Citizens for Fair Taxes files lawsuit

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PORTVILLE - A group opposed to Portville's 2007 property assessment filed a lawsuit in Cattaraugus County Supreme Court to have the assessment overturned.

Citizens for Fair Taxes filed the lawsuit Wednesday with the court. The filing included the names of 135 property owners from the village and town of Portville who oppose the new assessment which was certified July 1.

The lawsuit is called an Article 78 proceeding. An Article 78 proceeding is used in New York to challenge government action or inaction, alleging officials acted improperly or didn't follow the law while performing their duties. The Cattaraugus County Clerk's Office sent a copy of the suit to the Olean Times Herald at the request of a reporter.

Citizens for Fair Taxes believes the assessment wasn't conducted properly, causing many property assessments to increase above 100 percent of their prior value.

The group hopes to force the town to throw out the assessment and have a new property value review done. The group was formed by town of Portville residents Bill and Kenda Stern in July.

Several meetings between the town and Citizens for Fair Taxes were held in July and August to discuss the issue. The Town Board and Supervisor David Witherell declined to set the assessment aside and perform a new property review.

Mr. Witherell said Thursday he can't comment on the specifics of the suit because the town hasn't seen it yet. However, he said he and a majority of the board stand by the assessment and will defend it in court if necessary.

"If we have to go to court we will, but this lawsuit will just end up hurting everyone in the town," he said.

Mr. Witherell said town taxpayers will have to pay attorney fees to defend the assessment and if Citizens for Fair Taxes is successful, the taxpayers will have to pay a company to do a new assessment for the town and village.

Mr. Witherell said GAR Associates, a firm that specializes in performing community property assessments, wanted to charge $95,000 to $125,000 to review Portville's assessment rolls.

"That's coming out of the taxpayers' pockets if we have to hire someone to do another assessment and there is no guarantee that your assessment is going to go down," he said. "I don't think many people understand that."

In an earlier interview with the Times Herald, Mrs. Stern said she was reluctant to pursue the lawsuit because she and the rest of the taxpayers in Portville will have to pay to defend the assessment at the same time. Mrs. Stern said she feels she doesn't have a choice.

Property owners are charged property taxes on a per $1,000 value of their property. The assessment doesn't levy taxes. School boards, county Legislatures, and town and village boards do that when they adopt budgets.

Property owners are charged property taxes on a per $1,000 value of their property. The assessment doesn't levy taxes. School boards, county Legislatures, and town and village boards do that when they adopt budgets.

The assessment is based on what a person would be willing to pay to buy a home, business or land. The goal of an assessment is to ensure every property owner pays their fair share of a community's tax levy.

:eek: :eek: ;)

Assessments are a nasty business, especially for small towns like Portville which don't have the resources to hire an out-of-town firm to come in and do it. There are three main reasons why fair reassessments cause problems. Sometimes, towns and cities don't do a general reassessment for years, sometimes decades, and only reassess on sale or when there's a major improvement, which means that when there's finally a general town reassessment, the properties that had been by-passed get whopping increases.

Another problem is when towns and cities finally get around to changing from partial value to full market value, although this should be a one-time shot. This happened recently in Jamestown. A lot of people didn't understand how their assessments when from 20,000 to 50,000 or from 30,000 to 70,000. What added to the problem is that Jamestown hadn't done a reassment for years, so that house assessed at 20,000 in 1985 is actually worth 90,000 in 2005.

A third problem is when there's economic change that rapidly changes property values, especially in one part of the town and not others. The prime example of this is around Chautauqua Lake, and especially in the Bemus Point/Ellery area. The price of lake front land has skyrocketed in recent years as people from PA and Ohio have "discovered" the area, and this drives up property values dramatically. In the Bemus area, a combination of lakeshore properties, the ambiance of the village, a very good school district, plus an easy commute into Jamestown on I86 or Rte 430 have dramatically increased property values as more people choose to live there year round or build second homes there.