And here's a table of neighborhood values, arranged from greatest decline to least:

Zone	Name	2010	2011	Difference	% Change
28	Hillcrest	$996,193,250	$844,101,930	($152,091,320)	-15.27%
16	CongressHeights	$886,867,990	$769,896,320	($116,971,670)	-13.19%
18	Deanwood	$1,383,747,220	$1,209,813,050	($173,934,170)	-12.57%
22	FortDupontPark	$798,205,650	$710,623,840	($87,581,810)	-10.97%
43	RandleHeights	$609,120,470	$543,355,080	($65,765,390)	-10.80%
2	Anacostia	$399,807,210	$362,915,100	($36,892,110)	-9.23%
56	Woodridge	$879,926,880	$799,573,190	($80,353,690)	-9.13%
12	Chillum	$346,126,430	$315,058,890	($31,067,540)	-8.98%
5	Brentwood	$200,972,750	$182,955,030	($18,017,720)	-8.97%
32	LilyPonds	$295,641,920	$269,935,100	($25,706,820)	-8.70%
19	Eckington	$706,814,760	$645,712,450	($61,102,310)	-8.64%
42	Petworth	$2,023,266,640	$1,856,836,320	($166,430,320)	-8.23%
52	Trinidad	$751,677,870	$692,358,920	($59,318,950)	-7.89%
3	BarryFarms	$121,846,120	$112,399,790	($9,446,330)	-7.75%
33	MarshallHeights	$268,540,150	$248,036,670	($20,503,480)	-7.64%
36	MountPleasant	$1,326,523,455	$1,226,541,600	($99,981,855)	-7.54%
7	Brookland	$1,824,198,660	$1,698,176,370	($126,022,290)	-6.91%
47	RiggsPark	$801,995,840	$753,060,440	($48,935,400)	-6.10%
51	Takoma	$249,970,300	$234,728,240	($15,242,060)	-6.10%
15	ColumbiaHeights	$2,364,839,950	$2,235,460,270	($129,379,680)	-5.47%
6	Brightwood	$1,464,305,880	$1,384,541,150	($79,764,730)	-5.45%
38	ObservatoryCircle	$627,636,150	$593,793,570	($33,842,580)	-5.39%
55	Woodley	$261,237,430	$248,250,730	($12,986,700)	-4.97%
21	ForestHills	$1,264,984,060	$1,207,982,820	($57,001,240)	-4.51%
13	ClevelandPark	$1,445,719,610	$1,381,363,780	($64,355,830)	-4.45%
48	ShepherdPark	$589,603,540	$567,269,060	($22,334,480)	-3.79%
49	16thStHeights	$1,020,982,451	$985,033,790	($35,948,661)	-3.52%
20	FoggyBottom	$197,782,079	$191,281,550	($6,500,529)	-3.29%
35	MichiganPark	$331,917,250	$321,014,630	($10,902,620)	-3.28%
46	R.L.A.SW	$185,945,830	$180,422,950	($5,522,880)	-2.97%
14	ColonialVillage	$510,574,300	$495,649,010	($14,925,290)	-2.92%
34	MassAveHeights	$710,582,570	$690,606,120	($19,976,450)	-2.81%
24	Garfield	$489,414,630	$476,290,350	($13,124,280)	-2.68%
31	LeDroitPark	$625,517,380	$608,863,400	($16,653,980)	-2.66%
66	FortLincoln	$93,026,100	$90,575,240	($2,450,860)	-2.63%
27	Hawthorne	$247,725,780	$242,286,140	($5,439,640)	-2.20%
40	OldCityII	$3,477,086,349	$3,401,033,980	($76,052,369)	-2.19%
29	Kalorama	$1,460,346,060	$1,429,457,330	($30,888,730)	-2.12%
25	Georgetown	$3,743,858,260	$3,666,092,440	($77,765,820)	-2.08%
23	Foxhall	$283,833,220	$277,959,930	($5,873,290)	-2.07%
1	AUPark	$2,036,222,130	$1,996,331,260	($39,890,870)	-1.96%
53	Wakefield	$334,409,320	$328,669,750	($5,739,570)	-1.72%
9	CapitolHill	$2,311,179,300	$2,275,405,000	($35,774,300)	-1.55%
54	WesleyHeights	$968,531,110	$954,472,770	($14,058,340)	-1.45%
50	SpringValley	$1,575,432,380	$1,557,377,740	($18,054,640)	-1.15%
8	Burleith	$773,130,490	$765,983,200	($7,147,290)	-0.92%
11	ChevyChase	$4,145,679,275	$4,110,300,640	($35,378,635)	-0.85%
39	OldCityI	$5,530,087,535	$5,502,049,290	($28,038,245)	-0.51%
37	NClevelandPark	$684,121,410	$681,203,330	($2,918,080)	-0.43%
17	Crestwood	$622,516,970	$621,425,390	($1,091,580)	-0.18%
41	Palisades	$860,095,210	$859,655,990	($439,220)	-0.05%
26	GloverPark	$706,231,790	$708,065,650	$1,833,860	0.26%
10	Central	$199,633,540	$203,796,910	$4,163,370	2.09%
30	Kent	$1,096,089,550	$1,134,551,260	$38,461,710	3.51%
4	Berkley	$998,840,330	$1,057,883,210	$59,042,880	5.91%
	Total:	$59,110,562,784	$56,908,477,960	($2,202,084,824)	-3.73%

