Goldfield: Should Panel
Forgive Car Taxes?

About time! Has Michael Smart read the rules that govern his committee? If the rules are no good, it's up to the board to vote to change them. What's the point of having rules, adopted by the board, if alders just ignore them to score political points? The rules were formed to make sure people who couldn't pay could be helped, not so politically connected people who make a stink can get a tax break (cough, Drew King ...). And the Committee of the Whole is a completely appropriate place for this review to take place. That allows the whole board a say in this process.
If the rules are broken, change them so everyone in need can benefit equally.

Actually, Alderman Smart, to call into question what you are doing is the job of the President of the Board of Alderman. A committee that grants abatements at the whim of the committee members, instead of following rules established by the Board as a whole is wrong.

The impartial administration of justice, in this case tax abatements, is part of living in a free, democratic society. Otherwise, Alders open themselves up to charges of favoritism and at worst, corruption. Instead, the policy of when a taxpayer should be granted an abatement should be clear. The committee should act as an impartial judge of that predetermined policy, not create that policy on the fly.

Its easy to see what's coming next.

I'LL GIVE YOU A TAX ABATEMENT IF YOU'LL VOTE FOR ME

Cronyism more concentrated in New Haven. How many equal treatment law suits does the city want??? Why not fix the real problem. Reduce Taxes across the board.

"The bill was cosponsored by Aldermen Andrea Jackson-Brooks, Jorge Perez, Dolores Colon, Justin Elicker, Migdalia Castro, Yusuf Shah and Marcus Paca."

Now that's an interesting coalition of Aldermen. Makes it pretty hard to argue that this is "political" or an attempt to "neuter" anyone. I don't think this group of aldermen has co-sponsored anything recently other than maybe positive thoughts for our troops, or congratulations on good work by a district manager at NHPD.

Maybe some adults are getting concerned about the tenor and direction of the Board.

Amazing to say this but they could teach the US Congress a thing or two about being non-partisan on important issues. You can't complain about budget deficits and then look to keep cutting taxes when services are already thin.

Someone say they want more cops downtown? Maybe the anti-tax fervor has gone a bit too far. At a minimum we should not be giving out arbitrary one stop tax breaks at the whim of a small committee. Leaves it open to abuse, sob stories and grandstanding.

Careful what you ask for. If you crave attention, sometimes people actually start paying attention and look not just at the shiny object you're waving over your head but also at what you are actually doing.

I hope to live long enough to see Carl Goldfield stand up for taxpayers instead of the mayor and his administration's appalling track record of gross mismanagement and support for abusive policies and corrupt practices. Goldfield wants to scrutinize the committee that's scrutinizing the assessor and the now, member-less Board of Assessment Appeals? I guess Goldfield is happy denying due process to taxpayers. ...

Double dealing Board of Assessment Appeal members hiring relatives and giving each other tax breaks; Assessors who live and pay taxes in other towns; a tax dept. that sends out arbitrary tax notices to citizens; and the best Board President can come up with is this? The administration and run wild, and he thinks that "it's time to take another look at the purpose of the committee."

Come on, who is he kidding!

To the previous commenter:

... Just what rules has the Tax Abatement committee violated? Auto taxes? The previous chairman of the committee also heard cases involving auto taxes. No investigation there.

Also this committee is succeeding in exposing much of the nepotism, lack of minutes, lack of records, lack of accurate data concerning assessment appeal decisions, etc, that the previous commenter seems to want.

In other words the committee is addressing the unfairness that appears to be rampant at the BAA and in the Assessor's Office.

One has to seriously question the timing of this "policy review" coming just after the Tax Abatement Committee has unearthed so many embarrassing irregularities concerning the Board of Assessment Appeals, the Assessor's office, and the role of the Corporation Counsel.

For example, the Corp Counsel refused to issue a subpoena to the members of the Board of Assessment Appeals as requested by the committee. These members having refused numerous requests of the committee to testify.

His reason for refusing to issue the subpoenas?: conflict of interest, since he was already advising the BAA members NOT to testify. But he presents no LEGAL reason for this advice leaving the strong suspicion that the real reason is that their testimony would be embarrassing to the Administration. Which it was.

This would appear to me as rank obstructionism with the legitimate work of the committee.

The Corp Counsel is supposed to be the CITY's attorney, NOT the Mayor's.

But not only would he not fulfill the legitimate requests of the committee of the Board of Aldermen, but he said that no other attorney in his office could do it. And further, that no funds were available for the committee to contract out a private attorney.

So the committee found an attorney, Michael Jefferson, to issue the subpoenas pro bono. And the subpoenas were issued.

