April 11, 2011 Spokesman
President Pat Dye called the April 11, 2011 Kirkland Rotary meeting to order at 6:30 p.m., and thanked John Pruitt and Bryan Tucker for assisting at the desk and Sue Greenfeld for scribing. The flag salute was led by Mike Hunter.
Inspirational Moment: Ernie Norehad provided a humorous inspirational moment about elderly individuals in a retirement home.
Introductions of Visitors: One visiting Rotarian was introduced. He was Lloyd Hara, King County Tax Assessor and speaker. His guest was Philip Sit, Communication Officer. Also introduced Nathan Brand, the current Rotary Student of the Month from Lake Washington HS, Nathan’s mother, Juanita Brand, and his girlfriend, Kelsey Connell. G.G.Getz introduced her guest Vicki Cooley. Sue Greenfeld introduced Dallen Smith, alternate Rotary Student of the Month from Lake Washington HS.
Club Announcements: Katherine Kehrli encouraged everyone to attend the Texas Hold’em fundraiser for the Rotary Foundation that will be held Saturday, April 16th. Rachel Knight thanked all those Rotarians who assisted on April 9th for Habitat for Humanity. President Dye announced the Golf Tournament that will be at District Conference, and she spoke of the challenge from the Sammamish Rotary Club. She indicated that the Sammamish Club will give us a list of what is needed for the Eastside Baby Corner.
Special Announcements: Kelsey Connell from Lake Washington HS mentioned the HS will be getting a real-live kangaroo as a mascot. Bill Woods spoke of the old-time Rotarian Hal Piper who passed away. Hal was a great golfer. Brandon Honcoop discussed the “After Hours” membership social of $5 per person on Thursday, April 21 from 4-6 p.m. at Milagro Cantina. Please bring prospective members.
Brandon then inducted new member Barbara Hagstrom under the category of Precious Metals and Antiques. Barbara is a transfer Rotarian from the Duvall Club where she joined in 2003. She is also a Paul Harris Fellow. Her mentor is Gary Bruner and her sponsor is Bill Taylor.
Program Speaker and Topic: Patti Smith introduced Lloyd Hara, King County Tax Assessor, who gave an interesting presentation on “A New Way of Doing Business.” When Lloyd Hara took the job, they told him that he was King County’s 4th Assessor in four months. In 2010 he wanted to get Tax Assessor’s house in order by using better customer service, smarter management, and recast a budget for modern times. The State of Washington is only one of two states (the other is Ohio) that use a Budget-based levy system rather than a fixed levy system for property taxes. This means it is possible for property taxes to increase, even though housing values are declining. District levies include state schools, city wide levies, city wide transport levies, city bonds, city flood zone, Lake Washington School District, City General Funds, Library, Evergreen Hospital among others.
As listed on his website, some of his achievements and future proposals are the following:
• Real people now answer the phones, freeing you from electronic dead ends.
• A revamped website puts property descriptions, tax records, routine Q & A and helpful links at your fingertips.
• Preserved our skilled workforce by slashing overhead before cutting positions.
• Adjusted residential values to track the dynamics of a volatile market.
• Spent thousands of staff hours defending commercial property appeals – so those contested taxes don’t get shifted onto homeowners.
• Better wireless applications could give field appraisers more productive hours in the field.
• E-Permitting would cut red tape in building departments all over the County.
• A new Property Base System would relieve the headaches of our COBOL legacy (c. 1977).
• E-notification would save printing and mailing many of our 750,000 annual property statements.
• Simplified models could produce assessments the taxpayer doesn’t need a PhD to figure out.
• The appeals process could show comparable sales online, giving a concerned taxpayer options short of formal hearings.
Ideally new systems will be in place by 2012 or 2013. He encouraged the audience to call his office (206) 296-7300 or the Tax Advisor at (206) 205-6330 if they have any questions, and to look at the Tax Assessor’s website as follows:
http://www.kingcounty.gov/assessor.aspx
Lucky Joker Pool: Dallen Smith, Alternate Rotary Student of the Month, drew the winning ticket, but not the joker pool which now stands over $150. Meeting adjourned at 7:35 p.m.