To the editor:

Thank you for your ongoing coverage of Barrington’s “New approach on tax assessments”. Your most recent article titled “Manager defends tax assessor’s decisions” quotes our town manager defending this new approach saying, “the altered assessment approach stems from a Supreme Court decision which allowed some Portsmouth property owners to have their assessments lowered to their sales prices.” This statement echoes your previous reporting from the town on this issue, which continues to beg the question whether anyone at Town Hall has bothered to read the court's opinion in this case.

It’s titled Balmuth v. Dolce; it’s readily available online; just Google it. It’s written in plain English. And anyone who reads it can see that this case had nothing to do with “sales prices”. Nor did it have anything to do with a tax assessor changing tax assessments based upon anything—including sales prices. If the town wants a new approach, it should at least have some integrity about it.

Charlie Payne 

Barrington