SUMNER — Michael O’Donnell explained to a large group of property owners at Tuesday night’s selectmen’s meeting how assessed values were established.

“The goal is to be fair,” he said.

O’Donnell works for John E. O’Donnell and Associates, which has been hired to assess properties for Sumner for more than 20 years. The company serves 30 small Maine towns, he said.

O’Donnell said the advantage of hiring a company such as his is that it is professionally done by people familiar with all of the state laws and without bias. The disadvantage is that they lack local knowledge. He said selectmen can change any assessment that, because of local conditions, they feel is wrong.

O’Donnell said property owners can seek relief by informally talking to the selectmen to point out inequities. If this fails, they can file for a formal abatement. He said the laws governing abatements are stacked in favor of the town. Property owners have the burden of proving that their assessment is wrong; the town does not have to defend its decision.

He said his firm develops a model for each town, and then uses this model to set values on property. Selectmen can influence the model to best reflect the desires of residents. Frequently they want more standardization in the model, such as valuing buildings strictly on area, but this fails the goal of fairness, he said.

O’Donnell assigns property to an appropriate table, then applies a correction factor to account for specifics of the property, he said.

He said people might occasionally find a similar property assessed at a lower value. However, if most similar properties are valued comparably, it is more likely the low one should be raised rather than the higher one lowered.

O’Donnell said the likely sale values of most properties in Sumner are now lower than their assessed values due to the poor real estate market. There is no point in lowering all of the assessments since the tax rate would go up and tax bills would stay the same.

In other business, selectmen reappointed the seven members of the Industrial Wind Ordinance Committee. They delayed a decision on appointing additional members. They will interview candidates to serve as moderator for the committee. The moderator will not be a voting member, but will be charged with keeping the committee on task and assuring that it meets its deadlines.

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