Common sense facts and numbers vs. non-sense bureaucrats: who will win?

Graphic shows mobile home assessments and tax hikes from 2023 to 2024; inset Finance Director Mark Sullivan (Rochester Voice graphic/Sullivan City live stream capture)

Mark Sullivan is the finance director for the City of Rochester, but he's also something else: a bureaucrat.
And what is the definition of a bureaucrat?
In French, "bureau" is a desk, and bureaucracy is a government run by "people at desks," according to Merriam-Webster.
Google's definition is less kind. It defines a bureaucrat as "an official in a government department, in particular, one perceived as being concerned with procedural correctness at the expense of people's needs."
Sullivan penned the official response after City Council member Dan Fitzpatrick asked at February's finance board meeting if City Manager Katie Ambrose could parse through arguments brought forward by mobile home park advocate Kevin Brigham regarding what solutions could be pursued by the city after the city's new mobile home reassessments caused mobile home property taxes to skyrocket, while single family dwelling owners saw their tax burden lowered.
But bureaucracy has nothing to do with common sense. It's got more to do with non-sense.
The recommended action from Sullivan's Summary Statement prior to Tuesday night's finance committee meeting is: "Informational discussion. No recommended action."
Many of the suggestions that Brigham brought forward do come under the jurisdiction of city governance, not state RSAs, so the City Council can do a lot more than "discuss." They can vote to change ordinances.
Another argument brought forward by Brigham has been that privately owned "Taj Mahal" parks that have amenities like swimming pools and clubhouses shouldn't be figured into the overall pool of the city's mobile home revaluations. Yet they were, and they made up a substantial percentage of the mobile homes that were used in the reassessment process.
But no discussion of that in Sullivan's responses.
Again, common sense is thrown out the door in the name of the bureaucratic state.
We wonder if every city councilor saw his single family home's property taxes double, sometimes triple, instead of go down, if they would be more passionate about how the mobile home community is getting the shaft.
What could be the most bureaucratic response from Sullivan is that Brigham's request for another revaluation to replace the recent flawed revaluation cannot be reconsidered because they were submitted to the state Department of Revenue and "there are no provisions under RSA 75:1 that allow consideration of this request."
That's just beautiful, a city hiding behind a state RSA.
Are we really supposed to believe that if the City of Rochester went to the state and admitted they screwed up, the state would say," sorry you screwed up but we can't change it."
And we pay your salaries for this?
The finance committee meets Tuesday at 6 p.m. in City Council chambers at City Hall.

- HT