Special treatment for elected officials?

Detroit City councilwoman JoAnn Watson held a press conference Sunday afternoon outside her Tudor-style home to clear the air over news reports of her greatly under-assessed brick house on the city's west side which city records indicate has not existed for several years.

Watson, an outspoken critic of tax deadbeats and the city's lack of getting its fair share in outstanding taxes from property owners and businesses, learned last week from newspaper reporters she had been receiving quite a tax break from the city. In 2008, according to city tax records, Watson was assessed only $67.97 in property taxes for her brick home located in the Russell Woods subdivision on the city's west side. Homeowners owning comparable addresses in the neighborhood pay more than $5,600 a year.

"I've been a target of a smear campaign," Watson told reporters gathered outsider her home on Sturtevant off Dexter Sunday. "... I pay my bills and whatever I was billed, I paid."

Watson, elected to the City Council in 2003, blamed her low tax bill on miscalculations made by the city assessment office -- possibly due to storm-related damage by a tornado sometime in the last 14 years. She bought the home on a land contract in 1990 for $40,000 but -- for still unknown reasons -- it has been listed for years in the city records as a vacant, unoccupied lot and is currently valued at only $1,658.