Frustration sparked some explosive accusations at the Raymond Elementary School gymnasium Tuesday during a public meeting with Vision Appraisal Technology.
In an attempt to satisfy Raymond property owners’ concerns about perceived discrepancies in their revaluations, the town had set up the meeting with Vision’s District Manager Mike Tarello to clarify the mass appraisal process.
But tensions ran high in the crowd of about 50. As Tarello began his presentation, several individuals interrupted him with a barrage of questions and accusations.
Although Tarello was eventually allowed to present the material he’d prepared, it quickly became obvious to both him and the crowd that more in-depth information would be required and that the question-and-answer format would rule the evening.
“It looks like we need to have a higher level of explanation,” Tarello said. “If that’s what you need, that’s what you’ll get.”
Many of those who spoke had questions about the 80-page manual Assessors’ Agent Amanda Simpson had referred them to for more information. One man complained that the manual did not have “the groove” into which his house fit.
And Denis Morse referred to the technical level of information included in the manual.
“What you’re hearing is frustration from people because…the manual is not a simple thing for people to understand,” Morse said.
Others resented having to pay for the manual, questioning why it couldn’t be made available online. Their protests resulted in a decision between Vision and the town to offer the manual through the Raymond Web site as a PDF document.
Several property owners also expressed aggravation stemming from the inability to gather necessary information before their hearings. Franklin Dexter, of the Cape Road, said it was hard to have his property evaluated without having a sense of what the data was.
“Can Vision Appraisal give me the data that led to the conclusion that’s on my tax card?” he asked.
Dexter is so upset with the town over the revaluation that he recently resigned from the school board and has put his house on the market. He is angry with the “town fathers” because they were not prepared to address the problems for those property owners who fell into the 10 to 20 percent margin of error that Vision itself predicted the revaluation would create.
Most of those in attendance owned lakefront property. While the total average increase for all properties in the town is 126 percent, waterfront property increased an average of 172 percent.
Tarello acknowledged that lakefront property was more difficult to assess because there were fewer comparable sales figures and more subjective criteria. He explained the bell curve that was created by plotting sale prices. But he pointed out that there were always going to be some points – outliers – that were outside of the curve. Many of the properties owned by those at the meeting appeared to fall into this category – properties that have no comps; that are unlike any others in the area.
Tarello had expected to be assisted in his presentation by Project Manager Kevin Leen, who had overseen the process in Raymond. But, due to a family emergency, Leen was unable to attend, leaving gaps in some areas of Tarello’s explanation.
But, by the end of the evening, despite Wayne Holmquist’s accusations of Vision’s “convoluted methodology” and Tarello’s “Teflon tongue,” some property owners walked away feeling they had access to more of the information they needed to arm themselves for an appeal.
Others, like Dexter, were simply questioning how hard they wanted to fight.
“At some point,” Dexter said, “this will be the town of the very rich and the very poor.”
Send questions/comments to the editors.
