Introduction

In 2005, I attended a meeting that included the supervisor from an adjoining town. The supervisor joked that his town could not afford to hold parties as did the Town of Evans. He was referring to spending at the Association of Towns convention in NYC. As word spread around town, Major Robert Doering, US Army Ret. started researching state law. He found that residents had rights under state law as "freeholders". Doering, via print ads in the local pennysaver, recruited 35 residents to join a legal action vs the Town of Evans. The court ruled against the "freeholders" on what we felt was an improper application of the statute of limitations. The "freeholders" planned to appeal the decision but the sudden death of Bob Doering did not allow the appeal to move forward. As fate would have it, the judge resigned from office a few months later for improper and unethical behavior. [ Click Here ]

In 2007, the Town of Evans announced a town-wide re-assessment. Living in the Town of Evans all my life, I knew re-assessment would have winners and losers. The local politicians, their families, and their friends would be the winners. The losers would be the "freeholders" and any one else labeled a "troublemaker". I would argue that this is not an allegation but a fact of life in the Town of Evans. [ Jump To Ed Conboy Letter ]

What I suspected would be unfounded allegations without solid proof. Analyzing 5,000 plus properties using paper documents would be tedious and very time consuming. One of my career hats is that of a computer programmer. After doing some research, I discovered that the assessment data was available for the Town of Evans exported as a Microsoft Excel File. I knew that if I had the 2007 assessment data, the 2008 tentative assessment data, and the 2008 final assessment data, that I could easily write a program to look for winners and losers.

Assessments are used to determine how much you pay in property and school taxes. In the 2008 Town of Evans reassessment, if your assessment doubled, your taxes were almost the same. If your assessment increase was less than double, you paid less taxes. If you assessment increased by more than double, your taxes increased.

Using the three (3) data sets in Microsoft Excel format, I easily calculated winners and losers. To no surprise, town officials, their families and friends were winners while the "freeholders" and other town "troublemakers" were the losers.

Below are a few examples of winners and losers.