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STAMFORD, Conn. —The Daily Voice accepts all original letters to the editor. Email, Stamford@DailyVoice.com.
To the editor:
On July 30, 2013, I, along with more than 200 Stamford residents were invited to special meeting led by the Boards of Assessors and Board of Finance that took place on the fifth floor of new City Hall.
More than 30 residents took the stand to share their awful experience and feeling regarding the extremely unfair and nonprofessional approach to implement 2014 property taxes for Stamford residential households.
For reduced assessed values for all residences that vary in about 15 percent, with the average drop of 24 percent, the property taxes varied from over 42 percent higher to 25 percent lower, comparing to ones from the 2013 tax year!
How could it be possible to have such a drastic difference in assessment and taxation?
It can be explained as full irresponsibility of the staff of the government employees who did not even bother to review their own work.
If such a work were performed by a private company, people responsible for this could have been fired on the spot. But the government office allows itself to do whatever it wants with no punishment. It is very sad.
All our country suffered financially (work and money related) for the period between 2007 and 2012, and most of problems still exist today. The real estate market did not move, there were just drops from the ocean of real estate transaction from the 2007 preceding years. This very unusual situation had to be reflected in recent assessed values determination. But NOT, the assessors used the common practice of decades ago.
This time they should:
1. Engage a type of structural system into consideration: wood frame buildings vs. steel/concrete/brick buildings.
2. Not extrapolate results of only 30 percent of visited properties on the entire Stamford real estate.
How a 30-year-old wood-frame building with partial brick veneer (1 Valley Road) that lost 21 percent of its assessed value, can be compared with a 14-story building with steel frames, concrete slabs and brick walls that lost 50 percent of its assessed value (50 Glenbrook Road) that resulted in 25 percent property tax drop for its residents. It has to be all the way around. How can such assessment can be trusted?
Regarding the so-called "Mill Rate," it was just a gimmick!
It should consider several factors:
1. For residents with low income and retirees, the maximum property tax cannot increase 8 percent of their income.
The Board of Finance had to request from residents to file their 2011 Federal Tax Returns (2 first pages of forms 1040 or 1040EZ) to take their real income into consideration for the issue of 2014 tax bills.
2. The retirees should have a right to partial school tax reduction; that has never been considered.
3. The Chapter 203 "Property Tax Assessment" calls for incremental change of property taxes for each consecutive year, with no more than 3.5 percent a year!!! The City of Stamford has deviated from its own manual!!!
4. The mayor of Stamford proudly said in his letter to taxpayers that accompanied the tax bill that: "The property tax increase is 3.41 percent."
This statement gives us a formal right to pay just this.
Summarizing all the above, I want to say the following:
1. Both boards, assessors and finance, are required to complete their in-depth review and revision of all real estate (residential and commercial) to incorporate all changes in the second half of the 2014 tax bill (due on or before Feb. 1, 2014).
2. If they refuse to do so, all taxpayers have to boycott paying the second bill, even if their act leads to city government shutdown..
3. Please join me in our effort to effectively fight for our rights.
Thank you.
Leonid Kremer
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