A blatant attack


To the Editor:


Wow! If Al Hammond’s letter to the Reporter (October 1, 2009) was the first he’s written in 20 years on the Island I sure hope it’s his last of the kind of unsubstantiated vituperation directed at assessor candidate Joe Messing. This is a blatant political attack against a candidate whom Mr. Hammond is not even facing in an election.


However, it is clear that Mr. Hammond does not want Mr. Messing to be elected as the town’s second part-time assessor. Why is this so? Is there a hidden agenda that one should read between the lines of his invective? Does Mr. Hammond feel threatened by Mr. Messing’s candidacy? If this is so it would have been more courageous for Mr. Hammond to have written a letter stating why Mr. Messing is not qualified to be a part-time assessor considering Mr. Messing’s nine years of experience serving on the Island’s Board of Assessment Review, six as chair. 


Instead, using sophistic reasoning, Mr. Hammond attacks Mr. Messing’s record by employing grade school arithmetic and deduces Mr. Messing has devoted only four minutes to each of the grievances heard over nine years. If I were one of those grievances I would hope that four minutes resulted in a fair ruling in my favor instead of four hours that resulted in an unfair ruling against me. 


Whatever the total hours worked in hearing grievances they are the hours prescribed by the role of the assessment review board. Further to Mr. Hammond’s specious reasoning, whether a clerk from the Assessor’s Office is “loaned” to the review board or on permanent assignment, that staffer is still interacting with the members of the review board and it is fair for Mr. Messing to state that he has worked directly with the staff of the Assessor’s Office.


All in all, Mr. Hammond’s letter impugns Mr. Messing’s honesty as well as the value of the assessment review board at large. After all, the review board represents all of us protesting unjust property valuations. If Mr. Hammond’s accusations have meaning why did he wait nine years to state them in a public forum? I believe Mr. Hammond owes Mr. Messing an apology.


Lastly, I was under the impression that the Reporter had a policy of not printing letters representing personal attacks on any Shelter Island citizen. What happened to that policy?


SAM LEBOWITZ


Shelter Island