Credit where credit due to board, assessor

To The Eagle:

Property owners of Wahkiakum County, we must give credit when credit is due.

The Board of Equalization held a meeting for the property owners on Puget Island, July 27. The meeting represented at least four months work for the board working against huge odds such as the State doing everything in their power to keep tax assessments as high as possible with total disregard to the true market value of the property.

The previous appraiser used a bewildering and impossible grading system which led to many properties being very much over assessed even when the market was good, let alone what it is today.

I sat on the BOE through many appeals. Each reduction the board made, save one or two, was automatically appealed to the state and all appeals were held to be in favor of the assessor-appraiser.

Until the election of the current assessor, there was absolutely no co-operation from the appraiser and little from the assessor. Bill Coons has helped the board begin the process throughout the county of correcting the many bad assessments. Mr. Coons has been able to correct many on his own.

The BOE has to follow state guidelines as does the assessor. It does no good for the property owners to lash out at the board or the assessor. They certainly have more patience than I do and they are doing everything to correct the mistakes of the past as fast as they can following the state's rigid guidelines.

Michael C. Mouliot

Cathlamet