The Ethics Committee meeting to consider an Ethics Compaint against Mayor Soglin was cancelled yesterday. Honestly, I’m expecting the ethics complaint by a former assistant city assessor to get thrown. That is because they don’t have “jurisdiction”. i.e. it’s filed in the wrong place. And when they do that, they don’t get to the merits of the complaint. Based on a technicality, they don’t look at the underlying problem. If this complaint is true tho, consider the implications!
THIS IS WHAT IS ALLEGED
From the complaint
• Mayor Soglin and Deputy Mayor Enis Ragland had been informed (by the City Assessor and the Asst City Assessor/Commercial Supervisor) multiple times in 2016 and 2017 about the inequitable valuation of commercial properly assessments and the poor commercial property assessment practices that had been allowing that to occur. The Mayor’s office even provided some funding for the Assessor’s office to try to correct the situation.
• The City of Madison’s major commercial property developers met with Mayor Soglin on May 8, 2017 (shortly after the higher assessments had been placed) and attempted to exert influence on him to return to the prior poor commercial property assessment practices which greatly benefited them. These same developers are reported to be major contributors to Mayor Soglin’s campaigns.
• The Mayor’s office, with the assistance of HR personnel and the Attorney’s office; instigated a deceptive and inappropriate investigation into the Asst City Assessor/Commercial Supervisor’s work just a she was to return from an FMLA leave, in an attempt to find a way to remove her from a position of valuing commercial properties.
• This investigation was represented as coming from her supervisor, the City Assessor, Mark Hanson. Mark Hanson, the City Assessor, stated to Laura Doherty, Asst City Assessor/Commercial Supervisor (after her eventual return in a demoted position), that he did not instigate the investigation even though the paperwork all represented that he did and that he was not involved in the investigation, which is the opposite of how investigations are supposed to proceed at the City. He also stated that I didn’t deserve what was happening to me and that it might not have happened if I’d been there to defend the higher values placed on the commercial properties.
• In summary, Mayor Soglin is knowingly allowing and encouraging the undervaluation of commercial property assessments to benefit the major commercial property developers in the City of Madison by demoting the new Asst City Assessor/Commercial Supervisor who follows the statutes regarding assessments and he has been attempting to find a way to remove her from the City’s employment altogether.
• His policy of influencing commercial property values by removing the Asst City Assessor/Commercial Supervisor and thus returning to known poor past commercial valuation practices is not in the public’s best interest and violates the state statutes of valuing all real property at full market value uniformly so that the tax burden is borne equally.
The full complaint is here. Before you go all conspiracy theory on the timing, please note the date of the complaint. It’s from mid-December. I don’t know why it took 2.5 months to get a hearing. And it has now been cancelled (due to a family emergency).
I GOT QUESTIONS!
Email sent yesterday.
I tried searching he mayor’s schedule, but they are only up for a week, then gone. They’re pdfs, so they should stay searchable, but they haven’t set it up that way. Doesn’t look like he’s too busy.
I tried searching the lobbying reports from 2017. The two developer names that I was told were in the meeting, aren’t registered. And I don’t know who else was in the meeting.
I tried looking at the usual suspects . . . but the city’s website only has the registrations, not the expense statements.
There is a question on the registrations that asks what they are lobbying on, and none that I looked at said commercial property assessments, but they were mostly vague and unhelpful.
I got the open records request back this morning:
For the record: I started looking up Soglin’s campaign finance records, and went down a rabbit hole that became the subject of another post to come . . .
WHAT COULD THIS MEAN?
I can’t quite figure it out yet. But, I’m guessing it means that millions of dollars of property are not being taxed. Commercial includes apartment buildings, hotels, etc. So, think of the skyline and imagine. I know I’m constantly annoyed that developers come in, get TIF money based on values of the land being far greater than what they ultimately pay taxes on. Specifically I recall the Edgewater, but there are many others. However, when I went to look up the assessment, it wasn’t in the assessors database? Hmmm. I’m digging into some other numbers I do know how to find, but I’m not sure they are showing me what I really need to know. Stay tuned.
Imagine how our budget would improve and the services we could provide if we collected taxes on millions more in commercial real estate.
