GUILDERLAND — The town assessor’s office has been caught in the crossfire of political battling.

Warren Redlich, running on the Republican ticket for town board, is making assessment an issue. He has targeted an incumbent, Michael Ricard, the longest-serving member on the all-Democratic town board with 10 largely uncontroversial years, and has claimed Ricard’s home is under-assessed.

Redlich wrote in a letter to The Enterprise editor last week, "Ricard’s sweetheart assessment is just a symptom of a broader problem with the assessment process. The town bungled the 2005 reassessment...."

This week, both Ricard and the town’s assessor, Carol Wysomski, have written letters to The Enterprise editor, defending the work of the assessor’s office.

Wysomski asked that a certificate which Guilderland received from the state after its 2005 revaluation be printed in The Enterprise.
The award certificate for "Excellence in Equity" from the state’s Office of Real Property Services (ORPS) recognizes the town of Guilderland "for its efforts to provide property owners with fair and equitable assessments, thereby qualifying for state aid for the 2005 assessment roll."

About a third of the cities and towns in the state conducted reassessments in 2005 and most of them received the same certificate, according to Joseph Hesch, spokesman for ORPS.
"They have to complete reassessment. We see how close they have come to market value. They must implement an assessment roll at 100 percent" of full-market value, said Hesch. This qualifies a municipality for up to $5 a parcel from the state, he said.
"I know of very few that have not gotten it," he said. "Some portion of the roll has to be really askew" not to qualify, said Hesch.
Getting the certificate, he said "doesn’t mean some house isn’t assessed less than or in excess of market value...We don’t look at every property."
Redlich wrote in last week’s letter, "Ricard’s 2,500-square-foot home, with two accessory buildings (one of them larger than the house), a new in-ground swimming pool, and a whopping 11.7 acres is still assessed below $200,000. Several of his neighbors are assessed at over $300,000 with lesser properties."

Wysomski told The Enterprise earlier that Ricard’s assessment is fair. (The Aug. 2 story can be found on-line, under Archives, at www.altamontenterprise.com.)

She listed Ricard’s Furbeck Road home as being 2,468 square feet and assessed at $196,300. Ricard has no sewer or municipal water hookups to his two-story Colonial house, she said, and it was built in 1900 and is in the Schalmont School District.
Wysomski said Ricard’s house couldn’t be compared to newer houses. "We use the Office of Real Property Services of New York State for our assessments," she said. "Every town uses this program; it’s not just a system we use."
She concluded, "If people want, they can come down here to the office and look for themselves. There are no games. Not under my realm; that’s not how I do things; that’s not what’s going on here."