THE OUTCOME of the $13 million special election for a new Santa Clara County assessor will shape housing development and school funding in Silicon Valley.
Nominations will be open from July 14 through Aug. 8 for candidates seeking to do one elected job: Determining property taxes. Candidates who wish to avoid paying a filing fee can gather petitions for their candidacy until July 9. Two names — Former Saratoga Mayor Yan Zhao and Los Altos Vice Mayor Neysa Fligor — have so far emerged in the looming race to replace outgoing Assessor Larry Stone, who is the county’s longest serving elected official and finished his last day on the job July 3. He was making more than $330,000 in total pay and benefits as of 2023, according to the government tracking website Transparent California.
Whoever emerges victorious from the Nov. 4 election — with a possible runoff Dec. 30 — could be a major influence over the region through the remainder of Stone’s term, which ends in December 2026. Not only do school districts reliant on property tax revenue have a stake. So do tech companies and speculative housing investors.
“It impacts everybody in the county — whether you’re a property owner or have kids in school,” Stone told San José Spotlight. “It’s the only elected office that I can say impacts everyone.”
Both Zhao and Fligor hail from the West Valley, where housing development has been a point of heated debate and resistance. Stone has endorsed Fligor, who served as special assistant to the assessor under Stone and helped overhaul the office’s outdated computer system this year.
“She has great relationships with county management. She’s a certified appraiser with the state of California,” Stone said. “I know of nobody else that is even close to being qualified to be the assessor and manage an $8 billion enterprise, a $700 billion assessment roll and 500,000 property owners. That’s a big job. It’s not a job for somebody who believes they can get elected because of their political background.”
Fligor wasn’t immediately available for comment.
Earning the post
Zhao, who earned her appraiser license after launching her candidacy, said she can bring a fresh perspective to the office. She’s undeterred by Stone’s endorsement of her opponent and argues residents don’t want a “hand off” to an “insider.”
“This is an office that should not be given — it should be earned. I plan to earn it,” Zhao told San José Spotlight.
The Saratoga resident said she’s directly fundraised more than $450,000 so far in the race – and is confident she can cross $500,000 by the July 31 campaign finance reporting deadline.
Bob Staedler, a principal at the San Jose-based land use and development consulting firm Silicon Valley Synergy, said the assessor’s office is the linchpin of how county government operates.
“I think the assessor makes a lot of judgement calls — there’s a lot of art in how you evaluate properties and how you determine how things get on the roll. And then there’s how you manage personnel and how quickly things get adjudicated, dealing with all the appeals — there’s a huge amount of appeals — and then there’s also the outward looking optics the assessor puts out about the region’s property values,” Staedler told San José Spotlight. “The assessor can set the tone in the mood of how the values of properties are doing.”
If you’re a large property owner in the valley, you’re going to support someone you feel is going to be pro-property owner, Staedler said.
“It would also be interesting to see if the next assessor will be more political — advocating for stuff in Sacramento — things like split rolls, dealing with Prop. 13, dealing with exemptions for certain properties, especially with what we’re seeing in Washington, D.C.,” he said. “We could have someone with a completely different personality.”
Contact Brandon Pho at brandon@sanjosespotlight.com or @brandonphooo on X.
This story originally appeared in San Jose Spotlight.