Early voting for the November election starts on October 18th, and KATC TV-3 is giving you the information you need to cast your ballot in local races.
Today, we're introducing you to the three candidates for Iberia Parish Tax Assessor. We've asked each candidate the same questions, and their complete unedited responses are posted on our website in video and written form.
This weekend, you'll hear about two tax renewals in St. Martin Parish; they're dedicated to roads, bridges and drainage. We'll have election stories like this for you every day through the 17th.
KATC's Iberia Parish reporter, Anna Fischer, sat down with the three tax assessor candidates and asked for their responses to the following questions:
- In your own words, what does the tax assessor do?
- What steps will you take to improve transparency in the assessment process?
- How do you plan to address challenges that are specific to the Iberia Parish community?
- What are some of those challenges?
- Why should the people of Iberia Parish vote for you as their tax assessor?
DAVID GRONER
In your own words, what does the tax assessor do?
Well, the tax assessor is supposed to determine the fair market value of property in Iberia Parish, and then who owns it, and how to describe it; and those are all part of my background and experience as a title attorney—I'm well-qualified to do that. And so, I feel like I can bring that further depth of experience and expertise to improve the assessor's office.
What steps will you take to improve transparency in the assessment process?
Oh that's a great question because right now, the people of Iberia Parish are angry because they never got a reassessment letter from the assessor.
So, every other parish got reassessment letters; this assessor ch—the interim assessor—chose not to send the letters. And people are angry because now they don't know what their new assessment's gonna be, they're not gonna know how to pay their taxes, and it's just wrong.
I'm gonna bring total transparency, and I'm gonna let people know what their new assessment is as soon as I can, and then I'm gonna welcome them to come talk to me if they have any problem with that so we can resolve it. So—be really transparent.
How do you plan to address challenges that are specific to the Iberia Parish community, and what are some of those challenges?
Well again, the biggest challenge right now is the failure to get the reassessment letters, so that the public will know what their property values have been increased to.
Right now, what happened is the assessor said she will increase your property values up to 14.9% without telling you, and that's the problem. No other parish is doing that, but in Iberia Parish, it's a decision that was made—that's really for political decisions—it's not for what's best for the parish or the people of Iberia Parish.
Why should the people of Iberia Parish vote for you as their tax assessor?
Well people will vote for me because they know I'm fair, and that I'll bring honesty and integrity back to the assessor's office—with complete transparency so they'll know what their assessments are and they'll have a fair opportunity to come talk to me to resolve it, and—give them a fair market value across the board, without preference to political favors and all that—that people are concerned about now.
RAYMOND 'SHOE DO' LEWIS
In your own words, what does the tax assessor do?
Um, collects taxes and deal with the public.
What steps will you take to improve transparency in the assessment process?
Currently we have no transparency; she lawyers-up on everything. What steps will I take? I'm a public servant, I been elected six different times, nearly 19 years—to school board and to the city council.
I've represented some rich—some of the richest people to some of the poor people, and our tax office needs to be more open, transparent, when giving people information. They need to volunteer information like homestead exemption—a lot of people don't know about that. Like also—military, if you have a disability, if you're 100% or you're 50%, if you're disabled, SSI.
I say they need to be offering that information to people, when they come in, to give them an option; because everyone is screaming about their taxes, in Iberia Parish.
How do you plan to address challenges that are specific to the Iberia Parish community, and what are some of those challenges?
Well, being a city councilman, this is right up my alley. We have a 50-year flood problem on the west end, in the Armenco Canal. Me, Mr. Lloyd Brown—Parish Councilman Lloyd Brown—and senator-then Troy Hebert, we came up with a plan. We came up with the first $750,000 to do which would be—inevitably be—a $2.3 million project. We got that done.
As a councilman, drainage, roads—throughout not only my district, at that time, but we were fair to spread it throughout the city. So I mean, I'm used to dealing people—with the public. I'm the only candidate that's elected, I'm the only candidate that has dealt with people from Loreauville, Delcambre, Grand Marais, Lydia, and Jeanerette—the only one; and as assessor, I plan not to be a nine to five person, but I can be advocates for these other communities, as well.
Why should the people of Iberia Parish vote for you as their tax assessor?
They can trust me. I have a record they can look at. Shoe Do Lewis you can trust. I've never been called in 19 years a liar, or, I haven't been said—it hasn't been said—that I've taken anything from anybody. My honesty, integrity, and trust.
The other two candidates, they live private lives; I live a public life. So, I endorse candidates, I've endorsed several over the years: State senators, representatives—matter of fact, the former tax assessor, Taylor Barais, I endorsed and campaigned for him when he first ran for office, and he became speaker of the house. Troy Hebert—senator.
And then I've been versatile; I haven't been—because I'm an independent—I've supported Republican candidates. Check my record, just check my record. It speaks for itself.
ASHLIE SPIKER
In your own words, what does the tax assessor do?
So the tax assessor is responsible for three things: Discovering property, identifying its use, and then valuing that property—all property that qualifies for ad valorem taxation, so that's what we do.
And we have to do that fairly, equitably, and, we always have to do that with transparency, always, that's the goal, always.
What steps will you take to improve transparency in the assessment process?
So, I'm pretty proud of the way our office handles transparency. We have um—our Internet website that is op—open to the public 24 hours a day, seven days a week, also our office is open Monday through Friday 8:30-4:30 where you can call or come in at any time.
With this revaluation, I was one of the first assessors to actually post our evaluation values on our website. So, I wanted you—I wanted the taxpayers to see their values as soon as they could, in case they had any questions.
How do you plan to address challenges that are specific to the Iberia Parish community, and what are some of those challenges?
A lot of times the way the assessing office works is we can see those challenges through our sales, so it depends what we're talking about. We have lot—we assess lots of different types of properties: We have farmland, we have oil and gas, we have our port so we have watercraft, we have residential, and commercial. So it depends what property you're talking about as far as challenges; there could be challenges in each type of properties.
For example, with our homes, so if there's issues—I know they've brought that up before, flooding and all that—so the way we value our residential is based on sales comparables. So if an area is prone to flooding or they're having issues within that area, normally, those sales are gonna reflect that issue within that area. Those sales would be at a less cost per square foot than an area that would not flood, that would be an example; but we—so we get that data from our sales.
Same with oil and gas, a few of the pipelines have been shut down with—because of administration. So we plug a few wells, we have issues there, our values go down there. So I mean it could be—there's many different reasons for that.
Why should the people of Iberia Parish vote for you as their tax assessor?
I have been serving the residents of Iberia Parish for almost two decades now. I have worked my way up and through this office; I've worked the real estate, commercial, Canal Street mapping was appointed to the chief deputy position, and then ultimately the assessor's position.
I am the only candidate in the race that is a certified assessor; so not only do I know how to manage the whole office, I actually can do each job in the office. And also—not just that—I represent Iberia Parish on three committees in Baton Rouge, which is our professional development—which trains our incoming assessors on how to be assessors. I also am on the oil and gas committee—which is very important to our area since we have around 454 oil and gas wells, we work with industry to implement fair approaches to value, and then also legislative, which is very important.
So like I said, I not only represent Iberia but I represent the state. We have 64 parishes and they normally pick 12-15 amongst your peers—you're appointed amongst your peers to represent them on all those issues, which is very important. So, I think all of those..issues are what make me more qualified than my opponents to be the assessor of Iberia Parish—or continue being the assessor of Iberia Parish.
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