Updated Lynn property values on city website

LYNN – Residents curious about the assessed value of their neighbor’s house can easily find out by browsing the city’s website.The latest data for both commercial and residential properties was posted in December and is now a single mouse click from the city’s home page.Assessor Peter Caron said property value information has been available to the public online since 2003 in Lynn, but the direct link to the Patriot Properties database appeared only on the Assessor’s page.”We have had the assessed values on the city website for the past 6-7 years, but there was no link from the city’s home page. So the values might not have been as easy to find,” Caron said Thursday. “But we have added a link on the city’s home page.”According to Caron, Mayor Judith Flanagan Kennedy has encouraged all department heads to post any announcements or links they deem important on the city’s site.”The mayor has been very proactive in trying to enhance the usability of the city’s website. She has asked the technology office to streamline the home page so that the pictures and everything else open up easily and quickly,” he said.The official city website address is www.ci.lynn.ma.us. Following the red-lettered link to FY 2011 Property Values takes visitors to a direct portal to the Patriot Properties web page.Online visitors can also click a second link on the city’s home page that connects to the Assessor’s page, where it’s possible to enter the Patriot Properties database at www.PatriotProperties.com.Lynn-based Patriot Properties handles the assessor databases for dozens of communities, including Lynnfield, Nahant, Salem, Swampscott and Revere. Peabody and Saugus employ a different company.The link to Patriot Properties provides information on property tax rates, tax data and property records.”We pay Patriot Properties to maintain it. We give them the information. They put it up on the site and maintain the server,” Caron said. “We update the values twice a year, in December and at the end of June or the beginning of July. This way the values get approved a couple of weeks before the bills are issued.”John LaSala, a staffer at Patriot Properties headquarters on the Lynnway, said approximately 421 visitors enter the Lynn database each day.According to Caron, posting the property values link on the city’s home page in mid-December was part of Information Technology Department Director Ken Week’s revamping of Internet services at City Hall.”I think once people know Lynn is on the Patriot Properties Web site, they go there directly,” he said.As of last Tuesday, when property tax bills in Lynn were due, Caron’s office had 215 applications for abatements.”That’s about half what we had at the same time last year when the number was 412,” he said. “The applications are down because values have stabilized and people know their property has been assessed at what it’s worth.”Tax maps have been available online for the last four to five years.Caron noted public feedback has been nearly 100 percent positive.”I occasionally get a complaint – I think three in eight years – about owner names appearing there,” he said, emphasizing the administration of former mayor Edward Clancy Jr. was supportive from the beginning of the policy to maximize transparency by not masking owner names.Only the names of police officers who own property are excluded.Caron said it remains undecided whether the property values link will continue to appear on the city’s home page.”My preference would to leave some sort of link on the home page, but I would not be the one to make the final decision on that,” he said.