Assessor letter stinks


To the Editor:


I smell politics and it is like the stench of a five-day-dead mouse dragged in by the cat. The good news is that within a few weeks that odor will mercifully subside.


As a long time member of the Shelter Island Board of Assessment Review, I feel compelled to take issue with comments which appeared in a letter written by Town Assessor Al Hammond and published in last week’s Reporter.


First of all, I do not doubt, as Mr. Hammond asserts, that in the past nine years there have been 692 real estate tax grievances submitted to the board for review; as well as his comment that 402 of those grievances were submitted by attorneys with not enough information on them for the board to legally give them a proper review. No doubt those 402 applications took little of the board’s time but were in fact all reviewed by us to be certain that they did not qualify for greater scrutiny. Of the 290 additional grievances which did qualify for the board’s decision, I assure you that much more than Mr. Hammond’s skewed “four minutes” statistic was devoted to many of the applications; in fact, some of the board’s decisions were not made without vigorous debate between board members as well as full inspections of tax maps, photographs of structures, and on many more than one occasion physical visits by board members to the properties in question.


We also scrutinized submitted comparables and often even asked Mr. Hammond what his criteria were for coming up with the assessment being protested by the taxpayer. There were numerous instances when an assessment review would go on for a half-hour or more — a far cry from Mr. Hammond’s “four minute” slap in the face. I take issue with Mr. Hammond’s warped statistic and the overall patronizing tone and political agenda of his letter. I assure you that there are few towns in Suffolk County where the Board of Assessment Review would put as much time, effort and debate into any single tax grievance.


In my many years on the non-political board of review we have in fact worked shoulder to shoulder with the town Assessor’s Office in gathering the proper data needed to perform our job properly and fairly. I assure you that much of our scrutiny of Mr. Hammond’s assessments was not met with a “happy face.” Correct, we are not qualified assessors or elected members of the Assessor’s Office but we do work closely and in cooperation with the Assessor’s Office in the best interest of the taxpayers of Shelter Island. I am proud of my work on this committee and proud of the team of like-minded individuals who sit on that board with me. To have our good work and intentions sullied by the Town Assessor, who clearly has politics on his mind, is unconscionable. 


I have always found Mr. Messing to be a concerned, efficient, more than qualified, intelligent and — most important to that board — a fair member and board chairman. He has been a total asset to the Board of Assessment Review and through his sense of fairness and efficiency has guided the board to perform a thorough and equitable service for the taxpayers of Shelter Island. It is this efficiency that has enabled us to perform our service at the smallest expense to the town of Shelter Island, and, in these hard times, that really is something.


JOE LAURO


North Ferry Road