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VerdictJune 28, 2006 I paid no attention to O.J.'s trial or Slick Willy's impeachment, but I have been paying some haphazard attention to West Tisbury's battle with William Graham over the assessment of the megamillion-dollar property Bill inherited from Mama. The first paragraph of today's online Boston Globe story covers most of the bases: "Ending an island drama involving big names, big real estate, and one small but tenacious town, the state Appellate Tax Board sided yesterday with West Tisbury in the town's battle with the son of the late Washington Post Co. chairwoman Katharine Graham." "Small but tenacious town"? West Tiz is gonna love that. If West Tiz ever shows up at a party with its arm in a sling, you can bet the injury was incurred in an overzealous attempt to pat itself on the back. William Graham, however, is not a typical West Tisbury property owner. The second paragraph of the Globe story should make that clear: "The board also ruled that the seaside town only slightly overestimated the value of Mohu, William W. Graham's 225-acre estate. The board found it was worth $50.6 million, $528,500 less than West Tisbury officials had contended and about $30 million more than Graham had argued. The ruling means that West Tisbury must refund Graham $5,459.31, as opposed to the $320,000 he wanted." Lop at least three zeroes off most of these figures and you'll have numbers I -- whose checking account currently hovers in the low four digits thanks to the early arrival of two checks from Big Corporate Publisher, but that's only because I haven't made my second quarterly estimated tax payment (due June 15) to the feds yet -- can comprehend. During the three-year course of this "feud," as the Globe's headline writer called it, I've ricocheted back and forth between sympathy for the alleged David and the alleged Goliath, knowing all the while that it's nowhere near that simple. My accumulated frustrations with the short-sighted town apparatchiks (not just West Tisbury's, by the way) shouldn't add up to support for the interests of a William Graham, who could squish me as easily and as cluelessly as I was squishing caterpillars a few short weeks ago. And they don't. What makes me crazy and very, very angry is that hardly anyone's talking about what's killing the Vineyard and plenty of other places: that property is valued, and property taxes are assessed, based on the perceived resale value of the property even if the property owner has no wish to sell, and no intention of selling. At least not until the property taxes force her or him to consider the possibility. Toward the end of his story the Globe writer noted: "On the Vineyard, where rising property taxes are seen as a painful consequence of an influx of wealthy residents, Graham's case crystallized some of the tensions that run just beneath the surface of daily life, cutting between year-round residents and summer vacationers who own some of the best land." These "summer vacationers" live here one or two or three months of the year. To them the Vineyard is a respite, a refuge, a toy, but it's their collective whims, their high incomes and deep pockets, that are making the place unlivable for those of us who live here and nowhere else. The problem with Graham v. West Tisbury is that Graham charged the West Tisbury assessors with fraud. The Appellate Tax Board quibbled with a couple of assessments but pretty much said that no fraud was involved. The problem is that no fraud has to be involved: the practice of assessing property based on potential resale value does plenty of harm when it's functioning the way it's supposed to. Why haven't we blown it up yet? Why aren't we even talking about it? And while we're at it, someone riddle me this: The Globe staff writer quoted two -- count 'em, two -- men in the street about the tax board's decision. Both of them were exactly that: men. Neither lives or works in West Tisbury. Both run bait & tackle shops, one in Oak Bluffs, the other in Edgartown. Does the Globe guy get his sources from the news editor of the Martha's Vineyard Times, who often quotes these two prominent fishermen in his own fishing column?
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