Taxpayers Suing

Taxpayers group sues to overturn North Wildwood revaluation
By TRUDI GILFILLIAN Staff Writer, (609) 463-6716
Press of Atlantic City
Published: Friday, April 14, 2006
Updated: Friday, April 14, 2006

NORTH WILDWOOD — A lawsuit has been filed in state tax court asking that the city's 2006 revaluation be thrown out.

The suit, filed by Alexander and Margaret Schernecke on behalf of the Wildwood Taxpayers Association, charges that the revaluation was riddled with errors resulting in “violations of the taxpayer's constitutional right to be taxed fairly and equitably under New Jersey law.”

Tyler Technologies/CLT
Division performed the revaluation as it has for several other Cape May County communities.

The Scherneckes are among a group of Philadelphia residents who also own homes in North Wildwood and who started to organize after property owners learned of their new home values, which increased two, three, four or more times their previous values.

Since owners were mailed notices at the end of 2005, the group has drawn about 300 people to each of several meetings designed to challenge the results of the revaluation.

Before the revaluation, the entire city was valued at $794.9 million, and after the revaluation, the town is now said to be worth $3.3 billion.

The suit was filed against the city, tax assessor Joseph Gallagher, the Cape May County Board of Taxation, Tyler Technologies Inc./CLT Division and the state's director of the Division of Taxation.

According to the lawsuit, their collective failure to follow procedure “resulted in a loss of the substantive and procedural due process, and violations of the uniformity clause of the Constitution to the detriment of the taxpayers.”

The revaluation “resulted in grossly overvalued, inequitable and inconsistent valuations throughout the city of North Wildwood,” the lawsuit contends.

The suit claims that the process involved “numerous mistakes, omissions, classification errors, or inclusion of business value or personal property” that tainted the revaluation process.

Montclair-based attorney Philip J. Giannuario, representing the Scherneckes and the taxpayers group, said such lawsuits are rare, but he expects that as the case moves forward it will uncover substantive errors in the revaluation.

He is now waiting for a response from the parties named in the suit.

Mark Seibert, a senior project supervisor for Tyler Technologies/CLT Division, said the company is consulting its attorneys and has no comment at this time.

To e-mail Trudi Gilfillian at The Press:TGilfillian@pressofac.com