| Orange County, CA | June 3, 2014 Election |
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By Jorge O. LopezCandidate for Assessor; County of Orange |
This information is provided by the candidate | |
My name is Jorge O. Lopez, and I am running for Orange County Assessor. Most people don't understand what an Assessor is, or care about what he does. They might not even realize that he is an elected official. When they learn that an Assessor deals with their property taxes, they are still indifferent, as long as their taxes appear reasonable. What they fail to recognize is that this attitude makes this office more vulnerable to corruption, abuse, and the temptation to push and cross boundaries. Let's look at history for examples. In October of 2012, Los Angeles County Assessor, John Noguez, was arrested and convicted of corruption and misappropriation of public funds that had taken place over several years and involved collusion his staff. He is currently serving time in jail. In San Bernardino County, Assessor, Bill Postmus, was arrested and charged with conspiracy, extortion, bribery, grand theft, and misuse of public funds that had taken place over many years. In August of 2010, while making a court appearance on the above charges, Mr. Postmus was arrested a second time for being under the influence of a controlled substance. In February of 1977, Jack Vallerga, Assessor of Orange County, was removed from office, charged, and found guilty of misappropriation of public moneys that took place over many years. The charges were attributable to not only using public funds for personal use, but also for his failure to turn over money received for the sale of a computer program used for the valuation of single-family residential properties. This software was developed over many years, during county time, by Orange County employees. The charge for this action was grand theft. All of these examples point to the danger of having an elected official in a position that they could hold for a lifetime due to no term limits. People in this situation feel very comfortable and over time develop a sense of entitlement. They lose focus, perspective, disregard accountability, and their ideas become outdated and stale. The current Assessor in Orange County was elected in 1998. If re-elected in 2014, he will be in office for over 20 years. He has lost focus of what the constitutional duties and function of the Assessor's office are. Instead he has made technology and the development of an extremely expensive computer system, the main focus of his efforts. He has done this at the expense of sacrificing constitutionally mandated work. He has also taking it upon himself to market this software to any other public entities that will listen. Do you see the similarities with what happened in Orange County in 1977? This initial Assessment Tax System proposal was submitted to the Orange County Board of Supervisors for approval in early 2005 with a $7.5 Million Dollars estimated cost to complete. The actual completion cost is unknown but estimated somewhere between $21 Million to $46 Million Dollars, and the system lacks the necessary functionality. The project was awarded to outside vendors even though the Assessor has an Internal Computer Division with very capable programmers. This is one example of poor planning, lack of control, poor management, and waste of taxpayer's money. I was employed by the Orange County Assessor for nearly 32 years as a high ranking manager. The Assessor's budget is nearly $35 Million Dollars. This budget is more than enough to effectively manage and complete the workload of the Department. Instead I witnessed the waste of taxpayer's dollars from the top to the bottom of the organization. Excessive use of overtime to compensate for time wasted in irrelevant projects is an acceptable practice. I am running for Assessor because is time for a change. It is time for a fresh look and new perspective in that office. It is time to stop the unnecessary expending and using the county as a personal ATM. It is time to return the focus on what the Assessor's Office was established to do. As Orange County Assessor the focus of the office will be making sure that all taxpayers in Orange County are treated fairly, with respect, and only paying their fair share of property taxes. |
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