The City and Borough of Juneau has essentially said “bah humbug” to property owners.
The veneer of the CBJ is thin, but the Assembly leadership has bought its act hook, line and sinker. The Assembly follows city management’s lead like they are getting the best Christmas presents. CBJ is getting more money, but they are taking it from commercial property owners. Where’s the leadership and moral integrity this time of year?
CBJ’s latest missive is to muddy the waters of the lawsuits against the CBJ Assessor by orchestrating an 11th hour Assembly law ipso facto. A democracy does not work in this manner.
Commercial property owners feel a better name for the assessor hearings would be “humbug hearings” this time of year, because that is what is going on with appeals to the assessor’s office. These don’t deserve to be considered real hearings. The Assembly needs to wake up and stop the coterie of bad actors before they bankrupt CBJ. The CBJ coffers are being squandered by exposing CBJ to liability, hiring outside law firms to defend their actions, staffing up the legal department, engaging consultants to promote their whims and putting out misleading public statements.
For example, we bought the Behrends Bank building and one month later it was assessed for more than double what we paid. Ignoring comparable sales if you do not like them is not any way to run an assessor’s office. You cannot hocus pocus create a dubious computer program and tailor it so it spits out high-assessed values without regard to the market or truth.
About five months ago, I made requests for public records of payment methods the CBJ uses to pay bills, review of my assessor records, salaries and benefits of Rorie Watt, Jeff Rogers and Mary Hammond, the budget of the city attorney’s office and all legal costs to defend lawsuits brought against CBJ, commercial assessed values and salaries within the city attorney’s office. CBJ has not furnished the requested documents. The public should have this information because it is the public’s right to know. These big dark secrets may reach beyond your imagination.
High salaries at CBJ is not a blessing, because they are used by CBJ as a cudgel against lower-paid Assembly members and other government staffers. It’s Christmas and the CBJ stuffs its sock with your money.
Bullying is not part of Christmas, but it has been a part of the Assessor office for years. They are a bad actor using inflated commercial property values as collateral to borrow for pet projects. This false front may come crashing down sooner than the bad actors realize.
In jurisdictions where the goal is fairness, you walk into the assessor’s office and present your comparable sales and appraisals and a settlement is reached. It is that simple. Not in Juneau. In Juneau the process is wrong. In Juneau, the assessor has cooked up a computer program to legitimize the greed of the bad actors. The issue is that pre-scripted, undemocratic, decided beforehand hearings, without a free exchange and consideration of information is not fair.
There must be some trembling from bad actors this Christmas because the hearings lack moral integrity and cause financial and emotional pain to commercial property owners.
In the Christmas spirit, I appeal to CBJ to concede mistakes were made and to conduct informal hearings where reasonable commercial property owners and reasonable assessor’s office representatives meet under the auspices of an independent hearing officer and make fair settlements taking into account MAI appraisals.
In the meantime, there is a big wish to give and that is to be thankful and grateful for the year gone by and the year to come. Merry Christmas to all!
• Greg Adler is a principal in the Goldstein Improvement Co. His family has owned property and conducted business in Juneau since the 1880s. Adler and his family also own a home on Pioneer Avenue in West Juneau. Columns, My Turns and Letters to the Editor represent the view of the author, not the view of the Juneau Empire. Have something to say? Here’s how to submit a My Turn or letter.