]]> http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2010/02/26/map-of-d-c-property-assessments/feed/ 11 http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2010/02/26/d-c-property-assessments-by-neighborhood/ http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2010/02/26/d-c-property-assessments-by-neighborhood/#comments Fri, 26 Feb 2010 14:22:52 +0000 Mike DeBonis http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/?p=48497 Attention property owners! For your reading pleasure, here is the newly released assessment figures broken down by neighborhood. Until you get your personal tax bill, occupy yourself by crunching these numbers:

2011 Assessment for Residential Properties

Commercial data after the jump.

2011 Assessment for Commerical Properties

But the news might not be great for homeowners looking for a break on their upcoming tax bills: Most of the drop is due to falling commercial property values; residential properties have declined only 3.7 percent on average over last year.

Not only has the commercial property market been increasingly weak, but city assessments have been taking a beating through the appeals process—with commercial landlords having their tax bills in some cases drastically cut on appeal, it has affected city revenue projections, in turn complicating the city budgeting process.

A quick look at residential assessment data broken down by neighborhood shows that the middle-class Ward 7 communities of Hillcrest (-15.3 percent), Fort Dupont Park (-11.0 percent), and Randle Heights (-10.8 percent) took some of the most drastic plunges. Traditionally upscale neighborhoods in Wards 2 and 3—Kalorama, Georgetown, Spring Valley, Chevy Chase, Palisades—saw much less precipitous drops, of 2.5 percent of less. The Glover Park, Central (West End), Kent, and Berkley (Foxhall) neighborhoods actually saw modest rises in value.

Assessments will be mailed to households before the end of the day today; property owners have until April 1 to file appeals. Full press release after the jump.

GOVERNMENT OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
OFFICE OF THE CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER
OFFICE OF TAX AND REVENUE

IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, February 26, 2010

DC's Assessments Reflect a Slight Decrease in Real Estate Values

(Washington, DC) — The Office of Tax and Revenue (OTR) announced that it will begin to mail assessment notices to all real property owners in the District of Columbia today. A total of 190,000 taxable and exempt real properties have been reassessed to reflect current market values as of January 1, 2010. The overall change in assessments for all taxable properties in the District is – 6 percent from the previous year’s assessment.

“The Tax Year 2011 assessments reflect a real estate market in the District of Columbia that has declined in some areas but is attempting to stabilize in others,” said Richie McKeithen, director of the Real Property Tax Administration.

