NASHUA – Several months after she agreed to retire from the city’s assessing department as part of a confidential settlement she reached with city officials, former assessing coordinator Cheryl Walley has filed a complaint with the state accusing assessing supervisor Greg Turgiss of misconduct, bad faith and negligence in the handling of her ongoing abatement appeals.

In a so-called PA-71 notice, Walley, who received just under $100,000 from the city in exchange for agreeing to not publicly discuss the matter except to confirm she retired effective Nov. 6, 2019, told state Department of Revenue Administration officials she believes Turgiss, the current acting chief assessor, interfered with her abatement case and “denied me fair process,” according to the notice.

Walley stated she believes city administrative services director Kim Kleiner may also have interfered in the process, perhaps in retaliation for Walley’s role in bringing to light irregularities in Turgiss’s assessing reports, and concerns Walley raised over allegations others in the assessing office were violating the state’s right-to-know law by withholding documents from members of the public.

Walley also filed the complaint with the New Hampshire Association of Assessing Officials (NHAAO), a private, non-governmental, informational organization that provides education and guidance on assessing and property appraisal matters.

The board’s Ethics Committee in April issued reprimands to Turgiss and former chief assessor Jon Duhamel, who departed several months ago and whose position remains unfilled.

The committee determined that Turgiss violated two ethics rules when he reviewed work his brother, Gary Turgiss, also a Nashua assessor, did at the Berkeley Street home of Laurie Ortolano, who has been deeply involved in assessing matters since taking the city to court over her home’s assessed value.

Turgiss was ordered to complete a Standards of Professional Practice and Ethics course within a year, according to the committee’s findings.

The action against Turgiss and Duhamel, who was also ordered to take the course, as well as a course on the Right-to-Know law, was the result of the complaint Ortolano filed with the board and the state DRA earlier this year.

Walley’s complaints to the DRA and the board, meanwhile, stem from the fact that Turgiss was assigned to the 2019 assessment abatement she filed – despite Walley’s role in uncovering alleged irregularities in his record-keeping.

Walley said the city subsequently denied the abatement, which she appealed.

In the meantime, Walley reached an agreement with Deputy City Corporation Counsel Celia Leonard that would have reduced her assessment by roughly $15,000, she said in the complaint.

Leonard recommended the city accept the agreement, Walley wrote, but officials didn’t act promptly on it.

Then in April, she wrote, Leonard notified her the city, due to the emerging COVID-19 threat, had halted all assessing inspections until further notice.

The timeline, Walley asserts, represents “a bad faith delay,” noting that as of May 7 the assessing department still hadn’t acted on her appeal.

The fact that Turgiss was assigned to her case, according to Walley, was allegedly a way for him “to continue denying me a fair and timely appeal process.

“He stalled and delayed in bad faith,” she wrote.

Walley added that Turgiss “should be sent a clear message that he should not be handling any property issues” involving her property, or that of family members who live in Nashua.

Kleiner, the city’s administrative services director, said Wednesday that “a lawyer in the city’s office of Corporation Counsel, who is free of any conflict, has been handling the abatement appeal.”

She didn’t name the lawyer, but presumably refers to Leonard. Kleiner also said, in contradiction to Walley’s asseration, that “Greg Turgiss has not been involved with the abatement appeal.”

She further cited “many inaccurate statements … in the document shared with me,” but wasn’t specific about the nature of the document.

Kleiner did say it is her understanding that a PA-71 complaint filed against any assessor “is a confidential matter while under investigation by the DRA,” and that the “city is not normally notified.”

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Dean Shalhoup may be reached at 594-1256 or dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com.