By a vote of 25,305 to 17,550, voters chose to abolish the North Township Assessor's office and shift the duties to the county assessor.
And it is easy to see why the referendum to eliminate the North Township Assessor went the way it did on election day.
Despite John Matanovich's claim about the county having outsiders come in now to assess your properties, most of us remember the state calling in CLT to do Lake County's assessment because some (not all) township assessors were not fairly assessing properties to begin with.
How many of us had to go through the process of appealing unfair assessments, paying for appraisals, and dealing with the bureaucratic nightmare that went along with the appeals?
How many of us had to wait 1-1/2 to 2 years to get their first appeals straightened out?
How many of us have had to file more than one appeal because the township assessor refused to honor a state-certified appraisal and went back to the original CLT assessment?
How many of us are still waiting for resolution of their 2006 appeals, have overpaid their tax bills and are waiting for refunds?
And if the North Township Assessor's office was doing such a swell job, how come there continue to be so many appeals?
If an employee in the private sector does not do their job properly, they get fired and replaced with an employee who will.
Guess the voters finally got smart or fed up or both. Take your pick!