Many probably noticed the story in the Times Union this morning about the Attorney General's office allegedly investigating the Saratoga Springs Accounts Department for their dealing with condo assessments.

Here is the link to that article if you missed it (I suppose I'll give the competitor a link).

I've also been following this development over the last couple weeks.

It started as rumors. Crazy rumors. Rumors that members of the Accounts Department were reducing people's assessments for political favor and cold hard cash for everyone from GOP bigwigs in the city ("Ever notice no Republican ever runs against John Franck?") to city judges.

When I first heard the rumors, I looked into it (crazy rumors, but if true...), but nothing really seemed illegitimate.

I've been in contact with sources who are aware of the scope of the Office of the Attorney General's investigation.

At this point, I'm told its an investigation on whether to investigate; i.e. an investigation into rumors. In fact, I was told last week that calling it an investigation would be premature.

The AG's office has a policy not to comment about their investigations, as I've found out in the past.

The idea is that even saying there is an AG investigation ongoing is enough to give the perception that there is some wrong-doing, even when much of the time the investigation reveals nothing.

The rumors then started getting pared back. It became that members of the Accounts Department were taking cash in exchange for streamlined information for Diane Young, who is mentioned in the TU story.

"Then the rumor was that Diane Young was my sister," said Accounts Commissioner John Franck last week when he brought the issue up to me.

I had been working on a Freedom of Information Act request to put to his office asking for every assessment reduction over the last three years, but he said that was unnecessary.

He, too, had heard rumors (I hadn't heard Diane Young was allegedly his sister until he mentioned it) and wanted to head them off.

"I'll give you whatever you want," he said. "I've got nothing to hide."

In fact, Franck said he had a sister named Diane Young, but she lives in Pennsylvania and doesn't know much about the real estate market.

He said, though, that the other Diane Young knows quite a bit about it. Enough, in fact, to know that condos in the city are chronically over-assessed, according to Franck.

Franck said she would look up condo assessments, find ones that were over-assessed, approach their owners and make a pitch to get them an assessment reduction for a fee. 

Franck said "some she's won, some she's lost."

He said he has been a proponent of changing the way condos are assessed, which he said is not based on purchase prices but rather on rental prices, something I'm planning on exploring in a Sunday story this week because I've heard a lot since I moved here to the land of condos and I thought it would be a good way at getting at this story.

I've been talking to my editors about this for a week and even with the TU story coming out, we stand by our way of looking at this.

I'm sure that will get me in trouble with commenters (I've already gotten the obligatory nasty e-mail), but what doesn't?