The web site for the Alameda County Board of Supervisors says they have Board meetings on Tuesdays at 9:30 and that members of the public may sign up for three minutes of public comment. Office staff recommended arriving and signing in at 9:30, but the closed session didn’t open until close to noon. Sitting in the open session and hearing the talks on budget and immigration services inspires awe for the pressing matters considered by these supervisors in their jobs.

For me, however, life intervenes, and prior commitments didn’t let me wait to speak past 12:30, so I left without reaching my objective of speaking before them on this important matter. Instead, we wrote letters to all 5 Supervisors on the Board, informing them why they should also take an interest in the issues we are confronting with the City of Berkeley’s dubious tax scheme. Ca Tax and Revenue Code 5099 states that requests for refund or county or city taxes may be decided on by the board of supervisors. We would like to empower the Board of Supervisors to intervene on our behalf and also to recapture ad valorem taxes on all properties which have escaped ad valorem assessments for years through the failure of the City of Berkeley to administer the tax code appropriately.

The Alameda County Assessor and the Alameda County Tax Collector appropriately and correctly do the work of assessing and levying property taxes. The City of Berkeley has no appraising or assessing qualifications and do not follow State Board of Equalization appraising protocols. Moreover, we suggest that Ca Code 51800 prohibits the City from flaunting those same laws that the County adheres to when they collect taxes.

Our letters to the members of the board included 2 photographic and evidentiary examples in the City of Berkeley each of taxed and unusable understories, untaxed and unusable understories, untaxed and usable understories, ADUs which have escaped assessments for years, houses which have been added onto and don’t pay the appropriate new assessments, including a home of 3300 ft2 which has been paying for 1850 ft2 for decades.