To the editor:

Regarding Councilor Jacob Brier's letter "New approach to assessments is legal", Councilor Brier should stick to kissing babies and avoid assessing matters. It's apparent by his conclusions that he asked all the wrong questions with his judgment blinded by the town's new ability to raise taxes on certain residents.

Assessor (Michael) Minardi should have informed Councilor Brier that for many decades, the courts have only allowed three recognized methods of property appraisal, and the "How much I paid for my own house" method is not one of them.

In the most recent RI Supreme Court case, Balmuth vs. Dolce, the court did not add a new fourth method of property appraisal, but simply allowed property owners to file an appeal based on sales data from the year in which they file their appeal, and not be forced to use data from the start of the last revaluation cycle. 

But in making this ruling, the court did not relieve a property owner from going through the normal appeals process of assembling multiple comparable sales to justify their own property valuation (comparable sales is one of the three approved methods of property appraisal.) 

Assessor Minardi is trying to convince residents that the Balmuth case opened up this new fourth appraisal method allowing a shortcut on his own duty to apply neighborhood sales data whenever he determines any individual assessment. The court simply did not approve that assessors can now base valuations on just one individual sales price. It's called "comparable sales" for a reason.

The assessors motivation appears simple: As long as this goes unchallenged, the town can now raise more tax dollars. According to assessing law, anything the assessor does that goes unchallenged becomes a defacto legal assessing standard, but not necessarily a correct standard.

Councilor Brier's motivation to label this as "legal" clouds the debate between "being legal" and "being correct".   Legal is what the assessor can get away with until he is challenged. Correct is what works best for town residents using assessing best practices. It's why residents sued Mr. Minardi in 2010 (Adams vs. Minardi). 

Councilor Brier's letter only confirms he is quick to press the thumb of government on residents whenever more tax dollars can be had.

Should another lawsuit be considered? I'd like to also add in the question of Assessor Minardi's dubious 65 percent tax break for affordable housing developers that was supposed to be approved by voters in the Financial Town Meeting.

Gary Morse

Barrington