Philadelphia Weekly

Brett Mandel, executive director of Philadelphia Forward. (Photo by Michael Persico)

Philadelphia's Board of Revision of Taxes (BRT) recently received more than 5,000 appeals in response to its latest property value reassessment. But one particular plea may scream louder than the rest.

    An East Oak Lane couple known to their grandchildren as Bubby and Zayde were recently denied when they protested an increase of more than $150 to their tax bill. After reading about state Sen. Vince Fumo's enormous tax break, the couple decided to investigate.

    They contacted their son-in-law Brett Mandel. Mandel is the executive director of Philadelphia Forward, a citizens' watchdog group focusing on tax reform and equal financial rights.

    Bubby and Zayde (their real names are Carol and George Weinbaum) soon learned they were paying the same property taxes as those who owned houses valued at between 1.4 and 4.8 times the cost of theirs. There was a discrepancy because the BRT hadn't gotten around to reassessing every property.

    For Mandel, the BRT broke a cardinal rule: They messed with his family. "You can do your worst to a lot of Philadelphians," Mandel exclaimed in his weekly newsletter, "but when you mess with Bubby and Zayde, you have stooped to a new low."

    Mandel had been building support around Philadelphia, leading the charge to get all Philadelphians to appeal their property reassessments, and securing grants for tax-education programs. But it wasn't until it hit close to home that his threats of a lawsuit against the city became a reality.

    Philadelphia Forward has collected more than $15,000 from irate property owners eager to put the screws to the BRT. And this time they're attacking full force.

    Representing Mandel and his loyal band of pissed-off city residents is Ira Weiss, a Pittsburgh education and tax attorney who's not new to challenging the Pennsylvania tax code. Last June Weiss convinced Allegheny County judge R. Stanton Wettick that the base-year system, which allows Pittsburgh to use outdated housing assessments to set tax figures, is unconstitutional. The decision has caused widespread panic among city officials, who say the base-year system is common practice, and that doing a full annual reassessment would cost county governments millions.

    "As far as this administration is concerned, there is no planned reassessment. We are a base-year county, and we will remain a base-year county," Allegheny County chief executive Dan Onorato told the Pittsburgh Tribune Review. "We believe Wettick overstepped his bounds."

    Philadelphia, however, doesn't use a base-year system. And Weiss thinks that's even worse. "The system in Philadelphia now seems very disorganized. They do these little assessments to try and patch the tire here and there," he says. "We'll definitely press for a more frequent reassessment if not an annual one."

    The seemingly arbitrary nature of Philadelphia's reassessment practices have left Mandel and Weiss with no shortage of witnesses and evidence for their case.

    There's Ola Solanke. He became a neighborhood tax reform activist after his property bill on three vacant lots he owned soared 3,000 percent. Taxes jumped from $66 to $1,983 a year on 1514 Parrish St.; from $79 to $1,983.36 on 818 N. 16th St.; and from $116.36 to $3,522.45 on 1533 Ridge Ave. The Nigerian-born, Temple-educated father of four suggested a title for this article: "BRT is FUBAR."

    When he went to appeal on the grounds that his neighborhood was being averaged unfairly alongside more affluent areas to the south, the BRT offered to cut his hikes in half if he refused a hearing. He took the deal--and watched his taxes bounce back the very next year. This time he took the appeal hearing. It was denied.

    There's Lisa Parsley, who watched her taxes soar from $1,600 one year to $9,200 the next. When she complained, the BRT told her the person she needed to talk to would be out of the country for three weeks. Waiting would leave her house to be sold at a sheriff's sale.

    BRT spokesperson Kevin Feeley contends that these stories aren't the norm. "Government agencies aren't perfect," he says. "The BRT doesn't assess every house every year. It simply doesn't have the manpower.
Feeley says the BRT is now in the process of testing a computer assessment system that would allow the city tax bureau to stay more up-to-date on property evaluation info. But these changes wouldn't take effect until certain caveats are met.

    "The BRT has made it clear that we will not unilaterally implement a new valuation system until certain protections are in place, like buffers and caps so we can guard against unreasonable spikes in tax numbers," says Feeley.
If the BRT is doing its best, why the lawsuit? "No one wants to be the bad guy," Mandel says. "And in certain neighborhoods where property values may have gone up, people are going to be mad. But it's not the BRT's job to protect Philadelphia citizens. That's the job of City Hall. It's the BRT's job to deliver accurate numbers. And until they're willing to do that, Philadelphians won't get a fair shake."

John Steele last wrote about Drexel's Mad Dragon records. Comments on this story can be sent to letters@philadelphiaweekly.com