Then the one of the two BAA member, Jacquilane Harris, quits, apparently thinking that would make her immune to the subpoena. It did not.

So the one remaining member does show up and testifies. The resultant questioning of this member was a near total embarrassment. The following irregularities came out (among others):

-there are only 2 members of the BAA, the 3rd position has gone unfilled for some time,
-one of those members is a tenant of the other,
-one of the 2 staff person's, hired to do data entry, is the son of one of the members, in apparent violation of the Ethics Code,
-the data that was supposed to have been entered by this son appears virtually non-existent. 90% incomplete as one committee member told me. This lack of data makes it nearly impossible for the committee to do its work,
-the BAA chairman had an appeal of his own regarding one of his properties heard by the BAA. He recused himself on that leaving it to be approved by the only other member, his tenant.

With so many irregularities being brought out, it seems strange that just now President Goldfield feels that this review of the committee must take place. Whose bidding is he doing, the BoA or the administration?

For another amazingly accurate and insightful account of matter, see this morning's Register's editorial, and pay little attention to the anonymous administration commenters to this story.

To Someday: Actually I think that your president is standing up for tax payers and here is why. Any legislative body requires rules and a process to follow.

Residents need to be able to show that they cannot pay for car taxes. To do that requires a process, so if no one is following a process everyone is eligible to have their taxes abated including the rick levin's of the world. But since not everyone is getting their car taxes abated its based on the who do you know on tax abatement committee system. Maybe thats a process unto itself.

So yeah, I do see it from where I sit as Goldfield trying to stand up for people that do pay their taxes by saying review the rules to ensure all that seek abated taxes are treated the same with some kind of due process.

In the end just giving out tax abatements to a certain few is nothing more than a publicity stunt. I do not understand why Goldfield would have appointed his vote Smart as a committee chair just have a big disagreement over something thats pretty important. I guess he and Smart must had a falling out over something.

With all of the major problems in the city it is shocking that Carl Goldfield with ... Jorge Perez ... can even consider reviewing the Tax Abatement Committee until they complete their work. Carl and Jorge don't think Smart's committee has done due diligence? Ha! The tax abatement committee has done a great job standing up for the citizens of New Haven. ...How about the illegal budget gap? How about an independent counsel to help guide the BOA since the corporate counsel seems to be helping hide nepotism and corruption? Should these important and serious issues not take priority? How about looking where we can save money in the various overweight city departments with employees who could care less about the taxpayer whose money is paying the cit employee's salaries. We could go on and on and on and on....

I think the Abatement Committee is doing a good job at bringing up an issue and getting attention on it. They have definitely nailed a very important and corrupt behavior in the city.

I think that Goldfield may be introducing a really important thing as well: a process by which abatements can be issued.

I think the Committee should have the power to issue abatements for all types of taxes. However, I do think it needs to be a documented procedure and process.

I think that the current committee is NOT going to do anything corrupt or break any rules. But who will serve on the committee in 5 years? in 10 years?

Having a transparent policy and protocol is what makes a democracy function. It is what so many boards are missing.

While it's bad timing for Goldfield to announce this--because it will appear to be an attempt to neuter--the reality is that a transparent process is sorely needed, and I'm glad that he and many other alders are working together to institute a formal procedure.

I do hope that the alders on the Abatement committee are included. They have the most practical experience dealing with these issues. I hope they don't follow the lead of some of the comments posted so far and denounce this idea out of hand because of the personality that proposed it.

Since 1992, which is the last time the BOA tax abatement rules were amended, each subsequent BOA committee and full board have accepted the recommendations from the abatement committee without question.

Indeed, since Goldfield has been president he has forwarded the committee's recommendations to the full board regardless of tax abatement alder manic rules.

Now that the assessors department is under question does Goldfield seek changes, but not where the most critical changes are seriously needed...in the the highly questionable procedures that have been in practice long before 1999.

The Tax Abatement application form contained in the rules referenced above, forces the applicant to first seek remedy through the assessor and tax collectors office before proceeding to the tax abatement committee.

Both the assessor and the tax collectors offices have already been exposed as corrupt. This line of progression is what needs to be changed.

If Goldfield has now awakened, he should not only demand a revision of the tax abatement committee rules...

Note: (these rules do not appeared to be authored or even authorized by continuing enabling ordinance)... but also the finance committee, which Goldfield is a voting member, and all other committees, like finance, who routinely operate outside of the charter, or mysterious rules which are hidden away until they serve Goldfields's purposes.

