By Frank Melcori
I don’t know why it bothers me. I’ll only be 54, not an important year. I’ll go out to buy the paper, see what my horoscope says. I don’t really believe in astrology, but it can’t hurt. In India they believe in all sorts of things–the elephant god Ganesh, the god of good fortune, the remover of obstacles. Maybe Ganesh can lower my taxes, I say to myself as I read the flyer again. A squad car passes and the cops give me the eye–two young Latino guys. When they were kids, they might have been chased by the cops.
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That night my friend Lionel and I go to Saint Procopius School at 16th and Allport, where Jesus Garcia is holding his Tax Alert Forum. The meeting has been called for 6:30, but I’ll be surprised if it starts by 7. It’s hot in the gym. Tired city and county officials slouch in, their colognes mingling with the fetid air. Feeling jet-lagged, I close my eyes. Briefcases snap open. The gym is filling up.
“They will learn one day to listen to us.”
“There are three, maybe four important things that go into the tax appraisal of each house: the age of the house, number of square feet, the neighborhood, and recent sales of comparable property. Obviously there are others, but these four are the most critical in your assessment. We have 1.6 million pieces of property here in Cook County. Obviously we don’t or can’t appraise each and every one. So what we do is a mass appraisal. An individual piece of property is appraised only when an appeal is made.”
“Yeah, they filled mine in a few months ago before I left town.”
“What’s so funny?”
