Letters
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- Written by: Mary Benson
She is a demonstrated problem solver, and a forward-thinking person who wants to increase the accountability, communication and transparency of this office.
The incumbent’s arbitrary policies about when the title companies could come in to record their sale documents have caused delays by at least one day, often three days if it is a Friday.
This has had real impacts on consumers who want to move in over the weekend. It also has meant lost revenue to the county.
For months after the county COVID-19 restrictions were lifted, the incumbent would only allow the title companies into his office to record documents at 10 and 11 a.m.
Here is the problem with that: Loan funds often don’t arrive until late morning or early afternoon, and same with overnight documents.
Requests to change the recording times to afternoons to allow people to complete their home purchase sooner fell on deaf ears.
To be fair, with the election looming, title companies are now allowed to record documents twice a day since March 25. The incumbent’s announcement said the recording times were doubling because COVID restrictions were over, but this was months after restrictions had been lifted.
I tried to find out how severe the backlogs are for reassessing improved properties, and in mailing back the recorded documents.
I asked the Board of Supervisors if they had any reports from any department heads, including the Assessor-Recorder’s Office, tracking the extent of the backlogs we hear about in all departments.
The Board of Supervisors has no ongoing record of any department backlogs, and no goals for tracking and reducing those backlogs. I, for one, would like to know whether we are making progress.
I submitted a public records act request asking for backlog and other information from the Assessor-Recorder’s Office. The incumbent refused to answer that question, but interestingly, in public forums he will say, “The backlogs are reduced by 75%.” So either the incumbent has that data and refused to provide it as required under the public records act, or he is simply making up the 75% figure.
And it still doesn’t address how backed up they are in reassessments and in mailing out documents. Ask anyone who works at a title company how many calls a day they get asking when they will get their recorded documents mailed back. This has cost immense lost time by the staff at Fidelity National Title and First American Title explaining they have no control over when documents get mailed back by the assessor-recorder.
We are one of the last counties in California to adopt electronic recording for documents. Escrow officers from out of our county say to me, “Your county is still recording by hand? What year is it up there?”
When I researched electronic recording in 2019, I spoke with the assessor-recorders of Sonoma County and Napa County. Both told me it was a 12- to 18-month process to get the program going, and while it took time and staff needed training, it saved them substantial time and postage from not having to mail out recorded documents.
The incumbent started in 2018 that process to put electronic recording in place. More than three years later, it still isn’t up and running. We have yet to hear when it will be operational.
Even with the pandemic slowing things down, a 12- to 18-month process started in 2018 should have been almost done before the lockdown in March 2020.
I looked at the county budgets over the past several years. Each department head justifies the department’s budget by stating the goals they want to achieve. The incumbent’s only goal has been to recruit and train more staff. Is this a measurable goal? How do you know if you have achieved it? And where are goals to reduce backlogs?
I understand there were no funds allocated for communicating with the public. The Board of Supervisors insisted on the incumbent putting money in the budget for this. There is no excuse for our citizens to not be notified of a big increase in their next property tax bill.
The Board of Equalization audited the Lake County assessor-recorder in 2014, before the incumbent took office. There were 11 recommendations. The incumbent responded to those recommendations at the time the report was issued in 2016 and was supposed to submit annual reports until such time that all recommendations had been implemented. No other reports were filed, and Lake County is out of compliance with the Board of Equalization.
Similarly, each of the 58 county assessor-recorders are required to submit annual figures on budget, personnel, appeals and roll data; Lake County is one of 11 counties that fail to do that. Once again, we are out of compliance. This was the first finding on the 2014 audit. When we are out of compliance with the first finding (arguably the easiest to comply with), where else are we out of compliance?
I support Hannah Faith Lee for assessor-recorder because she wants to improve the department such as modernizing the office’s operations, setting measurable goals and being accountable for them, communicating with the public about issues affecting their wallets, finally getting the electronic recording program implemented, and allowing the title companies to come in when they need to.
I believe our county cannot afford another four years of the incumbent assessor-recorder. To quote one of the incumbent’s own staff, “At some point, we have to start serving the public.”
Please join me in voting for Hannah Faith Lee for assessor-recorder in the June 7 election.
Mary Benson lives in Lower Lake, Calif.
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- Written by: Mary Heare Amodio
I suggest you take a moment to review the list of individuals who have endorsed Ms. Krones for this position.
Retired judges Mann and Crone, former county supervisors who had to work with Anthony Farrington when he was supervisor, the Lake County Democratic Party, the North Bay Labor Council, community leaders, Congressman Mike Thompson and a number of attorneys.
Who is endorsing Mr. Farrington?
