COVENTRY – Coventry officials decided this week to abandon efforts to adopt an annual real property assessment process after the town supervisor reversed her position on the issue.

“I think we should just go along with our triennial plan for reassessment that we adopted last year,” Town Supervisor Jan O’Shea told board members after a brief discussion.

O’Shea said she had been “struggling” with the topic since last month’s meeting when it was discussed at length, recognizing it would likely cause controversy among some town residents. Since the May meeting, the supervisor said she had done additional research which included consulting a representative from the New York State Office of Real Property Services as well as Chenango County Assessor Steve Harris and Coventry’s town assessor, Jack Stafford.

She said she asked each the same question: Would they see the same sharp decrease in the equalization rate they saw after the last revaluation, done three years ago, if they did not do a reassessment annually?

“Universally, unanimously and separately, they all feel that things are flattening out,” O’Shea reported, referring to the real estate market.