{"id":419,"date":"2008-12-03T17:34:32","date_gmt":"2008-12-03T21:34:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/?p=419"},"modified":"2017-12-28T10:41:07","modified_gmt":"2017-12-28T15:41:07","slug":"tax-revolt-leads-to-hampton-tea-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/2008\/12\/03\/tax-revolt-leads-to-hampton-tea-party\/","title":{"rendered":"Tax Revolt Leads to Hampton Tea Party"},"content":{"rendered":"

Seacoast Online<\/a><\/p>\n

HAMPTON \u2014 Hampton Beach residents came together Wednesday morning, Dec. 3, to have their own Boston Tea Party of sorts in revolt over a recent town revaluation that saw their property assessments and tax bills skyrocket.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are being taxed out of our homes,\u201d Eugene Rogers said. \u201cIt\u2019s too much to handle. I don\u2019t know if they just want to put up a chain-link fence around our property and say they own it now or what.\u201d<\/p>\n

Residents in symbolic gesture recreated the Boston Tea Party to show the town of Hampton they are not happy. Instead of crates of tea they used Lipton tea bags, and instead of throwing them into Hampton Harbor, they just opened them up because they didn\u2019t want to litter.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey really hit us hard,\u201d said Rogers, who came up with the idea for a tea party. \u201cIf it was just a gradual increase every year, which they do anyways, it would be one thing, but this one hit is unbelievable.\u201d<\/p>\n

The tea party at the Route A1 bridge preceded a meeting at the Coffee Break Cafe, where roughly 30 residents showed up to voice their displeasure about the recent revaluation. Residents say they are upset because property assessments went up as the housing market continues to collapse.<\/p>\n

At the meeting the members gave themselves an official name, The Coalition for a Fair Assessment, and brainstormed ways they can get their message out and what they can do to fight what they say are unfair assessments.<\/p>\n

Linda Gebhart, who was elected as president of the group, said the increases don\u2019t make sense. Her 75-year-old beach cottage went up 35 percent in value, meaning a higher tax bill that will have to be paid.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to be able to pass this cottage on to our two kids,\u201d Gebhart said. \u201cWe plan to retire here and I don\u2019t know if we are going to be able to last that long.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt this rate no one but the very rich will be able to live here, it seems the town has shifted the tax burden onto the beach property owners.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many in the group said they too were afraid they won\u2019t be able to afford to live at the beach any longer.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy land value more than doubled from $117,600 to $238,900,\u201d said Richard Perkins.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was stunned when I got my latest tax bill,\u201d said Jeanne Lilienthal, who lives on J Street. \u201cMy taxes went up over $1,000. In this economy, the sharp rise in assessed values is, quite frankly, unbelievable.\u201d<\/p>\n

The group discussed the possibility of hiring a lawyer for a class-action lawsuit and requesting an official meeting with the Board of Selectmen and Town Assessor Bob Estey.<\/p>\n

They want to know the criteria used by Estey on how assessments were determined.<\/p>\n

Estey has said one reason why the beach was hit hardest is because prior to the revaluation the beach was an estimated 65 percent of valuation, while the town was in the 85 percent range.<\/p>\n

The revaluation, which is required to be done every five years, used home sales from the last two years to determine the new assessments.<\/p>\n

One resident urged everyone at the meeting to file an abatement by the March 1 deadline to fight the increases.<\/p>\n

Alicia Preston said they need to fight as a group or they will be ignored. \u201cWe have to make it so they cannot ignore us,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Preston\u2019s mother, Judy, said the assessments were out of whack.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy assessment went up to a third of a million dollars,\u201d Judy Preston said. \u201cI couldn\u2019t get a third of a million if my life depended on it. Otherwise I would sell my house and move to Florida.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gebhart, who recently hired an appraiser to get a second opinion on her assessment, said the group plans to hold other meetings in the future.<\/p>\n

Anyone interested in joining the group should call Gebhart at 929-3850.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Seacoast Online HAMPTON \u2014 Hampton Beach residents came together Wednesday morning, Dec. 3, to have their own Boston Tea Party of sorts in revolt over a recent town revaluation that saw their property assessments and tax bills skyrocket. \u201cWe are being taxed out of our homes,\u201d Eugene Rogers said. \u201cIt\u2019s too much to handle. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5,50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles-nh","category-assessing","category-taxes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=419"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7148,"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419\/revisions\/7148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}