I found one client endorsement online and then received a flyer with an endorsement by Fiona Ma (a politician he has endorsed this year and in the past); Bill Dodd, who is NOT our state senator (another politician Farrington has endorsed in the past); and by Alexandra Gallardo-Rooker, a political bigwig in the State Democratic Party.
He has a picture of Vice President Kamala Harris swearing him in as an attorney! Surely he is not implying that she has endorsed him!
Where are the local endorsements? Where are endorsements by other attorneys … the "colleagues" he works with (or against) every day? I could not find a single endorsement on his website.
Admitted to the State Bar of California just short of 10 years ago he has practiced several different types of law, but has not specialized in or become an expert in any of those fields.
Farrington tells us that he has a contract with the state to represent abused and neglected children. What he did not disclose is that dependency attorneys, who are all under state contract, also have to represent the parents who are abusive or neglectful. They don't get to choose who they represent ... they are appointed by the court.
Farrington has not worked as a deputy district attorney or as a criminal defense attorney. I am not certain that he knows the definition of the word prosecution (“The institution and conducting of legal proceedings against someone in respect of a criminal charge.”) based on his use of the term.
The only way a criminal charge happens is when the District Attorney’s Office charges a case, not when a civil attorney brings a case against another party.
Farrington claims “100% prosecution rate for domestic violence protection orders for abused women and children.” But how many cases make up that “100%”? Is it five cases or 500 cases? Domestic violence cases are usually civil cases brought by one party against another, but they are not criminal prosecutions.
He advocates tossing out our basic constitutional right to a jury trial. The right to have a jury trial applies to any criminal case, not just the ones that make headlines.
How exactly is Mr. Farrington going to fight crime and “take back our streets?” By making new law on his own without input from the legislature or the voting public?
He claims to “know” how to manage the district attorney, sheriff’s office and juvenile hall by participating in budget oversight of those offices. As supervisor he voted on the budget but county staff made the budget work.
He claims to have jury trial experience at the state and federal level. How many cases and what were the results? How has he managed to do jury trials in state (where in the state?) and federal courts, but has avoided jury trial experience in Lake County?
Enough of political talk and self aggrandizement.
Vote for Susan Krones.
Attorney Mary Heare Amodio lives in Lakeport, California.
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- Written by: Heidi Johnson
I support Hannah Faith Lee for assessor-recorder because she wants to improve the department such as setting measurable goals and being accountable for them, communicating with the public about issues affecting their wallets, finally getting the electronic recording program implemented and allowing the title companies to come in when they need to.
Public officials should be able to answer questions from the public. If you run for public office, your focus should be on serving the public. Meet with your constituents and work together to try and resolve apparent problems.
We need change and the time is now.
Heidi Johnson lives in Kelseyville, California.
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- Written by: Barbara Christwitz
As a member of Citizens Caring 4 Clearlake, a volunteer network created to rid of litter and blight, we struggle to clean up abandoned properties that often have large overdue tax bills and even code enforcement liens. They become eyesores in neighborhoods where other property owners are working hard to keep their properties in good order.
We hope that they will end up in one of the property sale auctions conducted by the county so a new owner will clean them up. However, it rarely happens. Even if they appear on the auction list, there is no bid made on them.
I reached out to Mr. Sullivan and asked him if we could learn more details about the plans he was considering if elected to treasurer-tax collector. He immediately responded and set up a Zoom link for our volunteers to access.
Mr. Sullivan was very interested in our work and understanding the issues we were dealing with. He immediately honed his discussion to address our concerns. He explained that many of the tax defaulted properties on the list are worth less than the overdue tax bill and other liens attached to them which is why no one buys them.
Additionally, many bare land parcels can never be built on. They remain on the tax rolls, continue to blight neighborhoods and result in additional cost to the county to offer them for sale when no sale is likely.
Mr. Sullivan says there are other options — offering them to government entities, nonprofits and more. Maybe some of these properties are contiguous and could be used for building affordable housing, or for open spaces or other beneficial uses. Some, such as the Northshore paper lots, should just be removed altogether from the tax rolls.
In anticipation of taking a smarter view on dealing with these properties, several of the county departments, under the leadership of Mr. Sullivan, have cooperated to allow the public to view all on a GIS map on the county website — finally, a full view of what is available and the details about each.
He is very interested in talking to people in the neighborhoods about possible uses as he understands they have a much better understanding of the needs of their communities.
How refreshing that an elected official will be willing to reach out to neighborhood residents for their input, search for other options to solve age old problems, and be responsive to feedback.
Yes, he is planning on speeding up tax payment processing times and offering additional payment options too.
I recommend we elect Patrick Sullivan. He has made impressive progress on many issues that needed solutions during the past few years with resultant increases in revenues to our county and I am sure he will be able to do even more when he becomes Lake County’s treasurer-tax collector.
Barbara Christwitz lives in Clearlake, California.
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