Retain Mattens as county assessor | LETTER TO THE EDITOR

To the editor:

In my view, whether you’re an R or D, liberal, conservative, left, right, independent, Tea Party, Libertarian or Naderite — it’s in your best interest to retain Dave Mattens as our county assessor.

Despite state law for the election of county officials, the assessor position is not a political one. He assesses the value of your real estate, period. This value is then used by the treasurer to quantify your real estate tax bite, based on a budget that is determined elsewhere.

So why retain Dave? For starters, he’s the most potent force to end that time-honored game of pass the spreadsheet that has dominated information exchange at the county. Dave has pushed (and succeeded) in adopting an efficient central database scheme where departments deposit their information to use and share. When fully implemented, there will be no more error-prone passing around of various paper forms as building permits are granted, land divided, houses completed and tax obligations changed. Secondly, a more fair, honest and competent individual is pretty hard to find.

The county has to do more with less these days, and this dichotomy can only be addressed if the proper tools are used. Information technology has been around for 20 years now, and it works. Dave has the background, the enthusiasm and the track record to increase the efficiency not just in the assessor’s office, but throughout our county government. Let’s keep that guy who loves to go to work, doing just that.

Dean Enell

Langley

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