Item #4 - Public Comment e
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My name is Carl Suarez and I was one of the VAB petitioners at this year's VAB hearing. I just wanted to
present a brief summary of my experience and suggestions for process improvement. For my hearing,
the magistrate handed down a favorable ruling with my property value being reduced approximately
30%to the level I requested.
During the process,I discovered significant errors and areas for improvement. A few of the problems
include:
1) The property appraiser has been violating the rights of citizens for decades by denying them the
right to use the property appraiser's own assessment against them. I have letters from both the
General Counsel for the State Senate and the General Counsel for the FL Department of
Revenue that clearly state that this denial is illegal and a violation of taxpayer's rights. Yet,this
issue was still left unaddressed this year, nearly six months after they were informed in writing
by both these authorities.
2) The property appraiser is in violation of state laws that require them to document their mass
appraisal process and sunshine laws to make this information available to the public. They were
informed of these violations nearly a year ago. It is my understanding that this problem is also
unaddressed and yet to be corrected.
3) During the discovery process,the property appraiser did not respond to my written public
information requests or minimally responded.
4) The property appraiser is selectively redrawing the effective property boundaries for tax
purposes of selective properties in long establish neighborhoods,such as the Moorings,without
change,documentation,clear explanation or any sort of new measurement or survey.
5) During my hearing,the property appraiser tried to defend their significant errors in their mass
appraisal valuations by using properties that were clearly poor comparables,when excellent
comparables were available,which I presented in my hearing. Furthermore,the valuation of
those poor comps in many cases disagreed with their own online valuations by greater than
100%. In the private sector,this is called fraudulent accounting by rigging up a second set of
numbers.
6) Despite the fact that the corrections in my property valuation required a change in their mass
appraisal models for properties that are in my neighborhood;nothing will be done to refund the
money to most of those affected by those errors--as the property appraiser will simply issue a
refund to me for this year and not alter their flawed methods or results. This is the equivalent
of discovering an accounting error for one customer that affects a large group of customers,but
deciding to issue only one refund and pocket the rest of the funds. This is particularly a salient
point as for example in 2017(that appears to be a down year)where I found a dozen examples
of double digit errors and reductions by the magistrates. If you take my case for example,this
propagates into hundreds of properties affected by each magistrate reduction due to the nature
of the mass appraisal process where refunds are not being issued. Not taking into account the
many cases that do not come to the surface because of the illegal practices to restrict access to
information or the denial of evidence.
These points I have made illustrate a sample of the problems I have discovered. It is local problem that
is costing Collier County taxpayers potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in errors annually.
Something needs to be done.
Regards,
Carl Suarez
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