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About 100 residents of the Myers Park and SouthPark areas gathered Tuesday night to hear how revaluation recommendations might affect them.
But those hoping for details about District 5, where the meeting was held, were mostly disappointed – and many remained angry.
“Why wasn’t this done right the first time?” one man burst out during an informational presentation by Emmett Curl, an appraiser with Pearson’s Appraisal Service, which is the group auditing the initial tax revaluation.
Gina Vandyk, who lives in Selwyn Park, said her house was appraised at a value much higher than the rest of the houses in her neighborhood.
“Everybody would like to see money back,” she said. “What we’re really about is being taxed and taxed and taxed. ... What would really be helpful is if the commission just went ahead and didn’t raise taxes.”
Curl took a lot of heat from people sitting in the stands at the hearing at the Marion Diehl Recreation Center.
He apologized for the frustrating process people had to go through when filing a formal appeal with the Board of Equalization Review.
“They need to remember we’re the ones that pay their salaries,” one woman shouted.
Carla DuPuy, a former chairwoman of the Mecklenburg Board of County Commissioners, stood up and said to applause that people need to figure out a way to mobilize and get the current county commissioners’ attention.
District 5 was represented by Neil Cooksey, who died in mid-October of pancreatic cancer. The district’s county commissioner-elect Matthew Ridenhour, who won Cooksey’s seat in the Nov. 6 election, was in attendance as well as at-large commissioner-elect Pat Cotham and Charlotte City Council member Beth Pickering.
“I’m here listening, and I hear you now,” Cotham told the crowd.
Karen Rush, a Myers Park resident, said her land was appraised for about $450,000 more than the rest of the properties on her street.
“It’s not fair, it’s just not fair,” Rush said, who has made informal and formal appeals. But she said she likes the recommendations Curl presented.
“I think Pearson’s Appraisals did a good job,” she said. “It would’ve been good if Pearson’s Appraisals did appraisals for the entire county.”
