Reassessment

TL: The company hired to reassess Luzerne County property values had argued in court that the county has a contractual obligation to pay the company to manage and defend the county against Hanover Township resident Vic Kopko’s property assessment court challenge.

But the county's newly hired legal guns say not so fast. Philadelphia based Elliott Greenleaf & Dean is getting $300+ per hour to defend the county in the lawsuit. Why in-house lawyers can't handle this is puzzling. Staff Solicitor David Schwager, who represents the assessment appeals board, doesn’t have time to devote to the Kopko case because he’s busy processing mediations, commissioners said. Every county department, board and agency has a solicitor which may or may not be mandated by state law. It seems like there are hundreds of them. The GSC should look at creating a solicitors office with a staff of attorneys that would handle all county legal business. Rosenn Jenkins & Greenwald was originally hired but pulled out because of a claimed conflict that Dr. Kopko called bullshit. “I believe they’re smelling a case that they can’t win,” Kopko said.

Some more fun with reassessment include The Luzerne County Assessor’s Office has failed to fully value and tax a Rice Township residential property that’s on the market for an asking price of $649,000. The home is owned by Angelo Terrana. Terrana sits on the county Board of Assessment Appeals, which oversees the assessor’s office. Plus there is Participant 2's multi-party Bob Mericle's dance over a Wilkes-Barre property that he owns. We own a rental double block and one side is valued $8000 more than the other but for the most part the houses are the same. 21st Century may have got a few things wrong.

And I got this in the inbox:


Gort:


Would love to give you an update on reassessment. The law has been violated and the county knows it! Apparently the rats are turning on each other as 21st Century (who will be held responsible along with the commissioners and others) filed a brief indicating, and you guessed it, that reassessment is now illegal based on county actions and the settling, or tanking, based on your perspective, has reduced the equalized values.


Oh, by the way, mediation is absolutely illegal, appears nowhere in the 3rd Class County Reassessment Law, and was signed into "law" by none other than Mark "I'm gonna do time" Ciavarella. The process does not address the sweetheart deals for politician's and their family/friends/political contributors which it will when we file for removal in a few weeks. My attorneys and I are confident that we will prevail. We have to ..for the people! For as many on the ridiculously high side values, their are the ridiculously low values.


Please keep in mind that I met with the commissioners to head this off. I asked them for three things; 1) correct the overs and unders on reassessment (Urban indicated that he knew of at least 5 municipalities "grossly undervalued". He said he would not address those and each municipality should file an appeal in 2010. Not happening since the politicians in those municipalities need their constituents votes to get re-elected. 2) Guarantee no more tax increases since the base has been adjusted (Petrilla answered, "No way, can't do it" Could you blame her with the corruption and mismanagement of funds that have gone on? She is a party to it! 3) Return the windfall fees to taxpayers since their is evidence that 95% of individuals did not receive their Pa certified appraisal amounts and were beaten down because they could not afford anymore attorney fees or associated costs. (Can anyone say, collusion?)


It goes on and on. There will be 25 items that clearly has violated the law, let alone adding the county corruption issues in. I would enjoy to fill you in more. By the way, keep calling the Sue Henry Show.

Dr. Victor P. Kopko

Luzerne County finances

According to the story in the TL today Luzerne county is less messed up this year than in years past. The county has 'only' has to borrow $17.9 million to make the books balance in 2009. I won't be too hard on the Commissioners about this because it was part of this year's budget. At least they were up front about it. The county took in $1.6 million less than anticipated but spent $5.4 million less than they expected in the first 3 months of 2009. Property tax revenues are up and the the cost of locking up juvenile offenders is down. We we all know why property tax revenue increased (reassessment) and spending on juvenile placements is down (Juvie Brothers).

Sam Guesto will hear your appeal

I'm speechless.


Mediation step now added to appeal


A third mandatory mediation step was officially added to Luzerne County’s assessment appeal court challenges Friday, and Sam Guesto will serve as the mediator.

Skrep is feeling lonely

“I don’t think it’s a secret that my party has abandoned me, but I still have a large following – a following that asks me every day for direction. I want to provide them with that direction.”-Luzerne County Commissioner Greg Skrepenak

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Poor Skrep. He continues sniping with fellow Democratic Commissioner Maryanne Petrilla and his pals Sam Guesto, Sam Diaz and Todd Vonderheid have moved on. And I doubt if he exchanges Christmas cards with Steve Urban. Now he says that County Democratic Chairman Mark Bufalino isn't talking to him and he's not being invited to Obama campaign events. Bufalino and the Obama camp both dispute that claim.