Property owners are encouraged to review their assessment notice upon receipt. The 2011 notices contain not only the proposed assessed value for a property, but also the estimated taxable assessment and important information related to property tax relief programs such as the homestead benefit and the owner-occupied residential tax credit. Included on the notice is the assigned assessor’s contact information for taxpayers who wish to discuss their assessment. The property owners will not be taxed on the new assessed value until March 2011.

Property owners who believe that their assessment is not equitable in comparison with similar properties or that their assessment does not reflect the market value must file an appeal with OTR’s Real Property Tax Administration by or before April 1. Information about the appeal process and the assessment appeal application is available on OTR’s website at taxpayerservicecenter.com under “Real Property Service Center.”

"If you put me back in there today, I could get each of you a check."

—tax scammer Harriette Walters, June 30

The greatest instance of municipal larceny in District history came to a quiet end this year with the sentencing of Walters, who led a ring that stole nearly $50 million from city tax coffers. Justice came for Walters in Judge Emmet Sullivan's federal courtroom, ending a string of pleas and sentences in the case discovered in 2007. But how much has changed since then? Natwar M. Gandhi, the man who oversaw the city tax office while Walters' scheme was absorbing enormous sums of taxpayer money, remains the District's chief financial officer. And Walters, while expressing deep regret and repentance upon receiving a sentence of 17-and-a-half years in prison, insisted in the above quotation that perhaps not all of the loopholes she opened have been closed.

More from LL's Quotes of 2009

Judge Brook Hedge granted a preliminary injunction yesterday halting the sale, scheduled for today through Friday, as part of a lawsuit filed against the city by Aeon Financial LLC, billed as "one of the nation’s leading purchasers and servicers of delinquent municipal property tax liens."

LL has yet been unable to obtain a copy of Aeon's complaint, but Hedge's injunction order indicates some sort of dispute over whether properties with outstanding tax bills of less than $1,200 would actually been put up for sale tomorrow or not. Aeon seems to want them sold; the District does not. Hedge noted that the District provided no explanation of why this is so.

UPDATE, 3:30 P.M.: So here's the deal: Aeon's business is buying up a lot of properties at tax sales—last year, it spent $4.6 million buying 445 District properties, which is 35 percent of all the properties sold. This year, the company alleges in its complaint, the city has decided not to sell properties that owe less that $1,200 in taxes. That's a problem, Aeon says, because the city is required by law to sell all properties that haven't paid their taxes—and because the city isn't following the law, Aeon argues, any delinquent property owner who did have his property sold can ask a court to declare the entire auction illegitimate. That would be bad for Aeon.

UPDATE, 5:15 P.M.:David Umansky, a spokesperson for OTR, says that the office decided not to sell the sub-$1,200 properties to improve the efficiency of the auction. Last year, he points out, the auction did not include properties owing less than $1,000. (See Michael Neibauer's Examiner story yesterday for more.) "We think everyone agrees that the city should not be in the business of seizing properties for just a few hundred dollars," Umansky says. The city, he says, plans to appeal Hedge's ruling.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT—"Peter Nickles: I Will Not Call You Back," "Video: Is Cleveland Park Dead?" and "The Pershing Park Case: Did A District Official Commit Perjury?"

Morning all. A big thanks to the local politico reporters and Wilson Building staffers who a) Jokingly thought I had become LL; b) Wished me luck in compiling the must-read briefing on local politics; and c) failed to mention the "resident" controversy from yesterday. A few local heavyweights inquired about LL's bike ride to Dewey Beach and wondered if he had made it to the Rusty Rudder safely. I reached LL via e-mail. Here is what he wrote about his trek:

"Uh, well, we left gonzaga HS at 4:30 a.m. then took back roads to just across the severn river in annapolis where we were bused across the bay bridge to where 50 meets 404. it started out looking like it was going to be cloudy and rain all day, but by the time we crossed the bridge the clouds were gone and the sun was shining. so it was really hot. the route kinda sucked. its exactly the same as driving; we rode on the shoulder of these roads the whole time, trucks whizzing pasy, chickenshit in the air, no real scenery of note. but it was for a good cause–autism research–and it was pretty well run, lots of rest stops with powerbars and water and bananas and all that stuff. The first leg I did pretty fast, finishing 35 mi in about two and a half hours. the second leg was somewhat slower—five and a half hours to do 65 mi to Bethany Beach–but i was among the first half of finishers (at 2:15 p.m.) on my junky old bike. so yeah, it was good."

