JAMESTOWN – Jamestown city officials have appointed a new city assessor.
On Monday the Jamestown City Council approved the appointment of Kevin Okerlund to be the city’s new assessor. Okerlund will replace former assessor Randy Holcomb, who retired from his post at the end of July.
Jamestown Mayor Sam Teresi said Okerlund had previously served as the city’s part-time commercial property assessor.
“Keven knows the operation and knows the real property tax law quite well. He’s a licensed appraiser and in his spare time for years has served as the assessor of several small towns in Chautauqua County,” Teresi said. “He’ll be allowed to retain that authority and that function, doing it on his own time in the evenings and on the weekends, but he is now a full time employee and appointed assessor for the city of Jamestown, ending in September 2019.”
On Monday night the city council also approved a new agreement with Busti to provide assessment services to the town through Sept. 30, 2019. The agreement is an extension of the one that’s been in place for the past 10 years between the city and Busti, although the two sides have revised how the position will be paid, with Jamestown paying all of the position’s salary and billing Busti for any services he provides for the town. Previously the two sides split the cost 50-50.
Jamestown Mayor Sam Teresi said the new arrangement will save the city between $20,000-$25,000 a year.
I hope the new assessor does do the other towns in the evenings or weekends. He is a full time assessor for Jamestown taxpayers. Should anyone see him assessing the small towns on Jamestowns time, let the city council know or write to the newspaper. I think he should have given up the assessor work for small towns.