Word: j
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Nearly a year later, Somerville Alderman Andrew Puglia discovered that the property on Charnwood Road was owned by John's older sister Marie, and that the property's beneficiaries were listed on the property deed as "John J. Howe and Kristen Howe." Thus assessor Howe lowered the taxes on a piece of property owned by his own family...
Democratic State Rep. Marie E. Howe of Somerville and her younger brother John J. Howe, a Somerville property tax assessor, may have systematically used tax assessments to reward personal friends and punish political opponents, an examination of the city's tax records shows...
Even if Howe knew his sister was planning to purchase the property, he says that it was still legal because it did not involve a direct conflict-of-interest. Howe claims that the "John J. Howe" who is listed as the property's beneficiary is not himself, but his eight-year-old son, John Joseph Howe. (The "Kristen Howe" also listed on the deed is Howe's daughter..) Legally, there is no way to tell which John J. Howe is the true beneficiary...
Former Somerville mayor and current City Clerk William J. Donovan, a political antagonist of Marie Howe and who admits having "no great love" for the Howes, had his property assessment raised by Howe from $10,600 to $14,000 in 1976. Howe says the property was previously under-valued, and that the 40-per-cent assessment increase was long overdue. But the property itself had no buildings that could have increased in value. "The land was vacant," Donovan remembers. "He couldn't justify the assessment." Donovan, too, received an abatement from the rest of the city's assessors...
...William J. Skocpol, professor of Physics and a council member, said yesterday Rosovsky's letter mentions that inflation boosts costs and cuts into income from the endowment. The state of the economy may also have a negative effect on alumni gifts...