Opinion A13
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THE DAILY HERALD
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WWW.HERALDNET.COM
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Editorial Board Josh O’Connor, Publisher Jon Bauer, Editorial Page Editor Neal Pattison, Executive Editor Carol MacPherson, Editorial Writer
FRIDAY, 10.16.2015
IN OUR VIEW | Election 2015: Snohomish County assessor
Hjelle best choice for assessor Two numbers determine the property taxes you pay in Snohomish County: One number is the tax rate that is paid for every $1,000 in value of a home or other property, a number that can differ depending on the city, school district and other districts in which one lives. The other number is the fair market value of the property, a number that is determined by the county assessor’s office. But public acceptance of the property tax system requires that property be valued fairly and equitably against similar properties, a value that a willing buyer and seller would agree to under normal circumstances, which makes management of the assessor’s office an important consideration for voters. Snohomish County’s current assessor, Linda Portman, has been elected three times and under the office’s term limit cannot run for re-election. Two have filed to
succeed her: Linda Hjelle, the office’s chief deputy assessor, and Marty Glaser, an independent real estate appraiser. Glaser, a resident of the county for 46 years who lives in Snohomish, has worked as an appraiser for 29 years and owns an appraisal business. Glaser trained as an apprentice at a Bellevue firm, was certified by the state in 1991 and has received 500 hours of appraisal education. Hjelle has worked in the assessor’s office for 26 years, 11 of those as its chief deputy. She is a resident of Granite Falls. Hjelle has a bachelor’s degree in language arts education from Washington State University and has taken multiple courses through the state Department of Revenue and the International Association of Assessing Officers. Glaser believes his daily experience in assessing property qualifies him to run the office and that the county assessor should have
training and experience as an appraiser. Glaser also believes there are inequities in the county between assessed property values and sale prices. Glaser faults the office’s over-reliance on mass appraisal, which determines value for a group of properties using standardized procedures and statistical testing. Glaser said he would seek to personally train and develop the office’s staff. Hjelle defends the mass appraisal system, noting that in order for the office to make its annual assessments of nearly 250,000 parcels in the county, physical appraisals of all properties wouldn’t be possible. Even so, all properties are inspected physically every six years or sooner. Nor has the state found fault with the county’s performance in valuing property. The state Department of Revenue’s 2014 report on county appraisal performance found Snohomish County well within
expected ratios for the values of what property was assessed at as compared to the price similar properties were being sold for. As chief deputy, Hjelle oversaw the office’s switch in 2004 from its schedule of property reevaluations every four years to the current annual system. She also has instituted cost-saving procedures and efficiency reviews. Drawing on her teaching degree, Hjelle says she intends to continue Portman’s community outreach, particularly to schools, to provide greater understanding of how the tax system works. Hjelle’s decades of service in the office and her wealth of knowledge and experience in mass appraisal, property tax administration, geographical information system (GIS) mapping, computer technology, exemptions and other areas more than qualifies her to succeed Portman as assessor.
done. The townspeople of Arlington are clearly her main priority. What’s even more important is that she makes herself available to people when there is a concern.
I have known and worked with Schmalz for years. He is active in the community and has excellent leadership skills. He has great integrity, is easily approachable, and willing to listen to people’s ideas regarding the operation of Mukilteo and related agendas. He is excellent at budgeting and has a lot to offer and cares about the city treasury. Please re-elect Steve Schmalz. You’ll be glad you did. Mukilteo needs him.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR ■■HOMELESSNESS
High rents kick many to street I am writing this to protest the excessive, high rents in Everett. I believe this is a major reason for homelessness in Everett. I do not want to imagine what could happen to low-income people, or worse, the elderly, when they are forced out of their living quarters and end up living under a bridge. Landlords do not care, they just maintain that their taxes go up, and the cost of upkeep goes up, so, they tell you to move if you don’t like it. It seems there are many “Ebenezer Scrooges” in this city. We need some rent control laws with some teeth in them. I see the homeless people every day, young and old, it is a pity. America is supposed to be a land of plenty, but it seems to be plenty of homelessness. Edward Nixon Everett
■■MASS SHOOTINGS
Elsewhere: Less religion, crime A recent letter writer wrote that he believes the reason behind mass shootings in this country is due to a lack of religion (more than 85 percent of our population believes in a God!) Then why is it a fact that such countries as Norway, Iceland, Australia, Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium, Japan, the Netherlands, Denmark and the United Kingdom are among the least religious societies on earth, but have rates a fraction of that of the U.S.? Tom T. Davis Everett
■■ARLINGTON
Mayor Tolbert very responsive With the election close at hand, I wanted to let people know what a great job Barbara Tolbert has been doing as mayor of Arlington. As a longtime employee at Kidzle B Kids Daycare, I have seen some of her caring accomplishments. We had a problem at the day care. The area behind our day care was not in our control, but was treed and overgrown with brush. It was a common place for drug deals, drug
Have your say Feel strongly about something? Share it with the community by writing a letter to the editor. You’ll need to include your name, address and daytime phone number. (We’ll only publish your name and hometown.) We reserve the right to edit letters, but if you keep yours to 250 words or less, we won’t ask you to shorten it. If your letter is published, please wait 30 days before submitting another. Send it to: Email: letters@heraldnet.com Mail: Letters section The Daily Herald P.O. Box 930 Everett, WA 98206 Have a question about letters? Call Carol MacPherson at 425-339-3472 or send an e-mail to letters@heraldnet. com. use and transient camping. Neighborhood crime was up. Not a good thing next to a day care. Barbara made time for my boss and came out for a visit with another official. A plan was immediately made to clear out and fence the area as much as possible. Easy access has been taken away from transients, drug dealers and users. Neighborhood crime has dropped. Plus, thanks to Barbara and those working with her, it also looks much nicer. This is but one example of what Barbara Tolbert has done and will continue to do for Arlington if given the chance. She’s a very honest, dedicated, trustworthy and hard-working lady who knows how to get things
Deborah A. Nice Pre-School Director Kidzle B Kids Daycare Arlington
■■I-405 TOLL LANES
Only ‘the haves’ are good to go This country does not need more evidence of class distinctions. The 1-percenters, the haves and have-nots, etc. But the new I-405 tolling system provides just that. It opens the door on all sorts of evils, wrong on so many levels. The impoverished majority are further degraded and exploited as they are embedded in the congested working-class lanes, while the fortunate few who need not care about added expenses whiz by in their exclusive corridor. By the way, we all paid for those roads. Whose idea was this anyway? The only “good” thing it may provide is jobs, another inflated bureaucracy for toll barons. State employees from the governor on down should be held accountable for this fiasco. I doubt if it even pays for itself. Do not ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee. David Damkaer Monroe
■■MUKILTEO
Schmalz needed on city council This letter is to support the re-election of Steve Schmalz to the Mukilteo City Council.
