A Lewis County landowner is suing for a property tax refund, claiming that a code violation on his property that would be costly to fix should result in a lower value assessment.
At the same time, the county government is granting indemnity — meaning, the county takes responsibility for an individual’s legal defense — to two elected officials named in the suit.
The Lewis County Board of Commissioners approved granting indemnity to Lewis County Assessor Ross Nielson and Lewis County Treasurer Arny Davis during the board’s Tuesday business meeting. The suit names the two officials as well as the county government itself and requests a property value adjustment and proportionate property tax refund on the property taxes paid in 2025.
In the lawsuit filed at the end of June, the filer alleges the county government valued his Onalaska property “substantially exceeding its true and fair value.” As a result, the lawsuit further alleges that the plaintiff was forced to overpay on his property taxes.
“Because the challenged assessment substantially exceeds the true and fair value of the Property, Plaintiff contends that the taxes assessed and collected for tax year 2025 were excessive and should be refunded,” reads the complaint.
The plaintiff has maintained that the assessed value was incorrect since the 2024 assessment. He then notified the county in 2025 when he paid his taxes that he was paying “under protest.” That action allows a property owner to pay taxes while leaving the door open to challenge them in the future.
The landowner, within the recent lawsuit suit, claims the property should be valued at less than half of the county's 2024 appraisal of $701,700, which accounts for a $350,000 land value and $351,700 improvement value.
According to the initial claim filed against the county, the local property owner believes a privately owned access bridge on his property to be key to the dispute. The property relies on an out-of-code bridge as its only public road access.
According to the claim, the non-compliant bridge — a steel railcar bridge — has resulted in other limitations on the property imposed by the local government, limiting development and permit approvals for changes to the private parcel.
The property owner alleges that the appraisal of his property did not properly consider the impact those imposed limitations have on the value of the property.
“The Assessor has frequently made false claims about the impact that the Lewis County Code (LCC) has on the use of Plaintiff's property and ignored the impact that this government policy has on the value of Plaintiff's property,” reads the complaint.
The lawsuit is the latest challenge of the Lewis County Assessor’s Office, which just last year faced a number of challenges to its property tax appraisals and ultimately reached settlements with a number of corporations with property in the area — most significantly, Darigold Inc.
Like many of the others, the landowner filing the lawsuit first attempted to appeal through the Lewis County Board of Equalization. That board is a volunteer entity of locals intended to hear challenges to property tax appraisals. The board in its hearing upheld the appraisal of the Lewis County Assessor’s Office under the same logic, that if the property was still accessible by the bridge it did not have a significant impact on the property’s value.
For previous reporting by The Chronicle on property tax settlements, visit https://tinyurl.com/d9huv43z.
In addition to the recent activity at the assessor’s office, the lawsuit and related indemnification is also a sign of another local pattern. Tuesday marked the third time that the county has voted to grant indemnification to county employees or officials this year, yet it differs in some key ways from the first two times.
For starters, the previous two indemnity cases are related to lawsuits filed in federal court concerning constitutional rights, including those protected under the First Amendment.
The other suits also name county employees as defendants in both their official and private individual capacities, while the new case names Nielson and Davis only in their official capacity as elected government officials.
In the first of the indemnity cases of the year, the county granted indemnity to a list of high level officials — Lewis County Commissioner Sean Swope, Sheriff Rob Snaza, Prosecuting Attorney Jonathan Meyer and Coroner Warren McLeod.
The four were named in a suit brought by a former employee of the Lewis County Coroner’s Office, Paul Bromm, who alleged his termination violated his First Amendment rights. He was terminated in relation to social media posts on his private account making light of the Charlie Kirk assassination.
For previous reporting by The Chronicle on the issue, visit https://tinyurl.com/344faaj6.
More recently, the Lewis County commissioners granted indemnity to Lewis County Sheriff’s Office Corrections Chief Chris Sweet and a list of other corrections staff in a suit filed from within the facility itself. In that suit, an inmate alleges that officers within the facility intentionally aggravated inmates undergoing mental health treatment.
For previous reporting by The Chronicle, visit https://tinyurl.com/mrxr7mpx.
