Former Judge Maier elected to Board of Revision of Taxes
A retired Philadelphia Common Pleas Court judge with deep roots in the city was elected Thursday to the Board of Revision of Taxes.
A retired Philadelphia Common Pleas Court judge with deep roots in the city was elected Thursday to the Board of Revision of Taxes.
Eugene Maier, 78, will fill the vacancy created when the BRT's chairman, Russell Nigro, resigned Dec. 31, 2015, court spokesman Marty O'Rourke said. Maier was elected during a closed meeting of about 60 city judges. The vote tally was not disclosed.
Maier will join the six other members of the board, all of whom were appointed to six-year terms: Eugene P. Davey, James Dintino, Wayne A. Johns, Anthony Lewis Jr., Robert Nix III, and Alan K. Silberstein, a former Municipal Court judge.
Maier, a Temple University graduate, was first elected a judge in 1981 and was retained 10 years later. Before joining the bench, he served as one of the three city commissioners, who oversee elections, from 1973 to 1981. He was chairman from 1979 through 1981.
Joseph A. Russo, a former board member who was fired in 2009 for allegedly manipulating a property assessment at the behest of his political patron, then-State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo, had applied to regain the job. Russo denied wrongdoing.
For decades, the board was the primary agency assessing the value of city real estate, and positions were among the most coveted - they pay $70,000 a year for a job considered part-time.
Mayor Michael Nutter, with voters' approval, tried to abolish the BRT in 2009, but the state Supreme Court quashed that effort.
The BRT has had an overwhelming number of appeal cases the last two years, most stemming from the citywide property reassessment project known as the Actual Value Initiative. Last month, the board was still going through the last of more than 24,000 appeals from 2014.
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