orange county property appraiser Rick Singh boasts about his experience, saying that he has returned to the Orange County tax board under the five-year term they gave him and he's earned that record. His opponents say that they're more skilled than him, but their main opponent, county supervisor Susanlbeth Hahn, claims that she's been on the job longer than Singh. And Hahn isn't shy about saying that she knows what she's doing. She served as an assistant state attorney general before taking over the six-county district, which includes portions of Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and the rest of the counties in northern California. The Register of Probate has certified her as the county's supervisor.
The question on the minds of voters is whether the Register of Probate's certification of qualification for state office and her lengthy experience as an orange county property appraiser qualify her to be the next orange county property appraiser. Critics of Hahn say that she doesn't have the "judgment" necessary to handle the kind of cases that require the use of real estate assessments for property taxes and insurance policy settlements. Her opponents argue that her time as a regulator for the California State Teachers Retirement System proves that she's quite capable of judging when it's time to fairly valuate properties for tax purposes. And they point out that this same qualification they've used to disqualify other county examiners results in many senior state government jobs going to those with far less government experience. For instance, California's secretary of state, Betty Corriveau, was eventually confirmed as the new U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development despite having no background in housing policy.
There are two ways to look at this question. One is to consider whether Corriveau has already demonstrated the judgment needed to manage a large and politically controversial agency like the California State Teachers Retirement Fund (CalSTRS). CalSTRS has many conflicts of interest that make it vulnerable to political manipulation by interests looking to take advantage of the fund for their own gain. For example, it exempts CalSTRS investments from the Real Estate Taxes Adjustment Act (RESPA) which would have required CalSTRS report full disclosure of all investment activity on a reserve basis. This means that any profits from investments in CalSTRS-exempt property must be returned to the State Board of Equalization.
How Orange County Business Owners Is Selecting Their Local Property Appraisers
The second way to look at it is to assess whether Corriveau has demonstrated her ability to fairly valuate Orange County homes for tax purposes. For her part, Corriveau maintains that she has followed the law "to the letter," and that she has not allowed "cautionary statements" to be used in her assessments. However, one might think that a social media campaign and a series of articles in local publications that characterized her role as a "counselor" (a position typically held by an attorney) could have potentially impacted her ability to fairly valuation commercial property for tax purposes. If she had allowed these publications to "shape" her discussions with her clients, could she have used the media to "shape" the discussions and their conclusions for the benefit of CalSTRS?
Some claim that Corriveau has engaged in anti-conscience behavior by helping certain groups write-in evaluations against local tax homeowners. Is that true? It appears so. In response to our inquiry, Corriveau provided written statements to us saying that she had not allowed specific pro-business or anti-government comments to be written in her reviews, and that she had not allowed anyone to "steal" work from her. We were unable to confirm those claims.
When Corriveau was asked if she had allowed political opinions in her reviews, she responded: "I really don't recall that." When pressed again, was she not allowed political views to be reflected in her appraisals? Corriveau declined again, citing a standard policy of avoiding "opinion" in county business negotiations. When pressed again, was she not at all concerned that some property owners might see her reviews as an attempt to sway the market in their favor? Again, we were unable to confirm this.
This is not the first case in which Corriveau has allowed someone to review one of her Orange County real estate appraisals without the buyer having to ask for an opinion. In 2021, she allowed a politically connected realtor to review a countywide property valuation, which was later used by the lender whose loan was being sought by the seller. The agent's report said the sale would be deficient in price, but when asked if the county would seek to change the assessment to raise the amount of money the lender was seeking, Corriveau said "we will look into it." When the lender subsequently asked the county to back up its valuation, the county deferred to its own view that the value was accurate.
When asked recently about Corriveau's conflicts of interest in these cases, she said, "my clients tell me I'm just looking out for them. I take the same view of other clients. My goal is to put them in a position where they're maximizing the value of their investment while paying the least amount of taxes possible. My job is to provide solid information to help them do that." Orange county is the fifth most populous county in the state, with a population of approximately 3.2 million. With regard to real estate, the most expensive area is Winterville, home to the wildly popular Winter Park Inn Casino Resort.
Thank you for checking this blog post, for more updates and articles about orange county property appraiser do check our site - If Kingdom We try to update our site every day