Our Participation in Article 78

(This letter was sent to Scarsdale10583.com by Phyllis Finkelstein of Fenimore Road)
To The Editor: In 2014, the assessed value of our 1904 home at 41 Fenimore Road, where we have lived since 1975, rose from $1,000,000 to $1,275,000. After looking around at what other comparables sold for, we hired a company to grieve what we believed was an over assessment. They were able get the village to reduce the assessed valuation to $1,185,000. They were impressed by the village assessor's stubbornness, not her fairness and were apologetic that was the best they could do. Our home is on the corner of Dobbs Terrace, an older street with modest old houses. Our increase was considerably more than these neighbors, but at least one grieved.

The 2016 reevaluation now raised our assessed value to $1,275,000. One neighbor had theirs lowered, and two of our next-door neighbors had minor increases, not anywhere near our increase. The outside appearance of our home since the 2014 reeval is unchanged, as is all of theirs, and they too are older homes, but not as old as ours. We have done no additional work and therefore, filed no building permits since the 2014 reeval. This time around we were late to initiate the grievance process due to the short notice from the Office of the Assessor, dated June 3 with Grievance Day June 17. The firm we previously engaged to grieve did not have time.

We joined the Article 78 action as irregularities began to be made public by the Scarsdale Committee for Fair Assessment. Most shocking is Ryan's complete failure to disclose the mathematical formulas used to determine the increased valuations, or any valuations at all. The hundreds of emails hard fought to obtain (thank goodness for the Freedom of Information Law), including details of the failure of the assessor's office to monitor this travesty, have been shocking. Some emails go so far as to show Assessor Albanese asking JF Ryan to change assessments to benefit trustees and a former mayor (see p. 41-45 of the Petition). It is imperative to void this reassessment as it is founded on the scam of a company too lazy and dishonest to do the job it was paid to do.

I have been told that there is the impression that only a handful of people are involved in trying to invalidate the Ryan reeval. The 150 or so of us who have paid to be part of the action are the tip of the iceberg. Talk is cheap, as they say, and some of my neighbors have not wanted to invest their money to try to win an action that depends on proving "arbitrary and capricious" behavior. There is widespread dissatisfaction with the entire process in the community, if you ask enough of your neighbors. Even some who consider their valuations fair have contributed financially to the action, supporting those who have been unfairly assessed.

We are fortunate in this community to have ethical, moral people with the expertise and experience to critically appraise the work done by Ryan. Additionally, we are lucky that these residents devoted themselves for months to gather the concrete evidence needed to move forward with an Article 78, the damning emails so slowly released by the Village despite the FOIL. I think it is accurate to say a handful of people dedicated themselves to working hard to pull together the material that has been the foundation for the Article 78.

The Mayor and Board of Trustees of the Village of Scarsdale should do the moral, ethical thing and end this travesty before it shames all those involved even further. My tax dollars should not be wasted to defend against the Article 78 that would never have happened if this outrage of a reassessment were properly monitored and supervised.

Phyllis and Frank Finkelstein
41 Fenimore Road
Scarsdale NY