Most members concluded that there are too many unanswered questions regarding potential privacy concerns for them to recommend at this time that the Assessment Department’s ImageMate online database be changed from the current two-tier system, providing limited access by the public to property information, to one that would provide free online access to all.

Committee chair Greg Stevenson proposed that the policy be changed, but his motion failed for lack of a second. The committee asked assessment officials to return to the committee July 13 to provide a detailed demonstration of system features and capabilities.

The committee had asked for public input on the matter; written comments received favored the proposed change by about a two-to-one margin. Assessment Director Valeria Coggin characterized investigation of the issue as “a very educational process”, saying that while her department had suggested the change in response to taxpayers who had requested it, security concerns of others cannot be ignored. She said that visual property information including photographs from other than the street right-of-way and links to detailed oblique aerial images, could be eliminated to help address the security issue.

Chairman Stevenson maintained that, even with the current system, where detailed data supposedly is available only to real estate professionals on a fee basis, county officials are being lulled into a false sense of security, since, once user accounts are created, there is no way to know who is actually accessing that data. The current policy, he claimed, only “keeps the most disconnected, honest people out of the system.”

The committee might reconsider the issue after the presentation next month.

In other action related to the Department of Assessment, the committee recommended that the Legislature approve a $62,600 transfer from the contingency fund to fill two staff positions: a Real Property Appraiser to help complete valuation work for the county’s three-year revaluation process and a System Analyst, to prepare for the anticipated departure of the department’s assistant director next year.

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