The spring flowers have arrived, as have the accompanying political signs. They are everywhere now and presumably only get worse until that merciful day in which they all suddenly disappear. That’s known as the day after the election. That’s a great day.

But in the meantime, we have the election itself. Most pressing is the local race for the Assessor’s Office. There are roughly six-thousand separate candidates for this office, because of course there are. Everybody’s angry at Rodney Pyles and everybody has thrown their hat into the ring because they’re convinced that they can do a better job than he did. That’s probably true. It would be tough to do a worse job than he did. Still, I can only assume that much of this sudden surge in political participation has to do with a deeply felt desire to simply get rid of the changes that Pyles implemented.

Which is stupid.

Pyles’s changes, although catastrophically unpopular, were necessary to stop the county’s insane policy of property taxation. That policy was designed to protect political favor, protect long-standing landholders, and essentially only substantively tax the county’s newest property owners. It was patently unfair. Any candidate promising to move backwards toward that sort of policy is operating in the worst kind of faith.

But given that we have so many candidates, my knowledge about any of them is lacking at best. Are there good ones? Better ones? Are they universally bad? Any information is appreciated. 

As nearly as I can tell, every single citizen of Monongalia County is running to be its next Assessor. This is what happens, I suppose, after a scandal.

But which of 35,000 candidates for the Assessor’s Office is actually qualified to do the work? It seems like we’re about to have an election for a bureaucratic functionary whose role is overseeing the evaluation of property and the collection of taxes from it. Electing some clown whose entire campaign amounts to, “I hate Rodney Pyles accurately evaluating the worth of my property after years of getting away with murder by allowing the county to pay for its services on the back of more recent property owners and I’m going to get elected to prove it!” strikes me as a disastrous situation with potentially calamitous results. 

The worst possible outcome for the coming election is getting somebody in there who is simultaneously unprepared for the job while being desperate to revert things back to the way they were. The way things were, in case you’re wondering, was essentially a pyramid scheme wherein purchasing property burdened you with a higher tax bill than the guy across the street living in essentially the same property. 

So as before, we’re putting out a call for information: who are these people running for office? What do they believe in? And what do they hope to accomplish? Every time we get information, we’ll update the site to reflect it. 

Here’s a guy running for office: Kent Pauley.

Here’s what he’s saying about himself:

If you believe in electing the best-qualified candidate who will work for the people and not work to keep a political party in power and if you believe the person you elect to the Assessor’s Office should put the job before any political agenda, please cast your vote for the only candidate who is uniquely qualified—Kent Pauley. 

To be fair, I have no idea what’s he’s talking about here. He seems to be hinting at some sort of conspiracy (note the emphasis on a political party and a political agenda) and I frankly have no idea what that has to do with the campaign to be an Assessor.