This is a printer-friendly version of an article from Zip06.com.
01/19/2011 11:00 PMI recently read that home prices fell for the 53rd consecutive month in November, taking the decline past that of the Great Depression for the first time, according to Zillow, Inc. In addition, I read that home prices have fallen 26 percent since their peak in 2006, exceeding the 25.9 percent drop registered in the five years between 1928 and 1933.
Fifty-three months of straight declines? I get the impression our property appraisal experts had been privy to this data for quite some time. Previously, Vision Appraisals ascribed 2006 as the latest date from which it could compile complete statewide data. It has changed its story, now saying its revaluations were based on a "state-mandated date."
Clearly, every taxpayer in Branford and beyond is a victim of barefaced fraud committed by money-hungry public officials and corporate collaborators. If the attorney general hadn't been too busy campaigning for his ego, he should have been suing the municipalities and Vision for this crime against each one of us.
Worst thing is, Branford's first selectman Anthony "Unk" DaRos has been busy frontloading this fraudulent windfall into firehouses with palatial offices and soaring turrets, bizarre three-way building swaps with unknown costs attached, a public works facility nobody can find, and a cool million for air over a farm in a forgotten corner of town. It's amazing how easy it is to blow through ill-gotten gains-as if there's no responsibility to go with it.
One thing's for certain: The next appraisal, be it this year (as a court of law would demand) or four years from now, is going to be much more sobering-especially in the commercial property sector, which has plummeted harder than the residential. This town is bankrupt as of 2015 unless sobriety returns to Town Hall immediately.
Glenn W. Stefanovics
Branford