Joanne Davis Lynnwood
■■LYNNWOOD
Sessions’ skills will benefit city I urge residents of Lynnwood to vote for Shannon Sessions for city council. Although I do not live in Lynnwood, I worked closely with Shannon for more than 10 years at the Lynnwood Police Department in the Crime Prevention Unit. I found her to be scrupulously honest, dedicated, hard-working, committed to excellence and very involved in the community of Lynnwood. With her past background as a local newspaper editor, she knows the history of Lynnwood, plus she has an excellent current knowledge about issues that face the city, as well as a vision for workable strategies. Shannon Sessions cares deeply about Snohomish County and especially about Lynnwood, and will work hard to bring out the best in her city. You can trust Shannon to work hard for you. Trudy Dana Lynnwood Police Crime Prevention Officer, retired Edmonds
No debating it; Clinton locks up nomination
I
repeat: Unless she’s indicted, Hillary Clinton will win the Democratic nomination. I wrote that six weeks ago, amid fevered dreams of a Clinton collapse and a Joe Biden rescue. That those were a mirage is all the more obvious after Tuesday’s debate. The reason, then as now, is simple: ClinCHARLES ton has no KRAUTHAMMER competition. She’s up against three ciphers and one endearing, gesticulating, slightly unmoored old man. If Joe Biden was ever thinking of getting into the race, he’d be crazy to do so now. It’s over. Indeed, even before the debate, Clinton’s numbers had stabilized. It began with Kevin McCarthy’s gaffe of the decade. That gave her a perpetual get-out-of-jail-free card that she adroitly deploys whenever the email issue arises. Her technique is flawless: a few meaningless phrases about having made a mistake, taking responsibility and being transparent, blah blah, followed by (I paraphrase) “but look at the larger picture, even Kevin McCarthy admits it’s a partisan witch hunt.” QED. At the debate, Bernie Sanders sealed the deal with a thunderous “the American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails.” That rendered the issue officially off-limits to all Democrats. Of course, it will be featured in the general election, but we’re talking here about her getting the nomination. In gratuitously granting her absolution, Sanders garnered points for high-mindedness. But he’d already cornered the high-mindedness market. Sanders was right to call this move dumb politics. His declaration simply and definitively conceded the race to Clinton. Clinton won the debate because it didn’t change the dynamic. It froze the race and she’s far in the lead. It doesn’t matter that her lead has shrunk from 50 points to 20. Twenty points is a landslide. She remains a lousy candidate but she is an excellent debater — smart, quick, strategic and extremely practiced. Eight years ago she debated Barack Obama 25 times. Tuesday night, she successfully bobbed and weaved and pivoted. She was at her most impressive, however, when she whacked Sanders upside the head — twice — right out of the box. At the very start, she attacked from the left on gun control, from the right on capitalism. She simply said the magic words and he beat an unsteady retreat. Sanders was wild and wavy and loud and not very nimble. After all, how much practice do you get when for 35 years you’ve been campaigning as a social democrat in Vermont, America’s Denmark? Sanders is good on an empty podium taking on invisible billionaires. Put him up against a Clinton and he’s lost. He did make history of a sort, however. Every debate has its moment — the sound bite that lives forever. His “damn emails” thunderbolt is the first such immortal line to be delivered by one candidate that seals victory for another. The other three candidates hardly registered. Lincoln Chafee, currently polling at 0.3 points (minus-10 Celsius), played Ross Perot’s 1992 running mate, Adm. James Stockdale, who opened his vice presidential debate with: “Who am I? Why am I here?” Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz came out a winner. She insisted, despite the squawking of Martin O’Malley and others, on no more than six debates. Who needs the other five? Tuesday night settled the issue. When there’s a knockout in the first round, you stop the fight. This is not to say that by objective standards — i.e., against minimally competent competition — Clinton did so brilliantly. After all, to prepare the ground and preempt any attack from the left, she preceded the debate with a supremely cynical abandonment of both the Keystone XL pipeline and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which as secretary of state she’d pronounced “the gold standard” of trade deals. It did smooth her debate night. But by so transparently compounding her inauthenticity problem, the flip-flops will cost her in the general election. But that’s for later. Right now, game over. Until Clinton’s coronation next summer, we can joyfully savor the most delightful moment of the debate, when we were reminded by Anderson Cooper that Sanders had honeymooned in the Soviet Union. Springtime for Brezhnev in Yaroslavl. Attention: Mel Brooks. Charles Krauthammer’s email address is letters@charleskrauthammer.com.