BY ADAM ATKINSONNorth Country This Week

POTSDAM -- While Grievance Day is just around the corner on May 27 in Potsdam, a few town property owners again turned out at the town board meeting May 13 to protest their new property assessments.

The town hired Clifton Park-based firm GAR Associates last year for $385,000 to do a town-wide revaluation of all assessed properties. Such an assessment had not been done in 12 years and town officials hoped a revaluation would balance the scales on the tax valuations and bring everything up-to-date in a fair way.

But for some, the revaluation has meant assessments that are in some cases 50 or 100 percent more than they had last year. And, the public has been vocal about it. 

While the assessments themselves don't necessarily mean that property owners will pay more dollars to the town at tax time, the higher property values set for about a third of the town parcels by the outside firm the town hired will ultimately mean a greater amount of cash will drain from some bank accounts this coming year to pay the levy at the tax rate the town will set.

Grievance Day in Potsdam is set for May 27, from 10 a.m.-12 p.m., 1-4 p.m. and 5-8 p.m. Those seeking to officially protest the new amounts set by GAR are urged to attend and plead their case, with photos or appraisal information of their property if they have it. 

At the May 13 board meeting, several property owners spoke on the assessment and what they felt was shoddy work done by GAR. 

Fred Stone, who lives at the corner of May and Reagan Road, said GAR obviously assessed his property by square-footage and little else. His 65-year-old raised ranch was assessed at $335,000 and is only 36-square-feet different in size compared to a neighboring new ranch home that was assessed at $345,000. 

Stone said even accounting for the town equalization rate increasing to 100 percent this year, his property still increased in assessment by 59 percent. 

He questioned how his home, which was much older and didn’t have the same level of improvements as the neighboring property, would be worth as much. 

 “There are a lot of errors in this assessment. And it's affecting people across this township and in the village. GAR did a poor job,” Stone said. 

John Burke, county legislator who was speaking as a town property owner, mirrored Stone’s concerns and questioned the use of certain non-alike properties by GAR as comparable properties when calculating value of his lot. 

Other property owners commented on the true condition of their properties not reflecting GAR’s appraisals. 

Property owner Eric Backus, a Clarkson civil engineering professor, called for more transparency in how GAR conducted its assessment. 

“One of the biggest challenges with the assessment at this point is that the consultant that was hired did not provide a clear and open understanding of the process in which they were using to do the reassessment. And I think that disclosure is required. It's not something that's optional,” Backus said. 

“If the board takes the assessment as is without clarity on that I believe that there are going to be, and I will already say to you, in addition to petitions, there are probably going to be legal activities,” he said. “And I don't think it's worth the value of the time or the money of the town to be in the litigation over these issues.”

Tracey Haggett Sloan took the town to task over hiring GAR in the first place and said the town could have hired 12 new assessors for the same cost and did the work inhouse.  

“What you have done here by making this decision to hire this company is a disgrace. This was an improper, lazy and, dare I say, illegitimate process of a reevaluation. We relied on a company that I compared to being a parasite that lays in wait, latching on to any municipality that happens to fall below a certain level of assessment. Then they get their $385,000 from this township and they walk away scot-free,” Haggett Sloan said. 

“What did we get? Not much. They did most of this process by satellite imagery drones or drive-by photos Many of the people that have come to me have said, there's no data available. And I've looked and there's not one thing there,” she said. 

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