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I'm not sure what he means about that large following. The way he's been talking about reassessment he might be angling to be the next Mayor of Harveys Lake.

Luzerne County reassessment

Lawyers, lawyers everywhere and ...............they will make money.


Reassessment opponents to hire lawyer


Pa. court weighs state's property tax assessments


They may tie it up for a while but in the end we will pay more in property taxes and the esquires will be better off.

I paid our property taxes today and we got a $211 reduction from the slots revenue. That is good but why is only half of this money is dedicated to property tax relief? The other half is to go to "economic development projects" that the rest of us call Corporate Welfare.

Some examples:

The new hockey arena in Pittsburgh

A fantasy Airport in Hazleton

Part of the money is "EARMARKED" to help the host towns deal with the problems that arise from having one of these money pits such as traffic control, wear and tear on the roads plus the anticipated increase in crime. From what I see the Mohegan Sun Casino hasn't had many negative effects on my little hamlet of Plains Township. We have actually benefited from the place because more than 20 streets have been paved since the cash started flowing in. The best benefit for me and my neighbors is that the cost of a case of trash bags was reduced from $75 for a case of 50 to $25.


Thanks Suckers

Reassessment in Luzerne County gets ugly

Gun threat brings police

Nobody wants to pay more property taxes but you have to keep your emotions in check and not make threats. But the opposition keeps being stoked by the downtrodden people at Harveys Lake and some radio talk show hosts.

From the inbox.

Your House As Seen By:

Yourself...

Your Buyer...

Your Lender...

Your Appraiser...

Your LUZERNE County Tax Assessor...

Reassessment in Luzerne County going forward

Commissioner Greg Skrepenak has been playing to the crowd proposing the reassessment of properties in the county be stopped. Commissioners Chairwoman Maryanne Petrilla and Commissioner Stephen A. Urban want the process to play out and Skrep's motion to stop it was ignored.

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NANTICOKE -"Motion dies. Move on please," Petrilla said.

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I checked out the protest Monday at the courthouse led by Michelle Boice from Harveys Lake and I always enjoy being in the company of my fellows citizens that petition their government for the redress of grievances. There was a lot of sloganeering including chants of "One term Petrilla" and "Pack your bags Urban."

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My view is that you can't throw out a 2 year process that cost over $8 million. Fix the mistakes and move on.

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Some other locals have a similar view:

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Political Rants-Luzerne County Reassessment and a True Democrat

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Wilkes-Barre Online-Harveys Lake 1965

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The Lu Lac Political Letter

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I have more protest pics at my Facebook account.

Protest over Reassessment

The Pink Pig will be at the Luzerne County courthouse tomorrow along with the hoards that Michelle Boice will be bringing.

The festivities start at Noon.

Harveys Lake wants to secede

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Harveys Lake has always been a swanky address with many very nice homes. Even Dan Meuser bought a voting address there. Like many of us who have been paying less property taxes than we should have for years the residents of the borough are dealing with sticker shock resulting from the first reassessment since 1965 and they don't like it. With some exceptions I feel if that if you can afford a house at the "lake" you should be able to pay the taxes.

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From the CV: The Pennsylvania Constitution says, “The electors of any municipality shall have the right, by initiative and referendum, to consolidate, merge and change boundaries by a majority vote of those voting thereon in each municipality, without the approval of any governing body.”

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I've never heard of a town switching counties.

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TL: State Rep. Karen Boback, who serves Harveys Lake and portions of Luzerne and Wyoming counties, said Kelly asked her to look into the legalities. She said she couldn’t find anything on topic.
“That’s something the law doesn’t directly address,” she said.

Reassessment in Luzerne County

We got our notices and I just about fell over. The taxes on our home are estimated to triple and our rental properties will double. I've known for a long time that we have been paying less than we should since the value formula dates back to 1965 but that's a little hard to take.

The market values they assigned to our properties are in line with the appraisals I had done a few years ago when I was was doing one of my wrap around financing deals so I don't think I have good grounds to appeal. I did find a one mistake in that one side of the the double block we own was valued higher than the other by a few thousand dollars and they are mirror images. I may ask for an informal review but they may just say I'm right and raise the value of the lesser side.