Now on to the news: Councilmember Phil Mendelson has joined colleague Councilmember Mary Cheh in calling for AG Peter Nickles to resign. Cheh spoke out to City Desk last Friday. So what has provoked the councilmembers? The OAG's conduct in a Pershing Park lawsuit in which police evidence has gone missing and/or has been destroyed, among other discovery problems. The U.S. District Court judge in the case has promised painful sanctions, has called on the D.C. Council to investigate the matter, and ordered Nickles to provide a sworn statement explaining his office's conduct. The Examiner's Bill Myers gets Mendo on the record calling for Nickles to go. Nickles offers his usual bulldog-with-rabies react: "It's politics at its worst. They have no idea what's going on." What's going on is available via transcript. News Channel 8's Bruce DePuyt has Cheh and Nickles on the Pershing Park issue. Nickles says he is "troubled" by the missing evidence, and will follow the law. Cheh stands by her comments and says D.C. needs a new attorney general.

LEAD TROUBLES: WaPo is reporting that House investigators have found many more children than previously reported had high levels of lead in their blood during the drinking water crisis from a few years ago. Key graphs: "Local officials could not say Monday whether some children with unsafe lead exposure have gone without intervention to reduce their health risks. The CDC and city health department had reported dangerously high lead levels in 193 children in 2003, the worst year for high concentrations of lead in city tap water. But lab data gathered by congressional investigators this year show that the actual number was 486 children."

AFTER THE JUMP: More public transpo issues, D.C. Police are getting some federal dough, Legal Seafood is fighting to stay inside National Reagan National Airport, WaPo stands up for press freedoms(!) and much, much more.

PUBLIC TRANSPO continues its stretch of bad press. Last night a man was stabbed at Union Station, News Channel 8 reports. It is unclear whether the man was stabbed on a train or on a platform. The man was taken to an area hospital. A female suspect was taken into custody. (Also reporting: WTOP). During rush hour, doors opened on a moving Metro train. Scary. WaPo reports that the incident occurred on an Orange Line train. No injuries were reported and the train was promptly taken out of service. Key graph: "A passenger, who requested anonymity because he is restricted from speaking to the media in his job as a House aide, said that the left panel in the middle door of a middle car came open and that the door closed as soon as the operator hit the brakes."

WJLA is reporting that 27 bus shelters have been busted recently. A DDOT source speculates that this appears to be the work of one person: "Metropolitan police will be handling the investigation. They say the damaged bus shelters are located across the city from Upper Northwest across the Potomac and into Southeast. Clear Channel, the company that began installing the shelters two years ago, said the first damage reports started coming in Sunday and then Monday the number of vandalized shelters passed the two dozen mark."

D.C. cops are getting a bit boost from the feds. Police coffers will see an increase of $12 million from a federal grant. The money will be used to hire an additional 50 officers. News Channel 8 reports this may not necessarily boost the rank and file's numbers: "At the same time the department is getting more officers, the D.C. Council passed a budget calling for a hiring freeze in the department. Over time, it will result in less officers all together. 'Whatever number we ended up at, we're now 50 more than that and that's great news,' said Fenty." NBC4 has a brief on the boost.

An Inspector General's audit has found that the District's financial office has failed to collect $750,000 in motor fuel taxes during the past couple years, the Examiner's Michael Neibauer reports. The news is kinda ironic: "The Office of the Inspector General 'identified uncollected motor fuel tax revenues of about $733,000 for six years,' said the audit, dated July 26. The District's Office of Tax and Revenue, auditors reported, 'has not been aggressively pursuing potential revenues,' as it never followed up with motor fuel importers who didn't pay. The audit was issued July 26, five days before the council voted to increase the gasoline tax from 20 cents to 23.5 cents per gallon."

