Incumbent Clark County Assessor Linda Franklin, a Democrat first elected in 2002, is coming under fire from challenger, Salmon Creek property appraiser and Certified General Appraiser Peter Van Nortwick, running as a Republican.
Clark County Conservative posted Van Nortwick’s intention of running to replace Franklin this past August at Peter Van Nortwick To Run For County Assessor.
The Columbian published a back and forth between Franklin and Van Nortwick today, January 4, 2010 under the headline, Challenger slams county assessor’s performance.
I encourage you all to read the Columbian’s article.
County Assessor is one of those races that we voters tend to easily overlook, opting for “more important” races such as Senators, Representatives, Mayors and such. We as voters should begin paying attention to what we often view as “lesser races,” such as this one.
It is our money, our property taxes paid on our homes that hang in the balance and we need to have an efficient and trustworthy Assessor on the job. We homeowners may not like paying taxes, but we swallow it as we do other home expenses and deserve to be charged a fair amount, not overcharged to make-up budget shortfalls, especially in this protracted recession we are currently weathering.
Van Nortwick makes some pretty serious charges against the Assessors Office and I must say, Ms. Franklin’s defense comes across pretty lame.
In charging Ms. Franklin of bungling a software update, Van Nortwick says, “My background is in business. When you switch systems, you run two systems next to each other, so you can make the switch over.”
Ms. Franklin makes the excuse of, “It’s very expensive to have all the work being done twice. If he were a business person with an actual staff, he would understand that.”
Yet, Ms. Franklin claims she “was a computer systems analyst, and an instructor at Clark College” before hiring into the Assessors Office.
I would think someone laying claim to such a computer background could properly make a software update without so many mistakes.
The late appraisals many received were due to that software update Ms. Franklin speaks of. She says, “It’s not unusual to be late with assessments. It happens when you’re dealing with software. … Staff is doing the very best they can.”
Of course, we also hear of budget cuts, but can the cuts made to the Assessor’s Office be any worse than the cuts in salary or work hours many of us homeowners have received this past year?
Do our mortgage companies accept many late payments and not charge us late fees or foreclose on our homes?
Interesting enough, back in November 2009, 3 people were cut from the Assessors Office staff. Is it coincidence that 2 of those cut had previously run against Linda Franklin for County Assessor?
Rumor has it that the third person cut was critical of Ms. Franklin’s management of the Assessor’s Office.
I recall how fast our property was reappraised as the housing bubble grew. I don’t know about your property, but mine hasn’t been coming down quite as fast since the bubble burst.
My sister and I own a building lot in Central Florida that was quickly reappraised and our taxes on that property adjusted to a fairer level.
Also blamed on “software delays,” a mistaken estimate affecting Clark County Fire and Rescue. Her Office calculated that Clark County Fire and Rescue wouldn’t have to make any cuts, leading to a week of confusion and resulting in the lay-off of 23 employees from the fire agency covering Ridgefield, La Center and Battle Ground addresses.
Of this “mistake,” Ms. Franklin says, “It was an honest mistake by one of [my] staff.”
She also adds that she “feels really bad for the people who were personally affected by it.”
Van Nortwick charges that some 85% of homes in Clark County are unfairly assessed.
Ms. Franklin counters that her office “ranked among the 10 most accurate on all measures in 2008.”
Van Nortwick says he can still make it better, citing, “How could it be, when you’re properly mass appraising, that you have these huge variations?”
As I said early on, this is one of the races that don’t usually draw much attention from voters, many just marking a name on the ballot with little or no information on the person.
Maybe it is time we started paying more attention to these “lesser elections” and instituted some of that “Hope N Change” that was so prevalently mentioned in 2008.
This time four years ago, our local newspaper of record pulled out all of the stops in their effort to smear and denigrate then County Assessor candidate, Peter Van Nortwick. They spared little ink accusing him of engaging in “attack dog campaigning” which he masterfully turned around on them, walking through the Hazel Dell Parade of Bands blaring out the song, “Who Let The Dogs Out.”
