State Appellate Tax Board Hears Testimony in West Tisbury Case

By IAN FEIN

BOSTON - Attorneys for Island resident William W. Graham
charged in a legal hearing this week that West Tisbury assessors
deliberately falsified property records that inflated his land values
and increased his taxes.

"At heart this case is about fraud," Mr. Graham's
attorney, Richard Wulsin, told the chairman of the Massachusetts
Appellate Tax Board.

"Accusations of falsifying property record cards are very
serious," replied attorney Ellen Hutchinson, who represents the
town's board of assessors. "Assessors take the oath of
office to carry out their duties to fairly and accurately reflect the
values of all properties in town."

The comments came during the first day of an appellate tax board
hearing that began Tuesday in Boston with chairman Anne Foley presiding.
The board is a quasi-judicial state agency that hears and decides tax
appeals.

After three days of lengthy testimony from West Tisbury assessor
Michael Colaneri and selectman John Early, Mr. Graham's attorneys
have not rested their case and much of the town's defense is yet
to be heard.

The hearing will resume in Boston on Tuesday and is expected to last
well into next week, if not beyond.

Key witnesses JoAnn Resendes, the town's principal assessor,
and Mr. Graham are expected to take the stand next week.

Attorneys from both sides agreed in their opening statements that
this was an unusual case.

Mr. Graham, who owns 235 acres at Mohu off Lambert's Cove
Road, is seeking a reduction of his property taxes for fiscal years 2003
and 2004. Mr. Wulsin said this week that, compared to similar properties
in town, he believes the disproportionate values of Mr. Graham's
lots will shock the board.

In 2002 the assessed value of Mr. Graham's lots nearly tripled
from $18.5 million to $53.7 million, while his annual property tax bills
almost doubled from $130,000 to more than $250,000. In 2003 Mr.
Graham's West Tisbury property taxes went up again to more than
$280,000.

Mr. Wulsin said that the sharp increase in 2002 was due in large
part to a falsified record card for a nearby property which, he alleged,
assessors altered in an attempt to match a predetermined value. Town
assessments are required by law to represent fair market value.

An enlarged reproduction of that card, presented at the hearing as
an exhibit by Mr. Wulsin, indicates that during the 2002 revaluation
assessors reclassified 60 acres of a neighboring waterview property as
no longer having a view.

Called as a town selectman but questioned more about experiences in
his private construction business, Mr. Early testified the property did
indeed have a water view.

Mr. Wulsin said town assessors and their third-party consultant,
Vision Appraisal Technology Inc. of Northboro, changed the information
on the record card so they could use the nearby sale of another
waterfront property to determine the relative real estate market for the
area along the north shore of West Tisbury near Paul's Point.

According to Mr. Wulsin, the decision allowed assessors to value
properties in that area nearly twice as high on a per acre basis as
elsewhere in town. Mr. Graham's seven contiguous lots fall within
that neighborhood, as defined by the assessors.

The two waterfront properties near Paul's Point that sold in
the summer of 1999 were an 81-acre parcel for roughly $12 million and a
12-acre parcel for roughly $10 million.

"You could draw a lot of different conclusions about those two
sales - and what's interesting is the conclusions drawn by
the assessors," Mr. Wulsin said in his opening statement.
"If they had not changed this card, the assessment on the
[81-acre] property would have come out at $20 million instead of $12
million, which would have alerted the state that there was something
wrong with what they were doing."

Ms. Hutchinson countered that the Massachusetts Department of
Revenue approved and certified the town's triennial revaluation in
2002, and that any changes to property record cards occurred as part of
that recertification process.

"This is not a question of assessors falsifying records; this
is a question of what land valuation model was used," Ms.
Hutchinson said of the methods by which assessors and their consultant
determined property values. "Land valuation models by their very
nature can and must change - especially in the case of a rising
market, as we see here in West Tisbury."

Ms. Hutchinson argued the sales justified increasing assessments in
the area, including those of Mr. Graham's properties.

"The assessors see these two sales, the size of which has
never been seen before, and see them in that neighborhood," Ms.
Hutchinson said. "It tells the assessors that there's
something different and something unusual going on. This has become a
very exclusive neighborhood of very expensive properties."

Chairman Foley has been actively engaged in the hearing, often
interrupting attorneys' interrogations of witnesses to ask follow
up questions.

Mr. Graham's attorney also argued the assessors chose to
ignore facts about his properties, specifically the presence of wetlands
and rights of way, which would have lowered property values.

According to testimony from Mr. Colaneri, who is chairman of the
West Tisbury board of assessors, the town has a policy to value wetlands
at $500 per acre. Island land surveyor Douglas Hoehn testified on
Tuesday that he compiled site plans for Mr. Graham that conservatively
identified extensive wetlands throughout the northern portions of his
properties.

Mr. Colaneri said that the assessors often rely on Mr. Hoehn's
work, and that Mr. Graham presented the site plans to the board in May
2003. However, wetlands credits did not appear on Mr. Graham's
property record cards until the 2005 revaluation.

After the close of the hearing, Chairman Foley and at least one
other appellate tax board commissioner will travel to the Vineyard to
view Mr. Graham's and other properties in West Tisbury.

A decision by the appellate tax board is expected within three to
six months after the hearing closes.