New Haven Register
September 21, 2010

EDITORIAL: Aldermen should keep digging on taxes

Thanks to probing questions by members of New Haven's Board of Aldermen, more troubling details have emerged about questionable conduct by the members of the Board of Assessment Appeals.

Michael Newton, the chairman of the appeals board, recently appeared before the aldermen's Tax Abatement Committee in response to a subpoena. The board's other member during the last year, Jacqueline Harris, ignored the subpoena. The board's third position has been left vacant by Mayor John DeStefano Jr.

Under pointed questioning by Alderman Darnell Goldson, Newton said that he and Harris had hired Harris' son as a part-time data-entry clerk. Newton also said that Harris was a tenant of one of his buildings and that, while he had recused himself, Harris had heard his appeal of the assessment on one of his properties.

The revelations of nepotism and conflict of interest follow taxpayers' complaints about shoddy procedures and arbitrary denials of assessment appeals by the board.

The board apparently has no records of its meetings this year, nor does it have any notes, letters or e-mails about this year's tax appeals. The lack of records has left the aldermen wondering what Harris' son and another part-time clerk were doing.

In one instance, Harris was unable to explain to a lawyer why his appeal of a 500 percent increase in his tax bill was denied because there was no file on the appeal.

The aldermen should keep digging. Harris, who has resigned from the board, should be compelled to testify. The full story about how badly tax appeals were handled has yet to be told, judging by the revelations at the most recent aldermanic hearing.

This effort by Mr. Goldfield is suspect at best; at worst, it is aimed at derailing the committee's work which has produced deeply troubling details of the typical day at the New Haven Assessor's Office and all kinds of problems at the Board of Assessment Appeals, both processes overseen by and appointed by Mayor DeStefano.

What makes Goldfield's concern for following the rules so interesting, is that to my knowledge, he has been silent on the shakedown marshal, the drive by assessments, the secretive "industry standards" Mr. O'Brien uses; and silent on the laundry list of issues and denial of due process to taxpayers at the BAA. Previously, he was unconcerned that corporation counsel didn't appear to meet the charter requirements or even looking at it very thoroughly, nor did he in writing or verbally, accept Alderman Moorehead's resignation from the Finance Committee and appoint a successor as is the usual practice. It wasn't until Moorehead continued to particpate during the budget process and Goldfield was going to lose a key spending vote that he had an awakening of a months old resignation he didn't acknowledge or cure.

One more case of abuse:
I visited my 77 year old barber this weekend who I found out is also a victim of a drive by assessment and the application of those industry standards. He's in an old store front on Whalley with cabinets and a mirror so old, they're faded. He has a clipper and couple pairs of scissors and some combs. The paneling has never been changed nor has the floor. There is no computer and the single barber chair is the same one he's used for the last 55 years. His assessment was $5,000. Go figure. Under any circumstances, any scenario, any complaint about process or the committee's work, this is not right. It wasn't right when O'Brien and his staff jacked the assessment in their computers downtown and sent it to the tax collector's office. It's not been corrected yet and it's not right that he should be forced to go through a cumbersome appeals process to prove what one could ascertain from walking in the door from a parking space 10 steps away.

So, if there are going to be concerns about following the fules and process, then let's not apply it situationally when one finds it convenient. Foxhole conversions to process are rarely real.
...

To New Haven Taxpayer and Parent:

There isn't anything interesting about that coalition, if you reviewed aldermanic records you would find that they vote together 98% of the time.

Hold on so that means that Alderwomen Robinson Thorpe can't get an abatement on her sisters property (see story link below) if I read the rules correctly as this would be a retroactive request. Also isn't she a member of the committee? Isn't this nepotism and/or a conflict of interest? http://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/tax_assessor_grilling_continues_tonight/

If anything, the policies should be brought in line with the law, which allows the committee to abate persona property taxes.

In light of the crazy personal property assessments that O'Brien put out this year, any reasonable person would support it.

If that is not what Goldfield et al had in mind, frankly, it would be impossible to consider them anything but total lackies.

So why is Goldfield not offering his opinion? Do you want the policies to allow it or not? What's the point of this? And why now?

Makes you wonder if Smart's committee is on to more than they even know yet and if Goldfield wants to shut them down before they uncover it.

Amento used to be our Mayor in Hamden until we voted him out several years ago.

Unfortunately, you New Haveners are stuck with him---no vote allowed.

The Mayor is afraid to cut O'Brien loose when the facts demand it. The Mayor is afraid to have Jackie Harris testify when a routine investigation requires it. The Mayor is afraid to let the Tax Abatement Committee do its job.
The Mayor is very afraid of what has yet to come out.