The Board of Assessor’s is Ratcheting up it’s Public Hostility

Apparently, the Board of Assessor’s believes it is time to push back on public questioning. In the December 3, 2020 meeting, Chairman Hansberry stated,

 “So this is really not a venue to raise or discuss personnel issues because if you do, there is nothing that we can do. It does not fall under our purview so I would ask that the public refrain from discussing personnel with the Board since it’s not an area of our authority and if you do not comply with that request, I do not want to be in the uncomfortable position of having to interrupt you or having to deny you of the time that you have remaining on your five minutes of public comment. I hope everyone will cooperate, I hope everyone is clear on that..”

I have not heard members of the public asking Board members to fire personnel. But what about questioning personnel when it affects the assessment of property? There are subjective factors being used inconsistently by assessors and the public should be able to point out these issues. The assessor responsible for the work is noted on the property card; this is public information. Based on Assessor duties, the Assessor is supposed to respond to the public’s questions, educate the public and comply with the Right-To-Know law. Apparently we are no longer allowed to address the board on these issues when assessors are not complying. This impacts the property assessments and the inventory approved by the board.

When the Mayor and Ms. Kleiner decided to remove the former Chief and replace him with Ms. Kleiner, I became an outspoken advocate of hiring a trained chief working under the supervision of the Department of Revenue. I repeatedly stated at the Board meetings to bring back the chief position. Now, the Board has made it clear -  I will be cut off from public remarks should I make such a comment. 

Chairman Hansberry drones on and states, “The scope of our responsibilities are clearly defined under State Law, the City Charter and City Ordinances.”  But are they clearly defined? State law required the Board of Assessor to review all abatement applications. They do not. State law requires the assessor to take an oath to validate the property inventory. They do not. The City charter states that all assessor records will be open to the public during normal business hours; they are not open to the public. I cannot find any ordinances specifically for assessing on the City website. The Board’s past mission statement said that they will oversee policy and ensure compliance. Unsurprisingly, they removed that responsibility when they updated their by-laws and they will not respond to questions about policy or the lack of policy compliance. Exactly what are the Board’s responsibilities and what do they follow? Does this sound clear to you?

I stumbled on 2017 minutes from a Board of Assessor meeting. The City is required under the Department of Revenue Regulations to conduct a property revaluation at a maximum of every five year. The Mayor asked for an extension. The state enforced the law.

The Board wrote a letter to Mayor Donchess recommending that the update be done in house by Jon Duhamel to save the city money; the estimated cost would be $100,000. Mr. Duhamel was removed by the Mayor in March 2019 for incompetence. The Board obviously did not know that Mr. Duhamel was not coming to work, not overseeing the office, not ensuring that update of permit and sales records and was not updating policy as requested by management. In his interview with the Nashua Police Department in 2019, Mr. Duhamel stated, “that he did not think this (policy) was needed because the office was running smoothly and everyone already knew how to do their job and was doing them correctly.” “Duhamel stated that there were times when he felt like he did not have anything to do because everyone was working and doing their jobs and there were no issues for him to address.”

This Board had serious blind spots while making the recommendation for the 2018 state required update. They did not understand the operation of the office or the competency of the Chief who they were entrusting to create $10 billion dollars of property valuation. This Board has no interest in defining their role more clearly. There are no checks and balances to be sure this type of decision making does not happen again. They subscribe to the Sergeant Shultz  motto, “I see nothing, I hear nothing, and I say nothing!”

This Mayor appointed board serves at the Mayor’s pleasure, functioning as “go along to get along” “yes” men who rubber stamp their way through their duties. Maybe we should start thinking about an elected board rather than a Mayor appointed board.

This continued hostile rhetoric will solve little. Management would like to convince everyone that hundreds of thousands of dollars of work for software upgrades have fixed all our problems. Our problems are the Mayor, the Legal Office, Ms. Kleiner and staffing. It’s all lipstick on a pig.