Letters

If you missed the July 13 Southampton Village trustees meeting, you should watch the video. My interchange with Mayor Bill Manger was loud.

The mayor asked the village attorney to respond to two elements of my discussion of the village’s determination of assessed values.

The first topic concerned record retention. The attorney noted that New York policy allows records to be destroyed after four years. This is common for items like income and expenses. But every record retention policy I’m aware of has an exception for long-lived assets or transactions.

Does the village destroy lease agreements or financial instruments after four years? Why is record retention important to the assessed value determinations? The village tax assessor has made a calculation of the assessed value for every parcel in the village. These calculations were made 30 years ago, or 20 years ago, or 10 years ago. Does the village auditor check these calculations? Could the assessor have made an error in calculation? Could the assessor be influenced to provide a low assessed value?

But no resident will be able to review the calculation of their assessed value, because the village destroys the records after four years. This should be enough to invalidate the system.

The second topic concerned the village real estate tax bills that contain the wording “Full Market Value of This Property” — and then give a nonsensical low-ball number. The attorney tried to justify this by referencing some state information. I have to believe that the state would comment only if the system was based on full market value. That is not the case with Southampton Village.

The attorney acknowledged this, explaining (as I did in my June 22 Letter to the Editor) that the amount given is “backed into” based on the already determined assessed value. Why have this full market value note on the bill when it is not used in determining assessed value? Deception.

Bottom line: The system produces absurd and unfair results, discriminates against residents who can least afford to pay a disproportionate share of the village tax burden, and the village has no records to support the calculation of assessed values. The mayor and trustees manipulate the oversight of the system to punish select residents and to pursue their greedy and corrupt motives. And they refuse to tell residents how assessed values are calculated.

The additional bottom line is that you need to get involved. If you want to have a less corrupt government, you need to attend meetings and be vocal, you need to write letters to the editor, you need to directly communicate to the mayor and trustees. Being passive will not force the change that this village desperately needs.

David Rung

Southampton Village