Assesment Fun

I have fallen victim to the Allegheny County Assessment debacle.

I made my third trip (yes third) to an appeal hearing. None of the appeals I actually filed. It was either the school district thought I was not paying enough taxes or the county thought I was paying too much. I choose to go with the county!

So I leave work and drag my butt downtown. I can't stand going downtown. They rape you when you pay to park and it's just never a fun trip.

I fight my way into the county building for my rescheduled hearing. My first hearing date the Mayor died so it had to be put off. I'll accept that as an excuse.

They tell you to "arrive early" so I did. I have to talk to the girl behind the bulletproof glass but first I must get her attention. I stand very patiently waiting while she looks at everything but me. So I started rocking back and forth thinking movement may cause her to acknowledge my presence. No such luck. So now I'm doing jumping jacks and chanting, "hello, can you help me please?" She finally tells me to sign in and wait across the hall. So I scribble my name and walk into what I believe to be the abandoned set of "Barney Miller". The walls, carpet, doors and window unit air conditioner all seems to say welcome to the 70's. So I sit down. It's not hot out but the AC is cranked and as it groans I can't help but think it's my money they are wasting by leaving the air on. So I walk over and turn it off. The lawyers and other poor souls in the room looked at me with disbelief. That air must have been on since 1970 and no one dared to touch it.

I sit down and start thumbing through a 1984 copy of "Woman's Day" magazine. There was an article on the new fad called break dancing. A check of the clock tells me I've now wasted 45 minutes of my life that I will never get back. All to fix a problem that I don't think will ever be fixed in my lifetime.

Finally I'm called in. I say hello and sit down for my annual meeting. "Do you swear to tell the truth?” the guy behind the desk asks me. "That depends," I said. "It's a roomful of lawyers. What do they plan to do"? Come on, I want a level playing field.

One thing I noticed, people at the county building have no sense of humor. I agreed to tell the truth and off we went. They rambled off some legal stuff and I just said I don't want to pay any more money. The lawyer for the school district offered some evidence as to why he should be able to take more money out of my pocket.

I was then asked if I'd like to review the evidence. I said sure, why not? "In fact, " I declared, "I'd like to take about 45 minutes to review the evidence since that's how much of my time was wasted so far." Again, no sense of humor. I read every word for 5 minutes or so and I'd loved the fact they were wondering if I really was going to take almost an hour to read the pages.

When it was all said and done I don't think I accomplished anything. The whole fact that the county can appeal a decision by the county shows you how messed up the whole thing is. So now I wait for that piece of mail that will tell me how much I really should move out of Allegheny County.