WaPo is reporting that Legal Seafoods is seeking a court order to stop airport officials from kicking them out of Reagan National Airport's choice Terminal C locale. The chain says it's being pushed out to make way for a steakhouse. Nerdy highlight: "Owner Roger Berkowitz says the problems started last year during lease negotiations with officials from Westfield Concessions Management, the Los Angeles-based company that oversees retail stores and restaurants at National and at Dulles International Airport. He said Westfield encouraged the seafood chain to spend $2.3 million to expand, primarily by taking over the space of a bookstore next door. Berkowitz said he agreed to make the changes but insisted that the seafood chain pocket any construction savings. At the time, he said, construction costs were plummeting due to the weak economy." Of course, there's more.

Gov. Tim Kaine has told families of the Virgina Tech massacre victims that he will not reconvene his investigatory panel. The families had urged him to re-investigate the shootings in light of the shooter's mental health records being found. WaPo reports that more than 60 families and victims had signed a letter urging Kaine to bring the panel back. Key graphs:

"In an e-mail to families sent about noon Monday, Mark Rubin, the governor's counselor, ruled out reconvening the panel.

'While we would not rule out inviting willing members of the Panel to review proposed revisions to the report, we are sensitive that there are families who expressly do not want to reconvene the Panel,' he wrote. 'Our hope is that the current process for revisions will satisfy the need for a thorough report without upsetting families like your own any further.'

But Rubin added that Kaine will accept any factual corrections families wish to make to the report until Aug. 19."

PEGGY COOPER CAFRITZ—one of the District's most impressive politicos—talks about last week's fire that destroyed her home. She tells FOX5: "We'll always find the light, you know. We went through an exercise of looking through the plural of 'phoenix' and we found it, and it's 'phoenixes' and as I told others, that's exactly who my children and I are and will be." WUSA's Bruce Johnson had the exclusive first interview and some news on the fire: "Sources tell 9NEWS NOW that WASA had four reports of low water pressure in the area in the past year. At least two hydrants are clearly marked out of service." Let's hear it for "sources" whoever they are!

WaPo Editorial Board slams the D.C. Council's penchant for closed-door meetings. A must read for....fans of Sherwood, Segraves and any another local reporter who has pounded on those closed doors. Key graph: "THE D.C. COUNCIL was able to shut the public out of its recent budget deliberations because supposedly, it wasn't really taking action. Never mind that all the big decisions were being made behind those closed doors. That such an outrage could occur is the latest example of why the District is viewed as having one of the most worthless open-meetings laws in the country and why that law needs to be changed."

FENTY'S SCHEDULE:

10:45 a.m. Remarks
Demolition at Gage Eckington Elementary School
Location: Site of Former Gage Eckington Elementary School
2025 3rd Street, NW

4:00 p.m. Remarks
Petworth Recreation Center Ribbon Cutting
Location: 801 Taylor Street, NW

7:30 p.m. Remarks
79th Grand Chapter Meeting of Kappa Alpha Psi, Inc.
Location: Marriot Wardam Park Hotel
2660 Woodley Road, NW

That's what LL heard from a fellow spectator in Courtroom 24 of the E. Barrett Prettyman United States Courthouse this morning, while we waited for the greatest thief of public funds in District government history, Harriette Walters, to enter, along with man who had her future in his hands, Judge Emmet G. Sullivan.

Truth be told, Sullivan's role was not quite that dramatic. Walters and her attorney, Steven C. Tabackman and worked out a plea deal with federal prosecutors, so it was left to Sullivan only to decide whether Walters would get 15 years of incarceration or 18 years. Still, those three years were debated, quite passionately at times, by Tabackman, Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy Lynch, and by Walters herself.

Walters entered the courtroom dressed in a blue garment, her hair short and braided. She wore glasses that she took off and placed on the table for most of the proceeding. At the beginning of the hearing, Sullivan brought Walters, 52, up to a podium answer a few perfunctory questions; she then sat back down while Tabackman did what he could to spare three years of her life.

