Grand jury looking at appraisal district complaints

The Denton County Grand Jury Thursday began looking into a complaint of abusive appraisal practices submitted by a Cross Roads man against the Denton County Central Appraisal District (DCAD) Thursday, only a week after it chose to take no action on complaints submitted by 21 Lewisville and Flower Mound area residents.

Michael Moore, assistant Denton County district attorney, said the grand jury "thoroughly investigated complaints" submitted by Jack Stufflebam of Lewisville and 20 other area residents.

"The fact that the grand jury took no action does not mean that they think everything is right at the appraisal district," Moore said. "It simply means that they decided that no criminal charges should be brought forward at this time."

The fact that the grand jury took no action on Thursday of last week may have at least temporarily ended their investigation of DCAD, except for the fact that Jeff Lowe of Cross Roads, just east of Denton, filed a complaint with the grand jury charging that the DCAD has been inconsistent with property values.

Lowe said the DCAD placed a 250 percent increase on the value of his properties, while other properties in his neighborhood were not increased.

Stufflebam submitted the complaint with the 21 signatures on the first week of October, the first week for the present grand jury, which is seated for three months. The presently-seated grand jury will have its final meeting this coming Thursday and at that time will have to decide whether to take action on Lowe's complaint.

Stufflebam, in responding to the grand jury's decision to take no action on the petition submitted by himself and 20 others, said, "The 'no action' decision did not exonerate the appraisal district of irregularities. It merely indicated that the jurors did not wish to issue any criminal indictment."

Stufflebam said Moore told him that, while the grand jury decided no criminal action could be taken, that there are "civil remedies" that the taxpayers can pursue.

The petition submitted in October alleged that the DCAD appraisers had used a wide variation of values of properties in the same neighborhoods and had used "vindictive and abusive appraisal techniques."

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