An interview with Assessor-Recorder candidate Hannah Lee

For most of my life, I've felt an aversion toward politics. Politics on a national scale is extremely partisan, logistically inaccessible, and tends to make Thanksgiving dinner an irresolvable rhetorical battlefield. After reading a book called “Democracy in America” by Alexis de Tocqueville, I learned that the hallmark of American life in the 1800s was local political engagement. In the past, civic engagement often took the form of extremely long Town Hall meetings.

When Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas were competing for the presidential office, the debate format took the form of a one hour opening statement, a two-hour response, and a one and a half rebuttal. This is a far cry from the Middletown Town Hall debate format. Though I don't necessarily wish for mandatory six-hour political debates to become the conventional standard of political campaigns, I do think our county and (country) would benefit from promoting more demanding forms of discourse. Bite-sized, one minute response times to complex questions are insulting both to the candidates running for office and to their audience. I wanted to use this opportunity to learn about the administrative work that enables me to live in Lake County, study the way politicians speak, and encourage more people (especially young people!) to participate in an ancient institution that has made the existence of past civilizations and the existence of our own country possible.

The practice of land assessment dates back to feudal Europe. What we call a “deed of title” today was called a “feoffment” in the 15th century. Back then, the general public was not allowed to buy or sell land. In fact, the notion that a person could obtain land through economic merit did not yet exist. The king was responsible for giving members of the nobility land of their own— a right they earned through demonstrations of political merit and personal loyalty. It was not until the Middle Ages that a person could obtain land through economic means, but even then, only aristocrats could afford to make such a purchase.

Nowadays, the buying and selling of property within the public domain is a hallmark of the modern age. Property, be it a home, a parcel of land, or a dirt bike, exchanges hands at rapid speeds. While the relatively new political right to conduct business between private individuals beats the laborious process of winning the political affection of a king, this freedom necessitates the practice of thorough bookkeeping. Without strong bookkeeping, legal disputes over land would become as frequent as the exchanges which set the stage for them. To fill this need, the English created the office of the assessor-recorder, an office which still remains just as relevant today as it did a few hundred years ago.

This past Friday, I had the privilege of interviewing Hannah Lee, a candidate for the Lake County assessor-recorder position.

Q

How did you develop an interest in politics?

A

I wasn't initially looking to get into politics. I was asked to run by members of the community, county administration, and community leaders. I was asked to run around the time that the increase in property taxes began as a result of proposition 8. The increases were sent out a couple of weeks before the due date of November 1 without any prior notice. I understand that the increase was mandated per state law, but the county should've notified the individuals who would be affected by proposition 8 in advance.

Q

What kinds of challenges did you face when you entered into public work?

A

I learned that you have to be a people person. I'm learning how to present myself well to individuals and be in the public eye.

Q

Is it difficult to be under public scrutiny?

A

It's difficult in the sense that you always need to be aware of what you're saying. You can't speak to the public as you would with your best friend. You definitely can't let certain fourletter words slip!

Q

What about this position compels you to run for it, as opposed to other public offices within the county?

A

Individuals that have worked with the current incumbent specifically asked me to run for it. They have expressed concerns about the office's ability to implement revenue taxation code. They also have concerns about the incumbent's ability to implement those codes correctly.

Q

In your platform on Youtube, you say that we're always a “challenged county” and as such, we need to improve our fiscal situation. What kinds of fiscal challenges does our county in particular face? How have we come into our current fiscal situation?

A

We are an impoverished county. We need to submit reassessments in a timely manner. I've heard that the office has around five to eight years' worth of backlogged assessments. This is important to note because you can only recover lost revenue from about three to four-yearold unsubmitted assessments. This means that fire districts, school districts, and the general fund are missing out on funds. When we did our public record request to ask the current assessor-recorder office about how much progress they've made in addressing the backlog, we received no answer.

Q

So the county gets money from filling out assessment forms and submitting them to the state office above them?

A

Not quite. The office first assesses a property to estimate how much money that the property owner has to pay in taxes. The office then passes this information onto the auditorcontroller, who passes it onto the tax collector, who sends out your tax bill. If the assessor-recorder isn't assessing new properties to gauge how much taxes property owners need to pay, they won't pay it, which makes the county lose incoming revenue.

Q

Are there any nearby counties that are models of fiscal success?

A

There are quite a few. I recently spoke with the Sonoma County assessor, primarily to inquire about how they handled the property reassessment of the Tubbs and Cascade Fire victims so well, as we still have victims from the Valley Fire that are still paying taxes as if their house is still on their property. Though Sonoma County is a large county and Lake County is classified as a medium county, we can still learn a lot from both Sonoma and Mendocino County.

Q

In your platform, you mention that you want to streamline and modernize various functions of the assessor-recorder office— why have you decided to focus primarily on modernization? What will you focus on after completing that goal?

A

The assessor-recorder office still uses a lot of paper forms, which often take weeks to months to return. More importantly, all other nearby counties are modernized. You shouldn't feel like you're in the 1980s when you walk into the assessor-recorder office!

Q

How do you feel the Town Hall Debate went?

A

I think it went well! The public heard what I wanted them to hear. They know where I stand. I think I presented myself well and succinctly. I didn't get flowery and confuse them about the issues. I presented them in a straight-forward manner that anyone could understand.

Q

What is something that you bring to the table that your opponent doesn't, and what is something that your opponent brings to the table that you don't?

A

I have an actual willingness to work with the public. You heard him

repeatedly say that the details of office are too technical for the average person to understand. But guess what? The average person is your boss. If you can't explain to your boss what you're doing, why are you in that position? You need to figure out how to translate the language of your office so that the average person can understand it. As far as what my opponent brings— sure, he has seven years in that position. But in seven years, I'll also have seven years in that position.

Q

At the Town Hall, your opponent Mr. Ford mentioned the challenges of working with inexperienced employees. How will you approach working with inexperienced employees? How does our county struggle to retain public workers?

A

The biggest issue we've faced with public retention lies in the fact that our county is often considered a “training county.” We have historically underpaid our workers. You get your degree, work for two years here, and then drive over the mountain for a better paying job with better benefits. For example, when I first became an analyst, I started to look for jobs in Mendocino, Sonoma, and Napa county because I could make double the wage I was earning. Lake County recognized that they were losing employees, so the Board of supervisors did a compensation study to look at what other counties were paying their employees. We now pay our workers the median of what other counties pay. This has stopped the bleed a little bit, as Lake County's public workers now make a living wage.