Well, arguing what should be may make you feel good, but it isn’t going to change anything.
I think you were the one arguing what taxes "should be."
Property taxes in Cali are so far below what they should be...
The company that was hired to do the reassessment by our county holds hearings along with the reassessment board. The guy that I was assigned to looked to be 6 mos. out of college, maybe. I asked for documentation for their comparable property used to assess my property, he had none. I asked if anyone had actually visually inspected the property and who it was that did so, he couldn't tell me.
This went on for 15 minutes or so. Each question I asked, he had no answer. The only answer he had was that the reassessment takes upwards of 18 months to complete, and mine must have been completed before the current real estate collapse. Unfortunately for him, I was well prepared, and had facts and pictures, so he really couldn't answer any question.
The only property in our district to sell last year that was anywhere near comparable to mine was a 110 acre tract with a very old (almost falling down) house that sold...get this... for $9,000.00 per acre. A goober Yankee from Philadelphia...no offense to northern freepers, who had lived in an apartment not big enough to swing a cat in most of his miserable life, thought 9k an acre was a hellva deal. They put a modular home on it!!
As a result, my 130 acres of rocky pasture land gets jacked up to 7k per acre because this particular goober was too afraid to live up north anymore now that he's retired.
Anyways, after the thrashing I gave the reassessment guy, I figured they'd raise it even more, but they knocked 40k or .05% off the land value. Not very much, but at least it was something.