Chatham Borough Administrator Email Explains Behind-the-Scenes Maneuvering Associated with Rolling Reassessment Decision

CHATHAM, NJ -- Chatham Borough Administrator Steve Williams provided a written answer to the questions about "transparency" involving the Borough Council's unanimous vote last month that ended the plan to institute a 5-year rolling property reassessment program.

Chatham resident Bob Weber questioned whether the June 24th vote of the Borough Council had been a "charade" after he discovered correspondence that pointed to the cancelation of a hearing before the county tax board a week before the vote was taken.

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Weber provided the timeline and the correspondence at the July 8 meeting of the Borough of Chatham Council and asked for answers.

Williams provided TAPinto Chatham with the email he sent Weber that can be read below:

Hi Bob.

On behalf of Chatham Borough’s Governing Body, I am responding to your most recent e-mail of July 16th regarding the Borough’s decision not to proceed with a rolling reassessment program this year.

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While the Borough has no obligation to respond to inquiries of this nature, given that there appears to be a grossly misleading impression regarding Borough Special Counsel Fred Semrau’s communication with the Morris County Tax Board about the rolling reassessment, I will correct the record.

On May 8, 2024, Mr. Semrau was engaged on behalf of the Borough on matters pending before the Tax Board.  At the end of that meeting, the Tax Board asked if there were any further matters involving the Borough yet to be addressed.  Mr. Semrau advised that the Borough was considering requesting the Tax Board order a rolling reassessment.  Such an order would have allowed the Borough to raise funds to pay for the rolling reassessment program outside of the tax levy cap.  In the absence of such an order, that is not permissible.  The Tax Board advised that the last meeting which such a request could be timely made would be on June 20, 2024.  Mr. Semrau requested that space be reserved on the Tax Board agenda on June 20th in the event that the Borough determined it would move forward with seeing the order.

However, on June 17th, having not heard definitive word that the Borough’s Governing Body was in fact going to approve the rolling reassessment program, and given it was certain that no decision was going to be reached before the meeting, as a matter of courtesy, he advised the Board that the Borough was withdrawing its request to be heard before the Board on June 20th.

Obviously, the Borough’s legal counsel did not want to request such an order in the absence of clear direction from the Governing Body that was what it wanted to do, which had not yet been obtained at that point.  It was never intended to confirm that the Borough had reached an ultimate decision about what to do prior to the Borough Council meeting of June 24th, or in your words, “abandon the idea of a rolling reassessment program for 2024.”

The Borough stands behind Mr. Semrau’s actions as the only responsible position to take at that time and it does not compel the wrongful conclusion that a final decision had been reached on whether or not to proceed with the rolling reassessment program (as simply opposed to the mechanism as to how to account for it in the Borough’s budget), prior to the vote on Resolution #24-220 on June 24, 2024.

I trust this will conclusively resolve the matter.

Steve

Stephen W. Williams

Borough Administrator

Weber provided TAPinto Chatham with his reaction to the email (see below) and said he would have more to say about the subject at the Borough of Chatham's next regular council meeting.

First and foremost, I am a bit taken aback by the tone of Mr. Williams’ letter as well as his belief that the residents of the Borough are not entitled to an explanation of how the rolling reassessment matter was mishandled.  As for the merits of his explanation, if one compares the contents of the June 17 ^th letter to the explanation provided by Mr. Williams on behalf of the Mayor and Council, it is not difficult to see that the explanation is nothing more than a smoke screen designed to mask what really happened here.  Any resident who is interested in my specific rebuttal to Mr. William’s assertions should attend the Council meeting scheduled for August 12 ^th .

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