CICERO -- It has been more than 50 years since the Town of Cicero had a town wide reassessment. On Tuesday, the company hired to perform the reassessment got caught in the middle of a contentious back and forth with unhappy homeowners.
An openly hostile crowd grilled a representative from GAR Associates about the methods the company used to determine property values. Many of the homeowners at the meeting live on the lake. Luke Carswell says the home he bought five years ago has some lake frontage but he's skeptical of an assessment saying the home is now worth more than $270,000.
"I don't know. If it was, I would buy a few more," said Carswell. "It's quite unrealistic for this area. I believe prices are probably starting to go down on property not up."
At times the GAR representative could barely be heard over dozens of people asking questions or making comments about the new assessments. The representative said GAR used data from recent sales and comparable properties to determine values. That didn't satisfy Paula Tardone who said a neighboring house was assessed at $100,000 less than what it sold for a year ago.
"We went through this in 2008 with them. We're back to square one because you've got assessments that are across the board and there's no rhyme or reason as to what those explanations are," said Tardone after the meeting.
The Town of Cicero has said that the new full value assessments will not mean huge tax hikes for most people. On Tuesday Town Assessor Brad Brennan said the new full value assessments were just a more consistent way to keep track of what homes in the Cicero area are worth
"We were only going to raise the same amount of money no matter what the assessments are," said Brennan. "So the pie did not get any larger, it's just going to be cut up a little differently."
The representative from GAR Associates and the Town Assessor both admitted there may be improperly assessed homes. The informal appeals process has already started and there will be a formal grievance day in June.
More information can be found at the Town of Cicero's website.
Information about the reassessment project and how to appeal can be found here.
