1992-10-26 Regular Meeting - Laserfiche WebLink

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e e I personally talked with the Director of Finance for the City of Deer Park and he indicated that this would be the last year that they would obtain values from HCAD. He said that they would probably obtain the services of Hugh L. Landrum and Associates for their appraisal process. As you can see, Mr. Landrum is still a very active player in the appraisal market. I believe Mr. Landrum to be the best person for the job. A few of the pluses are: 1. Mr. Landrum successfully provided the values for the City during the twenty-two year period 1968 to 1990. 2. The primary reason for terminating his contract was the consensus that the City could receive the values from the Harris County Appraisal District at no cost. We have now found that the Appraisal District can not provide accurate values to the City. Mr. Landrum provided accurate values. 3. A secondary reason was our concern that continuity would be lost when Mr. Landrum retired, for their was no "heir apparent" to take over his business. We felt that we would have better continuity by going with the Appraisal District. Mr. Landrum has brought his son into the business over the last two years. While it is unknown to me personally of his son's qualifications, it would be something we could evaluate during a future contract period. As a side note, both of the HCAD appraisers we originally dealt with during our conversion to using the Appraisal Distrait left HCAD within six months of our decision to go with them. 4. Because we are entering the renegotiation year for the contracts, I believe Mr. Landrum can provide a historical insight and assist the City with the process better than any other independent appraiser. Recommendation I recommend that the City enter into a contract with Hugh L. Landrum and Associates to provide values for our Industrial District properties for the three year period January I, 1993 through January I, 1995. He will also assist the City during the contract renegotiation process. At the end of the three year period, the quality of the service he provides to the City will be analyzed and changes made as needed. I have negotiated a fee of $35,000 per year and believe this to be advantageous to the City. This is an increase of $1,400 over the prior contract. The growth of the properties in our two districts warrants this increase. In retrospect, I wish we had followed the axiom "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" two years ago when we elected to change.