I see the committee meeting today, Councilman Riggi (the ONLY ONE TRUE representative of the TAXPAYERS that sits on the council) is attempting to get a citywide reassessment done and got it on his committee agenda tonight.

However, mayor McThief was NOT present, he is clearly trying to avoid the issue because the FACT is that when a citywide reassessment is done, it will be lowering property values which will prove that all the spending on downtown is causing property values to fall.

And the other negative is that while assessments will go down, the tax BILLS will NOT because the tax RATE will double or triple when the math is done to calculate the rate using the new lower tax base and the same tax levey (remember, the tax LEVY will NOT go down.   Simply explained, if a tax RATE today is $10 on a $100,000 house, then when the reassessment is done lowering assessments, let's say a $100,000 house is reassessed at $50,000, then the tax RATE will rise to $20 so the tax BILLS will be the same.   And no way the mayor wants to have people paying $7,000 a year taxes on a house assessed for, say $70,000.  That is, say the house now is assessed for $140,000 and the tax bill likely is $7,000 a year, cam you imagine when assessments are reduced and one pays $7.000 in taxes on a $70,000 or $80,000 house in Schenectady, but in Saratoga, Albany, Troy, etc, a house that pays $7,000 in taxes would likely be a $200,000 house.