Insider and Outsider Vie for Assessor

The county assessor is never a popular guy, but he is popularly elected.

And in Ventura County, two men are hoping to be the voters’ favorite in the realm of property-tax appraisal, admittedly a dubious distinction.

Jim Dodd has worked for 18 years as the assessor’s in-house lawyer. Dan Goodwin started at the assessor’s office when he was 18 but left eight years later to start his own appraisal firm.

As the two candidates paint it, the voting-booth choice Nov. 3 is between an insider and an outsider.

Dodd, 44, contends that because he’s already in the assessor’s office, he knows its workings better and has the legal expertise to decipher the revenue and taxation code.

“This job is a lot more than being an appraiser,” he said. “You can be the finest appraiser in the world and you can be in trouble real fast in this office.”

Goodwin, 47, says his experience running his Oxnard business, coupled with his time in the assessor’s office, will help him lead and make changes in an office that he sees as complacent and lacking creativity.

“I really think there’s a lot of guys in that office who want to use their own clever imagination to make things smarter and more efficient,” Goodwin said.

While the county assessor election typically draws little attention, it does have direct bearing on voters’ pocketbooks. The assessor’s office appraises and effectively assigns tax burdens to all residential and commercial property in the county--almost 270,000 parcels.

The job of the county assessor, who oversees the 136-person office and its $8-million budget, pays $111,000 a year. Each term lasts four years.

Dodd and Goodwin were the top vote-getters in a nonpartisan field of seven in June’s primary. One of them will succeed Glenn Gray, who is retiring after 36 years in the office and more than five as assessor.

Why the position even needs to be elected at all is a question both candidates are often asked.

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Jack Waterman, who worked in the office for 10 years before becoming assessor from 1977 to 1986, and Gray said having an elected assessor frees the officeholder from the influence of other elected officials.

County supervisors and city councils can pressure the assessor to generate more tax revenues by raising appraisals--pressure he can resist if his job is guaranteed by the voters. Cutting the office’s budget is about the only power that other bodies wield.

“I think that when he’s elected he has more responsibility and more caring--if he’s in that mode--to be sure that the taxpayers are served correctly,” Waterman said. “It gives him an independence that I think he needs to do a credible job.”

No Pocketbook Promises Made

Neither candidate can promise what any voter would really want--that their property will be assessed lower, cutting their tax bill.

“There’s nothing that can be done arbitrarily,” Goodwin said, “but there is something to be done professionally . . . that their values are fair and just.”

Dodd said: “I can lower them if there’s a recession or their values go down.”

So without the sort of pocketbook promises that can dominate campaigns for other elected positions, each assessor candidate must put forth his plans for the office and try to sell himself as more qualified.

Both men want to upgrade the office’s computer system and open a satellite office in eastern Ventura County. Dodd wants greater cooperation between the assessor and other county offices.

Goodwin said he will investigate whether the cost of processing assessments and notifying property owners outweighs the tax collected in some cases, those in which he would push to waive the collection.

Goodwin also wants to offer evening workshops to explain assessments to property owners. Dodd said the office tried that years ago and no one came.

As for who is more qualified, Dodd maintains that Goodwin would have to hire an assistant--with an $80,000 to $100,000 salary--to lead him through the daily decision making. Taxpayers can save that money if they elect someone who’s already familiar with the office, Dodd said.

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“The taxpayers deserve more than a figurehead assessor,” Dodd added.

Gray, who is endorsing Dodd to succeed him, also believes that Goodwin would need a deputy, a job Gray once held but cut when he took the top office. Bringing back the position is unnecessary when there’s already an assessor’s employee on the ballot, he believes.

“I’m not wanting to elect somebody to this position and pay them a nice salary to be on the job training for two to three years,” Gray said.

The suggestion that he would need to hire a lieutenant struck Goodwin as “kind of an insult to the staff.”

“What is [Dodd] saying--that the staff’s not going to work for me?” Goodwin asked.

