The Postcard - About Your Assessment

The only costly part of my campaign for Guilderland Town Board was completed yesterday. I sent postcards to selected property owners comparing their assessments with Mike Ricard's Assessement.

[Update: Images of the postcard for my house are at the bottom]

The front side of the postcard shows a satellite image of incumbent Mike Ricard's property. Above the image are the words:
ABOUT YOUR PROPERTY TAX ASSESSMENT
This 2,500 square foot home in Guilderland, on 12 acres with a new in-ground pool and a 2100 square foot steel building, is assessed at $196,300. How does yours compare?

The other side of the postcard starts with the recipient's assessment, square footage, and what that works out to in dollars per square foot. For example, my card starts with:

Your assessment $241,700
The assessor says your house has 2226 sq.ft.
That works out to $109 per sq.ft.

Then it describes Ricard's assessment, including that it works out to $79 per sq.ft.

It goes on to compare our political positions -- Ricard and Bosworth say the "assessment process is just fine," while Mark Grimm and I "say we need a fair tax assessment process."

The card closes with:
What do you think?
Find out more at guilderland-ny.com

The card also has a picture of me and my name on it.

One sometimes hears politicos talking about pocketbook issues. I think tax assessment is the biggest pocketbook issue in Guilderland. This is a real issue, not some phony thing made up to scare the voters.

In 2005, the Town botched the assessment revaluation process and grossly mishandled Grievance Day. Many voters remember this. The postcard goes right to how this hits their pocketbook. Most homeowner assessments are unfairly high, relative to a number of assessments in Guilderland. Ricard's property is a convenient example of this, but there are many others.

When your assessment is unfairly high, that means you pay an unfairly high share of taxes to the Town, the County, and your school district.

Even knowing all of this, even as the person who composed what would be on the postcards, I get angry as I read it. Ricard's house - larger than mine, on more than 20 times the amount of land, with a in-ground pool and the biggest shed I've ever seen, is assessed $45K lower than my house. If I'm angry, then many others will be as well.

I do know that it has evoked some response. Visits to the Guilderland NY website spiked yesterday after the mail was delivered. I got two phone calls (first calls of the campaign) and a few e-mails.

We'll see if this connects with the voters on Tuesday.