The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-01-10
THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

l INNNNSANSp 4ll. LlONG LOI lIlS soiLit eio 'to"
 to Attorney A, Mcclellan MatheWson,
 who read before the board an extract
 rom the old colony records, which de- I scrlbed the first act for the improve ment of the harbor in 1644, in digging channel near where the lower end Of Elm street is now located. A copy Of | this act will be framed and hung be- side the map to illustrate the change between the first simple method of com- polling all the male population to turn
 out to dig channel and the immense | operations under way for harbor im- provement at the present time. A new and separate appropriation of S440oo has been added by congress to the ap- propriations previously passed, bringing the grand total up to $3S9,O00.
 Three applications for membership
 were presented and accepted by the chamber of commerce, the newly elect
 ed members being Joseph B. Lavigne,
 Attorney George M. Wallace and Clar-
 ence Deming.
 The matter then came up of the pro-
 posed bills for the legislature which had
 been drawn up by the legislative con-
 mittee. The committee consists of Hon.
 James D. Dewell, chairman; Henry c,
 Rowe, clerk; Henry G. Newton, c. $.
 Hamilton, Isaac Wolfe and T. Attwater
 Barnes. The committee has been hard
 at work on these bills. one of which
 concerns the assessment of real estate
 and embodies the salient points of the
 measure proposed by Henry c. Rowe at
 the previous meeting. the other being
 a bill proposed by Attorney Hamilton
 which provides for a reorganization of
 the board of relief. The second bill Is
 meant as an auxiliary measure to the
 first, which is framed with view to
 preventing the present complained or enormous over-valuation of real estate for purposes of taxation in this city.
 According to the provisions of MT.
 Rowe's bill in cases where property owners claim that their assessments are
 too high, they may within ten days af-
 ter the thirty-first day of December in any year file in the town clerks office written offer to accept, at any time on or before the fifteenth day of May, a sum not exceeding so per cent. of the
 assessment for sale of such real es-
 tate. If the property brings over 50 per cent of the assessed value one-half
 of the excess shall be paid to the owner and one-half to the city of New Haven If after making such offer the owner shall refuse to convey the real estate at the price named by him. he must pay 10 per cent. of its assessed valuation to the city and the city will have lien upon the property until this forfeit is paid. Nothing in this act Is to be construed to prevent a resort by any taxpayer to any means Of relief against over-assessment under existing laws.
 This bill, which includes other clauses exacting guarantees of good faith from owners and bidders, the chamber unan- imously recommended the committee to present to the legislature for enactment. It was especially approved of because it provides ready means to expose as- sessors whose bad judgment, according to the statement made by Henry G. Newton and concurred in by the cham Der, had raised the assessments of much of the real estate in New Haven to 150 per cent. above it's market value.
 MT. Hamilton stated that while cases would undoubtedly come up of people who would not risk advertising their homes for sale for domestic reasons, the bill would cover most cases and these people would still have all the legal remedies against over-vnluation now existing, besides benefitting by the de- terrent value of the bill which prevents the abuse.
 The following extract from the report | of the legislative committee shows the VI of pyya ,a,,t ,1o now existing in this city:
 Under the recent re-assessment, the | valuation of real estate in the grand | list of New Haven has been more than | doubled, an increase of more than fifty million dollars, while during the last | year the valuation of the real estate in | he rest of Connecticut has decreased oy twenty-six million dollars. If a state tax should hereafter be laid, we nave placed ourselves in a position to De obliged to pay a liberal share of it.
 Tn making this great increase in our grand list, your committee find that here are very large number of as- easements of real estate which exceed the present true and just value from fifty to one hundred per cent, and many even higher We present few of valuations, for the purpose of illustration:
 "A certain piece of real estate was aS- ,essed at $9065, but it has been sold in he open market for ss,000, thus it was ssessed at more than 150 per cent. of ts value, or one and one-half times its market value.
 Another property was assessed at | 19,647, but it has been sold for $12,0o0, hoWing that it was assessed at 160 per ent, of it's value, or one and three- fths times what it ought to have been.
 Another piece was assessed at 1900, [ ut it has been sold in the open market ent. of it's value, or more than one and ( hree-fifths times what it ought.
 Another property was assessed at 1, ,620 but it has been sold for $500, thus (
 was assessed at more than 200 per l ant. of it's value, or twice what it g ught to have been. C Another piece of real estate was as- | sssed at s. 900, but it has been sold for a nly $1,700, showing that it was assess V ] at 229 per cent. of it's value, or two V nd three-tenths times it's market t alue l. Another property was assessed at 2 '29S, but 1t has been sold for SS25. It ' as assessed at PTS per cent. of it's E alue or two and three-fourths times hat it justly or lawfully should have zen.