Homeowners Irate Over Property Assessments

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Allegheny County Executive-Elect Rich Fitzgerald told a packed house on Mt. Washington Wednesday night that the new court-ordered reassessment program now starting in the county, will be both "disastrous and chaotic."

Fitzgerald told the group of more than 150 angry and frustrated property owners that the fight over the new assessments was not over yet and neither the city nor county wanted to start the process.

Fitzgerald said it was driven by Common Pleas Judge R. Stanton Wettick Jr. after he was pushed by school district solicitors.

KDKA's Ralph Iannotti reports:

Fitzgerald called the reassessments "a back-door tax hike."

Homeowner Jill Harris of Duquesne Heights urged people not to pay the higher taxes.

"We pay our normal taxes and we don't pay the difference," she said. "Why don't you and Ravenstahl get a backbone and tell us to do it?"

KDKA's Heather Abraham reports:

Mt. Washington resident Donna Query said she was nearly floored when she opened her reassessment notice today. She complained her taxes have jumped nearly $15,000.

"I live on a dead end street that they don't … fix the street," she said.

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