Donna Kropp, Rensselaerville assessor candidate

Donna Kropp

RENSSELAERVILLE — This is the third election for Donna Kropp, currently the chair of the town’s assessors. First elected in 2005, the Republican says she wants to continue to use the investment she has made in training.

“I think that we should have another reval,” said Kropp of a revaluation of properties in the town. “I know it’s a little bit of an expense for the town, but I think that it’s well overdue at this point. It’s getting close to 20 years since they had a reval.”

Kropp, 61, is running on Conservative, Republican, and Independence Party lines.

She grew up in Rensselaerville, the daughter of Robert Lansing, a former Republican town supervisor and board member. Kropp is a member of the Rensselaerville Fire Department Ladies Battalion, president of the Clark White American Legion Auxiliary, a member of the Trinity Episcopal Church Vestry. She sings with Village Voices, a vocal ensemble.

She said she first got involved in assessing with a sense that she could be more involved in the community, and there was a vacancy for the position.

“We’ve instituted that all of us have to review all of the exemptions and paperwork for preparation of the assessment roll,” said Kropp of procedural changes.

Reports to the town board of assessors not properly introducing themselves when inspecting properties, Kropp said, don’t apply to her.

“I personally do not make a habit of walking on somebody’s property and not letting them know what I’m doing,” said Kropp.

Kropp has an associate degree in data processing and a bachelor’s degree in agriculture business from the State University of New York College of Agriculture and Technology at Cobleskill.

Writing software for the past 12 years as a senior programmer analyst for Hudson Valley Community College, Kropp said, she hopes to retire in the next year, after which she would be able to come into the assessors’ office during the day. Rensselaerville assessors hold regular hours Thursday evenings and on some Saturday afternoons during assessment periods.

“I just try to make sure that we’ve gotten all of the elements of that particular piece of property, note-taking of it so that, when we sit down to do the paperwork, we have a good picture of that property, and we try to make sure that it’s done fair and equitably with our measuring tools,” Kropp said.

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