Holding off on revaluation of Rockland real estate parcels now, when the market is volatile, makes sense.
But there’s another, primary reason town supervisors hold off on updating the assessed values of properties for decades.
Doing an update to be sure all property owners are paying their fair share is a political nightmare, sometimes a political career-breaker.
Phil Rotella was about as strong a town supervisor as Rockland has ever seen and he wouldn’t do it.
Herb Reisman in Ramapo refused flat out, just as he refused to update the town’s master development plan. To do so, they reasoned, is to plug in the wires that already lead to the supervisor’s chair.
Truth is, the countywide effort to revalue every real estate parcel at the same time was doomed from the beginning. The outside consultants hired to gather data on each parcel couldn’t stay on schedule and wanted more and more money and time to get the job done. Worse, what data they gathered often turned out to be flawed.
That was all the towns needed to shoot holes in the idea and find a reason to pull out.
Some said they would complete the work on their own, but only Haverstraw has followed through.
Stony Point had a falling out with their consultant, who was also advising Haverstraw in the
Mirant mess.
When he quit, Stony Point’s revaluation got derailed.
With taxpayers getting pounded by the impact of the Mirant tax settlement, officials weren’t about to compound their financial problems by doing a reval, too.
So, almost a decade after a countywide revaluation project was first proposed, only one town is done and the others seem to have lost their resolve—at least until the real estate market levels out.