Goodwin said the assessor needs to be a generalist--he need not know how to do every job, but he must create an environment for them to be done. He contends that his designation as a member of the Appraisal Institute and his business experience are sufficient.

“What the assessor has to have--and that’s what I do have--is the working knowledge to oversee the situation,” he said. “I don’t have to know the tax law as well as my tax specialist.”

That, Goodwin added, is why advisory positions like Dodd’s exist. If Goodwin wins, he says, he would prefer Dodd remain on staff. Dodd is not sure whether he would stay.

“He’s got to want me awful bad,” Dodd said. “I’m kind of leaning toward no.”

Dodd Defends Office Against Appeals

In his current job as supervising tax specialist, Dodd defends the assessor’s office against property owners’ appeals, a strike against him in Goodwin’s eyes.

“My opponent has been the guy who’s argued against them when they have complaints about their values,” Goodwin said. “I’m going to be the people’s watchdog in the county versus the bulldog who’s always been fighting against them.”

As the sole lawyer in the 136-employee office, Dodd’s job does not represent the core function of the assessor’s position, Goodwin maintains, adding that there are about 70 appraisers on the staff.

“It’s clear the office is keyed around the appraisal assignment,” Goodwin said.

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Dodd contends that understanding the laws of the job is the most important criterion and strongly advocates electing from within.

“The last time we had an outside person take over the assessor’s office, it ended up in the recall election two years later,” he said, referring to the 1977 action that resulted in Waterman’s appointment.

Goodwin, however, likes to point out that all of the assessors since then have been appraisers, not lawyers.

While Goodwin may have worked in the assessor’s office, first as an entry-level draftsman and then as an appraiser, Dodd said the 1979 institution of tax-cutting Proposition 13 after Goodwin’s departure makes him less familiar with the current complications of the office.

“He left the ship before we sailed in that area,” Dodd said.

For his part, Waterman, the retired assessor, endorses Dodd, saying that only an insider with legal experience can decipher the appraisal laws.

“The laws are very, very complicated. An appraiser in the private sector never has to be exposed to the kinds of appraisals and evaluations that they do in the assessor’s office,” Waterman said.

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In addition to Waterman and Gray, Dodd has the endorsements of several county supervisors, the county employees’ union, the county auditor and the tax collector.

Endorsing Goodwin are numerous mayors and city council members and two members of the state Board of Equalization, the body that oversees California’s 58 assessor’s offices.

Dodd expects to spend at least $30,000 on his campaign. Goodwin plans to spend about $50,000.

Campaigning for the less-than-exciting assessor’s position is difficult. Walking door to door is what Waterman did to win. Fund-raising, he said, was especially difficult.

“You can’t do anybody any favors because if you do, you’re in violation of laws,” he said. “You can’t give anybody any goodies.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

County Assessor

James Dodd

Age: 44

Residence: Ventura

Occupation: Assessor’s tax specialist

Education: Bachelor’s in political science from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, law degree from California Western University

Background: A property tax attorney, Dodd has been working in the assessor’s office since 1979, starting as an appraiser analyst after the passage of Proposition 13. He now supervises a staff of 15 and handles appeals of property tax assessments for the office.

Issues: About 70,000 properties need to be revalued now that the real estate market has rebounded from the recession. Dodd believes he has the best experience of any candidate to oversee that and other assessor duties. He also wants to continue automating the office.

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Dan Goodwin

Age: 47

Residence: Ventura

Occupation: Chief appraiser, Goodwin & Co.

Education: Associate’s degree in real estate, Ventura College. Certified by the Appraisal Institute

Background: Goodwin worked in the county assessor’s office at age 18 while attending college. He went into the private sector eight years later in 1977, working for several financial firms before starting his own business in 1983. He is a past president of the county Appraisal Institute.

Issues: Goodwin believes the assessor needs to be more of a public figure, and he says he would hold more informational seminars throughout the county. He favors an increase in educational training for staff members along with technological upgrades. He would like to open a satellite office in the east county.