The thing I don't understand is how they translated the values into taxes since the notice doesn't break down township, county and school taxes. Are they using the same millage? According to this story in the TL: County officials said millage rates must drop dramatically when the new assessed values take effect next year. That goes for school districts, the county and municipalities.
For example, the county millage, currently at 94.9 mills, is expected to drop to about 5 mills after the reassessment. A mill is $1 tax for every $1,000 in assessed property. That means someone with a home worth $150,000 after reassessment would pay $750 in county taxes at 5 mills.

When I did some quick math that makes a big difference and shows we may not get whacked as bad as the notice says. I haven't decided what to do about this, if anything.

The Yonk responded to my blogger call to swarm about this subject which I wasn't able to do yesterday as did Mark.

Earlier some of our local scribes sounded off on this subject:

Zen-Why hasn't anybody asked the question?

NEPALibWatch-Welcome to Luzerne County, bend over please.

Politics in Northeast Pennsylvania -Reassessment Botched?


A common theme of my fellow bloggers is that we just don't trust anything that the county does. We're willing to pay our fair share but will everyone else?

Luzerne County reassessment

The first reassessment of property values in the county since 1965 has been completed and the first wave of notices have gone out to property owners on the west side of the river and people are howling. The local papers and talk radio are full of tales of "sticker shock" and errors by 21st Century Appraisals such as listing buildings on the property that don't exist. One property that has a swamp saw an increase in the land value and my favorite horror story came from an owner of a double block that said one side of the building was valued at $60,000 and the other came in at $85,000 for almost identical properties.

If you want to appeal your new assessment it could cost more than the increase in taxes for the first year. And get this; the best evidence that can be presented is a certified appraisal with an effective date of Jan. 1, 2008. Appraisals with other effective dates won’t hold any weight with the board, even if more recent. So even if you get a new appraisal it will be a waste of money because the appeals board won't even consider it. I will have to check it out further but it sounds like there is not much you can do to dispute the new property values. So beware of lawyers and real estate experts promissing to lower your property taxes for a "modest fee."

For what it's worth there will be a free seminar to learn more about assessment appeals 10-11:30 a.m. June 17 at Genetti Hotel & Convention Center, 77 E. Market St., Wilkes-Barre.

What about the politics of this. The reassessment was supposed to be completed in 2007, but the Bond Brothers found an excuse to push it off another year which cost us another $800,000 that brought the total cost to $8 million and climbing. I can understand why Todd Vonderheid and Greg Skrepenak didn't want to deal with this issue in an election year.

Remember that Skrep took over this process and called Steve Urban a "terrorist" for trying to warn people that they were going to get screwed.

More of my rantings on this subject can be found here.

More fun with reassessment

A $7.2 million contract followed by a $850,000 extension and 21st Century Appraisals Inc. is in line for more. The Bond Brothers don't want them to include a statement called a tax-impact estimate to help property owners figure out if reassessment will cause their taxes to go up or down. The result will be more appeals than anticipated. But Commissioner Todd Vonderheid had this brilliant statement about the process, "It’s about whether property is assessed correctly, We have been trying to communicate that. People believe it’s about taxes.” Of course it's about taxes Todd. People want to know how much they will have to pay at the end of this yellow brick road if we ever reach it.

We're in the money

PLAINS TWP. — The township on Monday received its first cut of gaming revenue from the state’s first casino. Ron Filippini, chairman of the Plains Township Board of Commissioners, said the township received a $295,800 check from the state Department of Revenue, which is based on business at Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs from its opening Nov. 14 through Dec. 31.

As a resident of Plains Twp I just want to say "Thanks Suckers."

But I question if our town fathers will spend this new windfall wisely. Last fall they included the anticipated the slots revenue in the annual budget. This first chunk of money is to be used for normal housekeeping expenses such as overtime costs related to the storm that should have killed us all with the leftover used to pave a few streets. But the original purpose of reducing property taxes is still on hold until the reassessment is finished, if ever.

The gaming revenue could eventually be used to lower township property tax bills, but that could depend on whether the county imposes new assessed property values in 2008, Filippini said. The county commissioners last year decided to delay the county’s first reassessment of property since 1965.