It's Never Over Till It's Over.

I written about our appeal of the incorrect assessment on our house including the results of Our Appeal Result, Our Property Assessment Problem, Our Appeal, and Our Hearing.

I thought that was all behind us. But it's never over till it's over, especially in New Orleans.

Erroll Williams circa 1981

Saturday we received a notice that Erroll Williams Third District Assessor has appealed our successful appeal. I couldn't believe it. She was spittin' mad. She has a right to be she, stood in line twice to see Mr. Williams and was unable to get into his office because there were so many other people who were upset with his assessments.

I immediately emailed several people who might shed some light on this situation, including Arnie Fielkow and Shelly Midura. Arnie responded almost immediately, had no information to offer but promised to look into it.

Here's what I know;

Our appeal was submitted to Mr. Williams so he knew, or should have known, the basis of our appeal. That is our flooded house has not been repaired so it's not worth what he assessed it for.

• I know his appeal is dated November 13.
  
• I know the cover letter dated November 21.
  
• I know She was in his office November 26th.
  
• I know I was there the 27th straightening out our homestead exemption, which Mr. Williams failed to process properly for both 2007 and 2008. Nobody mentioned any appeal to either of us, although workers in the office looked at our files both times.

The apparent basis of Mr. Williams objection to our appeal is that the average sale price in my neighborhood is $122 pr square foot. Apparently he never actually visited my flooded, un-repaired house, in spite of the dated photographs we submitted. He also apparently never checked the comparable sales prices for flooded houses in my neighborhood. I presented unconfirmed but publicly available sales prices for flooded houses in my neighborhood, including my next door neighbor to the hearing officer at our appeal hearing.