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Town clerk Tammy Bakke denies tax-fraud accusations, asks select board to publicly clear her name
Summary
At a Kingston Select Board meeting, Town Clerk and Tax Collector Tammy Bakke publicly denied accusations tied to her property assessment and current-use status, requested the board acknowledge the claims were baseless and described relevant assessment and tax-change details dating back to 1979 and 2015.
Tammy Bakke, Kingston’s town clerk and tax collector, told the Select Board at its meeting that accusations made during a Feb. 19 candidates’ night and discussed elsewhere are unfounded and asked the board to publicly acknowledge that the allegations against her are baseless.
Bakke said the accusations included claims of tax fraud related to her property at 26 North Road and contention that records or tapes had been destroyed. She said her property has been enrolled in current use “since at least 1979” and that in February 2015 an assessor (Fred Smith of KTR Associates, she said) removed five acres from current use after concluding some land was used for more than “passive recreation,” triggering a land-use change tax at that time. Bakke said Melissa Fowler was the town’s tax collector in February 2015 and that Bakke herself was appointed town clerk/tax collector in 2017.
Bakke outlined the local process for current-use and change-tax actions in Kingston, saying the landowner can request removal from current use, assessors calculate land-use tax and sign related documents, and that the tax collector does not have authority to alter property cards or assessments. She said she had documentation, including written confirmation from the assessor Katie Walker, that her property’s assessment is correct.
Bakke also said someone had accused her of destroying audio tapes from a specific meeting; she said those tapes were preserved and kept in the town clerk’s office safe and were available for review.
Elliot Lesser, chair of the Select Board, responded at the meeting, saying, “I will categorically state that those — all those allegations are baseless.” Another board member told Bakke they did not question her integrity.
No formal action against Bakke was taken at the meeting. The statements and clarifications in the public-comment period were presented to the board and recorded on the public record; Bakke asked only for the board’s public acknowledgement that the accusations were without merit.
Why it matters: The accusations arose in the run-up to local elections and touched on statutory duties of local officers and procedures for assessing current-use land, topics that affect property owners’ tax obligations and public confidence in town administration.
