Nicholas Ariniello appears to have left abruptly, just as a lawsuit against the city’s property tax-valuation practices gets to the potentially embarrassing discovery phase. iStock illustration

Most decent reporters learn fast that bureaucracies are not in the truth-telling business.

Whether it’s a government agency or a behemoth corporation you are dealing with, getting to the bottom of a story sometimes requires the fine art of reading between the lines.

Nowhere is that the case more than at Boston City Hall which, under the Wu administration, has become an information black hole where questions and requests for public documents go to die.

Last week, Nicholas Ariniello abruptly announced he would be leaving after seven years as Boston’s commissioner of assessing and two decades in the city’s employ.

Ariniello’s decision didn’t happen in a vacuum, with the timing of it more than enough to raise red flags.

Boston Facing Major Tax Lawsuit

After all, Boston’s Assessing Department is now the target of a multimillion-dollar lawsuit by downtown tower owners, who contend the city jacked up their tax bills in retaliation for seeking abatements.

And the case is now heating up with the start of the pretrial discovery phase, which will give plaintiffs access to potentially embarrassing City Hall documents and emails related to the assessment controversy.

However, you wouldn’t have known that from the statement City Hall released, which lauded Ariniello’s “deep care for our city, our residents and our institutions,” while using the words “fair” and “fairly” to describe the work of the assessing department during his tenure.

To give credit where it is due, the fact that the mayor’s press office even released a statement – and responded to my questions for this column – represents a small improvement in Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s media-relations operation.

However, in contrast to the city statement praising the outgoing tax chief’s leadership, the potential class action lawsuit contends that Ariniello and the city’s Assessing Department were anything but fair.

City officials jacked up the tax bills on dozens of downtown Boston office buildings and towers in a move that was prompted not by changes in the market and values, but retaliation, according to the lawsuit filed earlier this year Taurus Investments and the Pioneer New England Legal Foundation.

Timing of Departure Raises Questions

It is not just the timing of Ariniello’s departure, but the odd way in which it was announced that should raise questions as well.

In the past, when the Wu administration has hired top officials or made other big decisions, it typically lines up everything beforehand, with friendly reporters tipped off and press releases ready to go.

But Ariniello appears to have acted as his own PR agent, sending out a memo to employees that was promptly leaked Tuesday morning.

At a budget hearing later that morning, the city’s tax chief then confirmed that he would be leaving his post in response to a question from a city councilor.

It was only later in the day that the mayor’s press team responded with the statement just discussed above.

If nothing else, it certainly seems like the Wu administration was doing its best not to draw attention to Ariniello and his decision to leave his post, likely in hopes of not further fueling coverage of the lawsuit over the city’s assessing practices.

City Hall’s So-Far-Tepid Defense

If so, it was certainly in vain.

Reading between the lines again, there are some other odd things going on here as well.

While city officials praised his leadership, they have failed to mount any defense of the controversial assessment practices wielded by Ariniello and his department against downtown tower owners, which are at the heart of the court battle.

In its court filing last week responding to the charges of retaliation in the lawsuit by Taurus and Pioneer, City Hall’s legal team avoided direct rebuttal or discussion of the allegations.

Ditto for a second statement, sent to me by the mayor’s press office, in response to my questions for this column.

Scott Van Voorhis

“Every year, the city values nearly 180,000 properties, of which less than one half of one percent end up in dispute, and we continue to uphold a fair and transparent assessing process,” a spokesperson stated in an email.

Two statements from the Wu administration to a journalist in a single day? That certainly must be a record.

To put things in perspective, I have rarely received any response from the mayor’s press office over the past three to four years on columns and stories I was working on. And by “no response,” I mean just that, with not even an acknowledgement of the questions via email, or otherwise.

That is certainly not how past mayors have operated, including the late Thomas M. Menino and Marty Walsh, and there were plenty of stories they may not have liked.

But they took reporters and the media – and their own duty to communicate with and be accountable to the public, not just to their most diehard supporters – seriously.

And when reporters reached out, the press staff almost always responded.

Scott Van Voorhis is Banker & Tradesman’s columnist and publisher of the Contrarian Boston newsletter; opinions expressed are his own. He may be reached at sbvanvoorhis@hotmail.com.