This is my coloured commentary on bad behavior of Linda Gallegos and her employees. The dry legal version is within our statement of the issues.
For anyone that wants the entire record, it consists of a large PDF file and the 3 1/2 hour audio recording. Click right and save link to get these large files for yourselves.
Because that's a lot to go through I've pulled out some of the most outrageous statements and actions to comment upon and for those that occurred on the record, I include the record to help illustrate my point.
First up is Linda's senior assessor acknowledging that every lot in 6 square miles is valued the same thing and justifying their actions by saying that the supreme court does not require 100% accuracy and that if the tax payers dont like it, it is their burden to protest. WOW, just..WOW!
Here's the law: NMSA 7-36-15 Unless a method or methods of valuation are authorized in Sections 7-36-20 through 7-36-33 NMSA 1978, the value of property for property taxation purposes shall be its market value as determined by application of the sales of comparable property, income or cost methods of valuation or any combination of these methods. In using any of the methods of valuation authorized by this subsection, the valuation authority shall apply generally accepted appraisal techniques.
One of those is not like the other!
The most outrageous act by far was the absolutely disrepectful manner in which I was treated by the assessor and her employees. I met with the assessor's office TWO TIMES in order to get the information on how my valuation was calculated - one time with Linda herself and three of her staff. Rather than provide me any information whatsoever they expressed repeatedly that I had to 'trust your assessor' - which hopefully you all understand from reading this - DONT TRUST YOUR ASSESSOR!
They never provided anything in the informal meetings and made me do a public records request which I did - here it is - my comparables from the county. This is where it gets ugly. During the protest hearing, under oath, the assessors didn't actually USE the data they had given me - they introduced a DIFFERENT SET OF COMPARABLES. I emphasize this because it is a bad thing! Everyone has the legal right to know how their taxes are calculated and in spite of three attempts to get the information -they simply refused to provide it to me.
But - it got worse. I called them on it in the hearing - we objected several times to the data being changed - and they denied it....here are the assessors literally using that term: He says 'we deny we ever sent you that' FFS! and of course they didnt provide a damn thing in my two informal hearings with them which is what he claimed in this audio - all under oath - it was formally produced as a part of my IPRA discovery request.....Our tax dollars at work...
Linda I don't think likes me and she expressed this in the meeting . Imagine an elected government employee coming after YOU like she did me - there's are lots of words to describe this - bullying is a nice way to say it, but there are other ways: slanderous, disparaging, insulting, derogatory, belittling, vilifying - a malicious character assault by an elected government official on a private citizen - I guess they must really want my money.
Nice folks huh. But they weren't done yet. There is a long list mentioned in our statement of issues where the supposed expert property tax assessors misstated the fundamentals of the law to the board. Why? perhaps to try to confuse the board as to how the law is written? We objected several times to their statements. Here's the lowdown: They never, EVER, argued that what they do is value every single square foot of land the same thing - 4.68/sq ft east of loma larga and 2.87/sq ft west of loma larga. Instead they spent every opportunity they had to talk in attacking me and my data. Their 'directions about the law' that were wrong were meant to declare my data as not relevant. Here's one clip - the assessor says that in order to challenge his valuation of my land, I MUST produce my own valuation alternative . Just this once I'll quote the law - for the other instances you'll have to read the statement of the issues. But to summarize what was going on, the law gives the assessor a huge benefit of the doubt, called the presumption of correctness. In order to assert my actual property value, I first had to overcome the presumption of correctness - ie I had to prove him wrong. Here's the law: NMAC 3.6.7.13 To overcome the presumption of correctness provided in Section 7-38-6 NMSA 1978, the taxpayer has the burden of coming forward with evidence showing that values for property taxation purposes determined by the division or the county assessor...are incorrect. Nothing in that law says butkus about 'must provide a number'. In the record they got the law wrong several times, but we limited ourselves to the 5 most significant in our statement of the issues.
Another simply outrageous assertion by our Senior, Expert Assessor - he said the sales price of a home MAY NOT be used in the valuation of that home. Another objection from us - and even though it took him 5 minutes, he finally agreed that...yes in fact the sales price of a home is very relevant to establishing the valuation of any home. In the question I was asking how he can justify a property that sold Late '22 for $310k to be only valued at $215k 3 months later - the crux of my unconstitutional argument and I apologize to everyone who has been getting a huge tax break from the county.
There was also alot of factual inconsistency we point out, the assessor asserting different facts at different times. You may not know but the assessor has an arbitrary line drawn down the middle of Corrales, following Loma Larga, and in our informal meetings they repeatedly told me that we can't compare to properties across Loma Larga. He didn't have any data or justification for this...he just said it. But in the hearing as I was describing why the assessor won't let me compare my properties to properties 1/2 mile west of me, but he is allowed to compare me to properties 5 miles south...he objected! Said he never told me this.But as he was wrapping up at the end of the meeting, the truth came out - yes in fact they do NOT allow properties to be compared across Loma Larga . The same guy - three and a half hours apart...which statement do you believe?