I will read that link later tonight (thanks!), but this still seems like a system where a particular property owner could be “targeted” (politically or economically) and suffer without reasonable legal recourse.

It's actually much harder to target a particular owner, because it's based only on land area, and the value of land in a general area! Property taxes are much much more susceptible to targeting as individual properties are much more variable and there's far more judgement about individual buildings and the potential value of a building.