You Can't Make This Stuff Up: Bob Berg Responds to Dorothy Finger

This letter was sent to Scarsdale10583 by Robert Berg: I read Dorothy Finger's letter of resignation from the Board of Assessment Review with complete and utter astonishment! It became instantly clear to me that Mayor Mark and Village Attorney Esannason have caused Ms. Finger tremendous personal angst and created major problems for the Board of Assessment Review in carrying out our Herculean task this year. Ms. Finger's ad hominem attacks on me in her letter seem based on her misapprehension that I, along with Bob Harrison, pressured the Mayor and the Village Attorney to cause Ms. Finger to recuse herself from this year's hearings.

Speaking for myself, I never thought for a moment that Ms. Finger should have recused herself from the BAR this year. I never asked the Mayor, the Village Attorney, the Village Assessor, the Village Manager, or anyone else to have Ms. Finger recuse herself. I'm sure Bob Harrison did not either. Nor did any member of the Board of Assessment Review. We had no reason to do so since Ms. Finger had ably served on the BAR last summer, and we welcomed her continued participation.

Ms. Finger's letter reveals that Mayor Mark and Village Attorney Esannason asked her to recuse herself from this year's proceedings. Ms. Finger erroneously attributes their request to pressure from me and Bob Harrison.

I am truly appalled how the Mayor and the Village Attorney are mishandling every aspect of this Ryan revaluation disaster. It's really amateur hour over at Village Hall.

So what am I talking about? On Grievance Day, June 21,2016, Scarsdale property owners had filed approximately 1050 grievances challenging their tentative assessments arising from the 2016 Ryan revaluation. That day, the Board of Assessment Review convened to begin its public hearing. Nearly two hundred property owners had scheduled themselves to appear personally before the BAR -- an unprecedented number which necessitated three days of hearings.

At the start of the June 21 hearing, Dorothy Finger appeared and announced that she was recusing herself from this year's deliberations without explaining why. I asked her why, and she fleetingly stated something like "because of this year's troubles." She then disappeared.
We later learned from Village Attorney Esannason that Ms. Finger intended to remain as a member of the BAR notwithstanding her recusal from all 1050 grievances. We asked him why and he said nothing.

Given the enormous volume of work the BAR faced this year and the need for a 3 person quorum to conduct our business, speaking for myself, I felt that Ms. Finger could not simply recuse herself from this year's grievances, but needed to resign immediately, and a replacement had to be found as soon as possible. I explained this to the Mayor and the Village Attorney.

The urgent need for a fifth active member of the BAR became clear when we tried to schedule the third day of public hearings. Over 40 property owners had signed up for a scheduled hearing of the BAR on the evening of June 29. That hearing had to be cancelled at the last moment because a quorum of BAR members could not be assembled. Instead, the hearing had to be rescheduled for the morning of July 1 -- the day before the long holiday weekend.

I implored the Village Attorney, the Village Manager, the Mayor, and the Trustees over the next month at Village Board meetings and in letters to convince Ms. Finger to resign and to install a replacement member of the BAR. After weeks of delay -- and another cancelled BAR meeting for lack of a quorum, Ms. Finger agreed to resign, and resident Jane Curley graciously volunteered to serve in her stead and was appointed by the Board of Trustees. Ms. Curley received her mandatory training and began serving on August 1.

At this point, the BAR has determined about 1/2 of the 1050 grievances. Because of upcoming planned vacations, Ms. Curley's participation will be vital to maintaining a quorum and thereby ensuring that the BAR completes its onerous job so that the final assessment roll is timely filed on September 15.

So why do I think the Mayor and Village Attorney have acted egregiously? Well, THEY NEVER TOLD MS. FINGER, THE MEMBERS OF THE BAR, OR THE PUBLIC THAT THEY (AND THEY ALONE) WERE THE ONES WHO WANTED MS. FINGER TO RECUSE HERSELF THIS YEAR. Ms. Finger understandably, but incorrectly, thought they were responding to outside pressure – and believed the pressure came from me and Bob Harrison.

As is apparent from her letter of resignation, Ms. Finger is very hurt at the criticism she has received for having to recuse herself when she was ready, willing, and able to serve, and then having to resign from the BAR. What's disgraceful to everyone involved is the Mayor's and Village Attorney's failure to set the record straight from the outset – that they, for whatever undisclosed reasons, wanted Ms. Finger to recuse herself from this year's proceedings but stay on the BAR.

Only they know what they were thinking – if indeed they were thinking – when they made that unwarranted request. But they have a hell of a nerve to leave Ms. Finger out there blowing in the wind as public pressure mounted to have a full working BAR.

I understand that Ms. Finger suggests in her letter of resignation from the BAR that I too resign from the BAR because of my purportedly "unprofessional conduct." I have a thick skin, and now understanding the misapprehension under which she was operating, I don't take personal offense. But since her suggestion is now out in the public domain, it warrants a response from me.

I have served as a member of this BAR for many years, and I have served the community well. Before I joined the BAR, previous BARs generally rubber-stamped whatever recommendations the Village Assessor made with respect to any particular grievance. The net result was that virtually all grievances submitted to the BAR were denied unless there was proof of a recent sale of the property at issue. Since I joined the BAR, the BAR has carried out its duties fully as an "independent" town board, as mandated by law, and we often come out with decisions that the Village Assessor disagrees with because we exercise our independent judgment and try to do justice where we can when warranted.

I can't speculate as to what conduct of mine Ms. Finger believes to be "unprofessional." She seems to believe that because I strongly feel that the Ryan revaluation is the train wreck I predicted, I am somehow biased. That is not the case at all. I approach every grievance with an open mind and review whatever evidence the grievant presents in support of her case. So do all the members of the BAR. Ms. Finger correctly points out that by law, the valuation a property receives on June 1 is the presumptively legal valuation. Indeed, it is, and I pointed that out many many times to grievants that came before the BAR on our public hearing days. That's why we on the BAR implored grievants to provide us with evidence substantiating their claims, including independent appraisals of their properties, so that their grievance could be properly evaluated and the presumption of the legality of the tentative valuation could be overcome, if warranted.

The Mayor and the Village Attorney really owe a sincere apology to Ms. Finger, to the BAR members, and to the residents for exacerbating an already charged situation over the Ryan revaluation and by needlessly cajoling Ms. Finger, a willing and qualified volunteer, to recuse herself from this year's proceedings. The Mayor and the Village Attorney lacked the guts to explain to anyone, and most importantly, to Ms. Finger that they (and they alone) were the ones who wanted her to recuse herself. And when the proverbial excrement hit the fan as the BAR was stymied in doing its job, they maintained their silence. You can't make this stuff up! I'm sorry, Dorothy, that this happened, and we on the BAR were clueless.