Bilby said.
“It’s not going to be straightened out in a couple of months,” he said. “Let the man finish his job.”
Meanwhile, the BAR plans to meet January 6, 7pm, at the RVES building.
Members will respond to criticisms by resident John Primeau about their practices during grievance day in late May.
At grievance day, the BAR lowered many property assessments, and Mr. Primeau later questioned their rationale.
“It’s to reply to all those accusations and concerns raised by Mr. Primeau,” BAR Chair Marjorie Sperbeck said of the meeting.
“We’ll explain how we did it.”
Another twist is that in October––after he criticized members––Supervisor John Barlow and councilmen appointed Mr. Primeau to the BAR.
Because the meeting is after January 1, Mr. Primeau is a BAR member, though he can’t act on assessment decisions until he gets the necessary training, Ms. Sperbeck said.
“I’ll invite him to sit right up in the front row with us” at the meeting, Ms. Sperbeck said.
She’s invited town board members to the meeting, which has been postponed twice.
Ms. Sperbeck also urged the public to attend.
“This is their legal process, and they need to be comfortable with it,” she said. “Hopefully, we’ll be able to take questions from the floor afterwards.”