City screws up assessments and screws mobile home residents; now what?

From left, Rochester City Mabnager Katie Ambrose, Mayor Paul Callaghan and City Councilor Dan Fitzpatrick (Ambrose, Callaghan/screenshots; Fitzpatrick/courtesy)

Before the de facto representative of Rochester's mobile home community began his presentation on why he believes the city's recent reassessments were flawed, Mayor Paul Callaghan basically told him - and I'm paraphrasing here: "You're wasting your breath."
Kevin Brigham, who serves as an administrator at Royal Crest Mobile home park, spent some 300 hours preparing a painstakingly detailed report on why the revaluations of mobile homes throughout the city were flawed
In an article published in The Rochester Voice on Feb. 9 and an oped published in The Rochester Voice on Saturday, Brigham explained what led to the tripling of property assessments and doubling of tax burden between 2023 and 2024.
Meanwhile, the overwhelming majority of single family homes saw their taxes go down.
As a packed gallery of mobile home owners looked on Callaghan told Brigham and them, "You need to appeal to the (city) assessors office if you want an abatement and the revaluations are state law. There's nothing we can do for you tonight."
So what's he saying? Go pound sand?
The mayor's taxes went down following the reassessments. So did those of every city councilor.
Brigham has stated there are three major reasons mobile home assessment were skewed upward:
At least 10 of the mobile homes used in figuring reassessments had been flipped, meaning older models in disrepair had been retrofitted to 2024 standards.
The majority of mobile homes that figured into the reassessments were situated in upper scale mobile home parks that have amenities like pools and clubhouses.
Assessors used a trend factor, which is often used for mobile homes to either increase or decrease the taxable value of a home. In today's hot mobile home market it is mostly used to increase the value.
One mobile home in the city comprising 1,005 square feet of living space shows a trend factor of 42 percent, Brigham noted.
The exorbitant price of a starter home now is such that many young couples and working class folk are buying mobile homes, putting yet more pressure on the mobile home market.
At the end of his presentation Brigham invited finance board members to ask him question, but there were few to be heard.
And there certainly was no outrage in the room that mobile home owners were being screwed, seeing a huge increase in their property tax while the city's wealthier residents living in single family homes saw their taxes reduced.
Just before the end of the meeting and long after Brigham had withdrawn to the gallery, finance board member and city councilor Dan Fitzpatrick asked if City Manager Katie Ambrose could take a look at Brigham's presentation and see what parts of the revaluation process were governed by the state and which might be within the purview of the city.
It will be interesting to see if Ambrose answers Fitzpatrick's questions tonight at a City Council workshop ... or behind closed doors.
The bigger question is if the city screwed up mobile home reassessments, should they not be held accountable?