Huge Delaware Commercial Properties Reassessed. Good News For NCC And Schools?:
Three of the most controversial properties from last year’s first-in-a-generation property reassessment have quietly increased by hundreds of millions of dollars in value – a change that could result in millions of dollars more for county and school district coffers.
Those properties – the massive Amazon warehouse near Newport, a newly-constructed Buccini Pollin Group apartment complex, and a downtown Wilmington parking garage owned by a banking giant – drew ire from residents and lawmakers alike as some of the biggest examples of a flawed reassessment process.
The Amazon warehouse alone jumped to more than $372 million in assessed value, an increase of nearly 250%, or more than $260 million, from its prior assessment.
The Press, a newly constructed 243-unit apartment complex off North Orange Street in downtown Wilmington, was valued last year at just more than $344,000.
Now, the property built by the city’s biggest developer, Buccini Pollin Group, is valued at more than $61 million.
And while the apartment complex was the subject of criticism both on social media and by local officials, a representative from BPG told Spotlight Delaware the critiques were misplaced.
“For people to suggest that a 20-story building, newly built in the city of Wilmington, is assessed at $344,000 is completely fallacious,” said Michael Hare, the vice president for development at BPG.
Since the building did not have a certificate of occupancy, Hare said, last year’s valuation was based only on land value, and not that of the building that sits on it.
I’m shocked, shocked, that BPG had been given such a favorable assessment.
Another property, a downtown Wilmington parking garage owned by JPMorganChase, was valued last year at $416,000 – roughly the equivalent of a modest Wilmington-area, single-family home.
The banking giant acquired the lot neighboring its Wilmington headquarters for $7 million in 2015 and spent an estimated $15 million to build a six-story, 703-space parking garage on the land.
Its previous value was based on the market rate for parking garage rentals at the time it was assessed, according to previous Spotlight Delaware reporting.
Now, the garage is valued at more than $21 million dollars.
Why were the properties reassessed, you ask?:
But legislation passed in January enabled New Castle County to reexamine some of these discrepancies. That review resulted in valuation jumps totaling nearly $346 million across the three properties.
Some elected officials said the assessment changes show the state’s ongoing efforts to provide residents with property tax relief are working.
“It’s nice to see it coming into effect,” said Rep. Cyndie Romer, who has sponsored a number of property tax relief bills throughout this year’s legislative session. “We’re talking about changes that are significantly going to increase the tax base and potentially lower [taxes] for everybody, and that includes small business.”
The question to me is obvious: How could the company charged with doing the initial reassessments have gotten so much wrong? Especially since a supposed neutral methodology consistently favored huge commercial properties over single family homes? I question the methodology, and I think the company should be investigated.
Todd Blanche To Face Senate Questioning. Trump has nominated him to be the AG, not the acting AG. His qualifications? He was one of Trump’s lawyers and he has turned DOJ into Trump’s grievance machine. He is in no way qualified to be Attorney General. Will Senate Rethugs agree?:
Todd Blanche, President Trump’s former personal lawyer and his pick for attorney general, is set to appear for what could be a contentious confirmation hearing Wednesday amid questions about his handling of the Epstein files, the targeting of Trump’s political foes and the broader politicization of justice.
Blanche previously won Senate confirmation early in Trump’s second term to serve as the No. 2 official at the Justice Department, but it is unclear whether he can muster enough support this time to be confirmed for the top job.
Democrats appear unified in opposition to his nomination. That leaves Blanche’s fate in the hands of a small number of Republicans who have voiced concerns about some of his actions at the department and could torpedo his nomination in the Senate, where the Republican Party has a razor-thin majority.
Republican concerns largely center on Blanche’s involvement in the creation of a nearly $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund as part of a settlement with Trump to end his lawsuit against the IRS over his leaked tax returns.
After bipartisan pushback, Blanche said the fund isn’t moving forward — but the part of the settlement that shields Trump, his family and his businesses from IRS audits of past tax returns remains in place.
On Monday, a federal judge blasted the Justice Department over the settlement, saying it was an attempt to “earmark billions of dollars from American taxpayers to redress grievances not defined in the law.”
Sens. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., and John Cornyn, R-Texas, are among the handful of Republican lawmakers to raise questions about the settlement. They are both members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, where Blanche will appear on Wednesday for his confirmation hearing.
A single Republican “no” vote on the committee could kill Blanche’s nomination.
Raising the question, will Tillis and Cornyn ‘pull a Carper’? You know, allowing a noxious nomination to move forward (Samuel Alito), and then voting against the nominee when he had helped to ensure that the nomination would succeed on the Senate floor.
Blanche is not the only patently-unqualified nominee facing Senate confirmation hearings today. There’s also Jay Clayton as Director Of National Intelligence (insert joke here). Looks like he’ll get through because D’s and R’s alike want to get rid of the Acting Director Bill Pulte, who has been on a firing tear since Trump appointed him. I mean, even Chris Coons lambasted the pick:
To put someone whose only qualification is his demonstrated willingness to help President Trump pursue his political enemies is risky for the American people and should be opposed by the Senate.
Clayton is unqualified. But, because they think he’ll do less damage than Pulte, he’s on the glide path to confirmation. About the best we can hope for with Trump and with this Senate.
Trump–‘Don’t Stop The ICE Killings’:
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump says Immigration and Customs Enforcement should continue traffic stops after recent fatal shootings, seeming to contradict a new policy to halt them.
Trump wrote early Wednesday on his social media site ICE is “doing a GREAT job, one that has to be done.”
The Republican president says to remove criminals he says were let into the country under the previous Democratic administration “we must be strong, tough and smart and we CANNOT give up one of ICE’s most important and effective Crime Fighting tools, THE TRAFFIC STOP!” Trump says, “Once we do, we are playing right into the criminal’s hands.”
Well, none of the shootings this week killed criminals. The criminals were the ICE agents shooting into cars:
It’s a narrative that has been repeated again and again since the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown began, with federal officers confronting drivers then saying they opened fire when their vehicles became a danger. That’s despite decades of warnings from policing experts that shooting into moving cars presents a danger of its own and should almost always be avoided.
What do you want to talk about?
