Back in 2007, Blair County outsourced complete control of its assessment office to a private company, then called 21st Century Appraisals. The head of the County Assessment office was chosen by the company, which was also given a commission for every new property it added to the tax rolls (which encouraged it to target & tax the parking lots, woodlands and playgrounds of churches — especially small churches that lacked the resources to appeal).

Few outside the County Courthouse knew any of this had happened. The County never issued a press release. The Altoona Mirror never covered the story. It all transpired behind closed doors.

From its privileged position within County government, the company — which changed its name in 2011 to Evaluator Services & Technology — began lobbying internally for a county-wide property tax reassessment and a no-bid contract to do it. With the public oblivious, the commissioners were easily hoodwinked by a slick marketing narrative guaranteeing them full coffers and safety from any political blowback. They were promised that post-re-assessment, 66% of the property owners would pay less or the same in property tax. Only 33% would pay more. They were told, falsely, this was a some sort of statistical absolute for every reassessment, everywhere. The commissioners bought every word.

Unsurprisingly, the resultant re-assessment was blighted by cronyism and incompetence, with thousands of homeowners facing speculative valuations that had no connection to market realities. The company had clearly intended to tailor the outcome to deliver the desired results promised to the commissioners. While a select group of people saw their taxes fall, thousands of property owners saw their taxes soar by more than 100%, with some grappling with huge increases of 900% or more. Low-income, elderly homeowners were impacted in a vastly disproportionate way. Family farms were also hit hard. The company also controlled the appeals process, staffed by mostly untrained people, many of them with personal connections to the courthouse. The appeals process was largely a sham, denying thousands of thousands meaningful due process.

A big reason people voted for Amy Webster was her promise to shed light on exactly what happened, and work to make sure that it never happened again. She also said she would scrutinize the company's performance under its multi-year, multi-million post-reassessment software contract, and look for ways to cancel it. She was going to seek a measure of justice for those who had been cheated out of a proper appeals process during the reassessment. She said she would streamline and improve the annual tax appeals process, raise the caliber of professionals on the appeals board, and offer appeals assistance to low-income seniors who were struggling to pay inflated post-reassessment tax bills.

None of this happened. We don't know if she even tried.