Assessing the Assessor Reveals Few Assets

Change is needed at the Los Angeles County assessor’s office. As a certified financial planner, I have never dealt with a less responsive bureaucracy. It took almost six months to resolve an issue which likely required less than six minutes of evaluation.

Most frustrating of all was that during that six-month period my 77-year-old client continued to receive incorrect tax bills, with mounting penalties, and the assessor’s office never once responded to the letters I sent (two of which were certified) or the approximately 20 telephone messages I left asking that my calls or my e-mail be returned.

I’m convinced that if I had not shown up in the assessor’s executive offices with a book and a determination to stay until I received reasonable assurances that the matter would be resolved, another six months would have passed before the corrections were made.

While the people I met with at the assessor’s office were both pleasant and cooperative, I can see no reason why this matter should not have been handled much more quickly and with at least the courtesy of a response to my written, electronic and telephone inquiries.

Dale Woodward

Anaheim Hills