Johnson and Scarborough should be reelected to property appraiser posts
David Johnson was elected Seminole County property appraiser the same year George W. Bush was reelected president. Barack Obama won his first presidential race the year Katrina Scarborough was elected Osceola County property appraiser.
That’s a long time for anyone to hold public office, but Johnson and Scarborough have done their jobs well.
Former Sanford mayor Jeff Triplett is running against Johnson in the Nov. 3 election, while real-estate agent Will Fonseca is trying to unseat Scarborough. Both challengers say the incumbents have gotten stale.
We think both have done good jobs and deserve to be reelected.
Seminole County property appraiser
Jeff Triplett says the Seminole County property appraiser’s office could use “fresh eyes.” That’s why he resigned as Sanford’s mayor in June to run for the office.
Triplett’s task is to convince voters the old eyes aren’t working well. They belong to David Johnson, who’s been property appraiser since 2004.
As far as we can see, there’s no reason to replace them now.
All most voters really want out of a property appraiser is an administrator who’ll properly assess values, run an efficient operation and make information readily available. It’s one of those vital but inconspicuous government jobs. Unless someone like ex-Seminole County Tax Collector Joel Greenberg comes along and turns the office into a self-serving circus.
Johnson is the anti-Greenberg. He’s low-key, professional and has a proven record. Johnson’s biggest accomplishment might be keeping pace with the growth of Seminole County.
When he was first elected, Johnson said the county’s taxable value was $7.5 billion and the property appraiser’s office had 53 employees.
The taxable value has risen to $53.5 billion, but the office has four fewer employees than it did 16 years ago.
Johnson said he’s done it through technology and efficient planning. With 470,00 residents, Seminole County is the 13th-largest county in Florida. But the property appraiser’s budget is the ninth-lowest per capita.
“We could not be staying in one place and managing the tax roll the way we have if we were not constantly evolving,” Johnson said in an interview with the Sentinel Editorial Board.
Johnson and Triplett are both Republicans, though Triplett’s running as a no-party affiliation candidate. He was reelected to a third term as Sanford mayor in 2018, and his resignation took most by surprise.
Triplett said the timing was right. City administration was in good shape, and state law required him to resign if he wanted to run for another office.
As a longtime banking executive, Triplett says his insider’s knowledge of city operations along with his private-sector perspective make him an ideal candidate for the job.
“This is a natural progression for someone like me,” he said.
Seminole County has had only two property appraisers in the past 40 years. Bill Suber was elected in 1980 and held the job until Johnson came along.
“Fresh eyes bring new ideas that create new opportunities,” Triplett said. “There are opportunities missed when the same set of eyes are in that position for so many years.”
When asked what opportunities Johnson has missed, Triplett pointed to Sanford’s revitalized downtown district. He felt projects were not assessed at their potential market values.
Johnson said many projects haven’t begun construction, and he’s limited to a 10% annual increase on assessments. Triplett also said Johnson has undervalued agricultural properties, but his complaints don’t really stand up to scrutiny.
With his business and municipal backgrounds, Triplett probably would make a capable property appraiser. But Seminole County already has one who’s proven to be perfectly capable, and he’s earned the right to keep doing that job.
Osceola County property appraiser
Katrina Scarborough got her first job in the Osceola County property appraiser’s office when she was 16. She worked her way to the top and was elected to run the office in 2008.
That’s a long time in one place. Too long, according to Will Fonseca, who’s running against Scarborough in the Nov. 3 election.
We agree that people can get stale in office, but that’s not the case with Scarborough. She’s run a competent and controversy-free operation for 12 years, which is more than can be said for some other constitutional officers in Central Florida.
Competency should be rewarded over style, which is why we think Osceola voters should give Scarborough another term.
“In this position, you need to have experience and understand the responsibilities of the office,” she told the Sentinel Editorial Board. “I think (experience) is more of a positive.”
Fonseca is a Realtor and is active in community affairs. He said the feedback he’s received in his volunteer roles prompted him to seek the office.
“Mostly talking with people,” said Fonseca, who is running as a no-party affiliation candidate. “They just don’t know what the office does. They don’t know how to check whether they have homestead (exemptions).”
That problem is not unique to Osceola County. People generally don’t spend much time thinking about the forms and regulations that come with real-estate transactions.
Scarborough, a Democrat, said she set up a community outreach program three years ago to educate the public about homestead exemptions and other issues. Her office promotes the information on a variety of platforms.
“I’m always looking for ways to think outside the box to get that information to the public,” she said.
Forms are available online, though not all are available in Spanish. That needs to be addressed in Osceola County, where 55% of the population identifies as Hispanic, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Scarborough said all members of the office staff that deal with the public are bilingual.
Problems will always arise and policies will need tweaking. But Scarborough has done a good job handling them through her three terms as property appraiser. We see no reason that would change in a fourth.
Election endorsements are the opinion of the Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board, which consists of Opinion Editor Mike Lafferty, Jennifer A. Marcial Ocasio, Jay Reddick, David Whitley and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson. Sentinel Columnist Scott Maxwell participates in interviews and deliberations. To watch the candidate interviews, go to OrlandoSentinel.com/interviews.