GUILDERLAND — Democrat Peter Barber, a lawyer who chaired the town’s zoning board for years, was elected supervisor two years ago in a tight race against Republican Brian Forte. They were vying for the post held by Democrat Kenneth Runion, who retired after 20 years as supervisor. Barber is now seeking re-election, challenged by Forte.

About the new state-set equalization rate that caused some residents’ school-tax bills to jump by as much as 19 percent this fall, Barber said that town officials had not had reason to believe that there was an imminent need to do a townwide revaluation.

The decision to reevaluate is based on mathematical and data-based determinations that the town assessor makes, Barber said. The accepted standard is that, if the equalization rate drops below 80 percent, “that’s when towns have historically looked to reevaluate their properties,” he said.

Other municipalities had lower equalization rates and had gone longer with a revaluation, he said. For instance, Colonie’s equalization rate is now somewhere in the low 50s, he said, and the town has not done a revaluation since the early 2000s. Colonie last reassessed in 2001, according to the Office of Real Property Tax Services.

Guilderland’s rate had been in the low 90s and upper 80s until this year, when it dropped from 88 to 75, he noted.

As a result of this sudden drop in the rate, he said, the town’s assessor, Karen VanWagenen, recommended that the town begin the process of revaluation, which she had planned to recommend starting in a couple of years, and the town board decided to send out a request for proposals for a consultant to work with her on this process.  

The decision to do a revaluation is not based simply on a fixed time frame, he said. “If we had done it, let’s say, in the fifth year, our equalization rate was 100 percent. So what’s the point?”

It costs about half-a-million dollars to do a townwide revaluation, which, he said, would have been “a colossal waste of taxpayer dollars.”

Barber said that the town does have an abandoned-properties law and does impose fines and has had regular court proceedings.

He cited the Governor’s Motor Inn as an example: It had suffered fire damage years ago and both the bank and the county had foreclosure actions against it. The town brought the bank into town court for a number of violations for failing to maintain the property, and as a result the bank dropped its mortgage on the property.

“I think they determined that the value of the mortgage was less than what they could actually get out of the property, because the taxes would come first,” Barber said. This cleared the way for the property to be listed for sale. There has been “dramatic interest in people redeveloping that lot,” he said.

The site of the bank building at Route 146 was approved in the last few days for redevelopment as a Cumberland Farms, he noted. An abandoned house on Route 20 was demolished to make way for a new hotel in front of Crossgates Mall.

A plan called the Concordia project — for an assisted-living facility — was in the works for developing the site of several abandoned buildings at Route 20 and Foundry Road, but it has run into a snag related to clean-up of the site, although the developer is still “very much interested in proceeding,” Barber said.

“So I think actually we’re doing an incredibly good job of turning these properties over,” he concluded. According to state law, he added, “there is no power that I’m aware of that allows a town to go through and simply demolish a building because it’s abandoned or vacant.”

Federal rules require, Barber said, that sidewalks have accommodations for people with disabilities. They have to be concrete, five feet wide, and they have to have ramps at the curbs. “Paving doesn’t allow for that, and paving is not allowed, paving does not last.”

“Fortunately,” he said, “we live in a very treed area.” But the downside of that is that roots will lift up pavement.

Sidewalks also need to be snow plowed, and “you can imagine the difficulty if you start having uneven surfaces,” Barber said. Concrete allows for more “comprehensive cleaning,” he said.

Asked about bike paths in town, Barber said there are “a few here and there,” including through the Pine Bush, which are maintained by the Pine Bush Preserve. This is something the town is working on, he said; part of a grant received through Assemblywoman Patricia Fahy will go toward a project of creating bike routes, primarily on the western end of town, linking the end of the rail trail in Voorheesville with the canal trail in Rotterdam. “We’re going to be starting looking at abandoned bridges and whatnot to do bike routing,” he said, calling it “a long-term project.”

He spoke with Guilderland Chief of Police Carol Lawlor almost a year ago about police handling of immigration status, Barber said, and was told that police don’t ask questions of a person’s immigration status. Also, he has not received any complaints or heard about any concerns about questions into any resident’s status.

“So we decided that we would continue what we do, which is basically not question people about their immigrant status,” he said.

Creating a sanctuary town might imply that there is something to be concerned about, Barber said, and at this point he is not aware of any problems. He will continue working closely with the chief of police “to make sure we follow the law and we’re making certain that all the residents are protected.”

A program for composting household waste would require sitting down and figuring out what the cost is, he said, noting, “It’s easier said than done.” If Steve Oliver, the highway superintendent who runs the transfer station, were to recommend doing it, he would “certainly support that effort,” Barber said.

He noted that a town composting effort is “one of those things where we have the benefit of seeing how it works in Bethlehem before considering it here.”

Barber said the town is a leader in recycling initiatives, particularly with its Hazardous Waste Disposal Day, which the town promotes heavily and which he said is “setting records for the past couple of years” in terms of resident participation.  

He said that the transfer station does an impressive job of monitoring recycling and noted that other residents use private companies, and he understands that Colonie and Albany also do a good job of monitoring the separation of recyclables.

Barber, 56, was born and raised in the town and is a 1979 graduate of Guilderland High School.

After majoring in math and with a minor in music — he plays the French horn — at the University at Albany, Barber went on to get a law degree from Albany Law School. He met his future wife, Catherine, while working in Washington as a trial attorney with the United States Department of Justice. They decided to move back to this area after having the first of their two now-grown children, who both work as journalists.

“My wife is from New Mexico, so it’s quite a move. But I was impressed by the quality of life here when I grew up and wanted to come back here for my own family,” he said.

Catherine Barber, also an attorney, is a member of the Guilderland School Board.

Barber had been a founding member of a law firm, which he left in March 2016 to work full-time as town supervisor.

As a surprising fact, Barber said that he is part Algonquin and French-Canadian, “which might explain why I’m not bothered by cold weather.