What Tabackman had to do was somehow convince Sullivan that a crime of great heinousness deserved something other than the 18-year maximum—a term that seemed already light to many, given that it came a day after Bernard Madoff was handed a 150-year federal sentence for a fraud similar in nature if not scope. Tabackman's strategy was a combination of being perfectly direct ("She took the money of the District of Columbia when it was not hers, and that was a terrible things to do") and attacking prosecutors for their "demagogy" for pointing out, in their sentencing memo, all of the things that the city could have bought for the $50 million Walters and her accomplices stole—AIDS clinics, schools, so on.

After all, Tabackman pointed out, the District did run a sizable surplus many of those years. "They built a stadium!" after all. Surely no particular project went in need thanks to his client's pilferings?

"She has never tried to justify or excuse or mitigate in any way the seriousness of her conduct," Tabackman pointed out, and indeed Walters has taken full responsibility for her thievery. But the whole role of a defense lawyer at a sentencing is to justify in some way—to mitigate.

For instance, defending her record as a public servant: "Fact of the matter is, of all the units over there [at the Office of Tax and Revenue], when she was running it, it worked better than anything." Or her supposed munificence ("She said, giving away money helped me sleep at night"). Or describing how he became friends with his client. Or pointing out her "pretty complex psychological needs." Or laying out her drug abuse; how she once weighed 400 pounds and is "enormously insecure." Or contrasting her with the likes of Enron villain Jeffrey Skilling.

Walters herself, asked to make a statement, also was perfectly direct: "On Nov. 7, 2007, I accepted full responsibility for the part I played in the commitment of this crime....I stand before your honor in full repentance," she said in her soft Caribbean patois. "I made a decision not to lie anymore."

In the end, none of that remorse got Walters much anywhere.

Lynch, for his part, emphasized the scale of the fraud, and Walters' place in it at the "top of the pyramid." How she was "sophisticated"—a word he must have used a dozen or more times. How she "corrupted her friends...corrupted the Office of Tax and Revenue...corrupted a federally chartered bank...corrupted her family." How the investigation into her crimes spent untold manhours and government dollars. That sending Walters to jail for the full 18 years "sends an important message to those 34,000 people" working for the D.C. government.

And Lynch prevailed upon the notion that her years of punishment should equal her years of wrongdoing, dating back to 1989: "Eighteen years is something that has justice to it...There is a sense of justice here that someone who has corrupted out city for 18 years would have to serve 18 years in prison."

While Lynch made his arguments, Walters stared at the wall, then started writing notes to Tabackman.

Powerful arguments, but Tabackman and Walters, actually, did hit upon a mitigation that appealed to Sullivan: Walters' willingness to sit in a conference room for two days and explain to a panel of lawyers, accountants, and other investigators engaged by the D.C. Council, and explain exactly how she has able to perpetrate her fraud, across a span of time that Sullivan described as "shocking."

"Harriette Walters," Tabackman said, "helped them understand as well as anyone could."

Sullivan asked Walters at length about the information she provided and how it helped the city understand how she did what she did. At one point, the judge asked her to describe how investigators reacted to the information she provided. "They kind of sat back in their chairs, and said, 'Well...,'" she said

Walters' hometown cooperation apparently pulled on the civic heartstrings of Sullivan, long a resident of Shepherd Park.

Lynch, in his presentation, argued that the information that Walters provided the District investigators "was not materially different" from what she told the feds—the information that led to the plea deal in the first place. "That would be double-counting," Lynch argued. "It's a good thing; it's a nice thing...but it's not materially different."

Sullivan didn't buy that; he appreciated that his fellow citizen of the District of Columbia—his fellow corrupt, thieving, greedy, "extremely intelligent, extremely sophisticated" citizen—had helped make the city a better in the small way that she could.

For those two days helping District authorities, he knocked six months off that 18-year maximum sentence. And Sullivan, knowing this city's government all too well, acknowledged that it might not do much good.

"The scheming is not going to stop," Sullivan said. "It's going to continue."