City Council Asks OPA To Release AVI Formulas
By Mike Dunn
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - City Council members are inching closer to getting the nitty-gritty on how the Nutter Administration came up with new assessments for every property in the city.
Council President Darrell Clarke hinted last week that he might subpoena the Office of Property Assessment to get the raw formulas on how the new values were calculated. On Tuesday OPA Chief Richie McKeithen promised council that detailed information on this will be posted on their website, but he cautioned they may not make sense.
"It takes years of training and understanding algorithms and things like that."
Councilman Jim Kenney wanted to know why the algorithms weren't released from the start.
"Why couldn't that be released to the public, or at least elected officials who were asking for it?"
"Once again," McKeithen said "it's very detailed and it takes a lot of training to really get down to the details of everything."
"I know we're a little thick, but I think we can probably figure it out," Kenney replied.
Their website is www.phila.gov/opa.
