Reassessment in North Tonawanda up for vote Tuesday night

North Tonawanda, N.Y. (WBEN) - Reassessment is on the agenda in the City of North Tonawanda.

The North Tonawanda City Council on Tuesday night will vote on whether or not to spend $550,000 to hire a firm to begin the reassessment process.

"Every year, our city assessor has brought forth to city government the need for reassessment," said North Tonawanda Mayor Austin Tylec. "Tonight, there's an item on the agenda, similar to prior years, to see if the Council wants to move forward with an assessment."

If approved, the reassessment process could take up to a year, with assessment changes taking effect in two years.

The idea, and how it's being brought up, isn't sitting well with at least one Council member.

"I want to make sure that residents have time to ask questions," said North Tonawanda Alderman at Large, Joe Lavery Jr. "I'm not a fan that this was put on the agenda for the one meeting a year we meet an hour-and-a-half early. I'm not happy with the way it was put on the agenda. It was not called a reassessment, it was called a 'Request for Proposal to perform and Equity Improvement Program.'"

In the past, Lavery said a workshop meeting would be held for council members to ask questions of the vendor before a vote to approve the contract took place, but that did not happen in this instance. He called the way it's been handled "shady."

Tylec says a reassessment in North Tonawanda is necessary to readjust the city's declining equalization rate, which impacts exemptions for seniors, veterans, as well as STAR exemptions.

Lavery, the lone Republican on the Council, told WBEN he would support a reassessment if it came with assurances that taxes would not increase exponentially for some residents.

Reassessment was a hot topic during this past November's election, when during the campaign, Tylec said there were no plans for a city-wide reassessment. He wrote that Republicans were "pushing egregious lies about a city-wide property reassessment to scare you about something they know is simply not happening."

"That's true, last year there was no reassessment plan... at the time," Tylec told WBEN on Tuesday. "This year's a new year, there are new Council members, and we'll see how their interest falls in this."