Assessor response
To the Editor:
I do not take issue with your endorsement for assessor because it is your choice to which you are entitled. What puzzles me is that you did not interview either candidate and that you chose some of your opinions from Mr. Messing’s campaign rhetoric.
Regarding my role in endorsing Pat Castoldi, you are correct in that the assessor’s office should be apolitical. We all made it political by sticking to the archaic belief that the position of assessor is to be elective, which allows anyone with party backing to fill a position for which he or she is not qualified. Eighty-five percent of the assessors in New York State are appointed and are professionals who have had to meet strict criteria before earning the position. We as a community made the job political. As such, BJ and I are entitled to voice our opinion just as much as Mr. Dougherty is permitted to send a postcard to everyone endorsing Mr. Messing.
Your comment that Pat Castoldi “knows the business of appraisal and sees it from the bank or governments perspective” is insulting and totally without basis in fact. Instead of checking facts, you seem to have gotten this idea directly from Mr. Messing’s answer to questions related to the Independence line primary. Actually, appraisal is not a business, it is a profession. Appraisal is state and federally regulated by a document of procedure and conduct entitled the “Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice” or “USPAP.”
Under the conduct section of the Ethics Rule of USPAP, “An appraiser must perform assignments with impartiality, objectivity, and independence, and without accommodation of personal interests.” It further states, “An appraiser must not advocate the cause or interest of any party or issue.” On the contrary, if you see Mr. Messing as approaching assessment “from the taxpayers perspective,” he is in violation of appraisal/assessment ethics and conduct. The correct and fair perspective is property valuation and nothing else.
If, as you say, Ms. Castoldi is a good fit with our office, let me remind you that our office is a town synonym for good government, fair treatment, courtesy, equity, transparency and professionalism. The state of New York has awarded our office with over $125,000 in grant money which over the past eight years has saved the taxpayers an entire year of the assessor’s office budget. The awards are for equity and the fair treatment of taxpayers. Your are absolutely right, Ms. Castoldi is a good fit.
If you had checked your facts, you would know your claim that Mr. Messing would bring new analytical skills to the office is also meaningless. Our office in conjunction with the Office of Real Property Services, has been using multivariate data analysis, multivariate data statistics and regression analysis in addition to sales ratio studies since the day I walked in here nine years ago.
You are a newspaper and it is a newspaper’s responsibility to check facts. You and the editorial staff mistakenly believe that all you need to know regarding what it takes to be an assessor can be known by reading campaign rhetoric instead of going to the source.
AL HAMMOND
Shelter Island
