In the race for Tillamook County assessor, candidate Kari Fleisher is seeking the top spot in what she sees as the natural culmination of a two-decade career in the office.
If elected, Fleisher told the Headlight Herald that she would prioritize increasing public engagement, with the goal of helping residents better understand the county’s tax structure.
“I am community-oriented, dedicated and wanting to have every taxpayer be a little more knowledgeable about the property tax laws that affect them,” Fleisher said.
Born in Portland, Fleisher grew up on the coast, first at a fish hatchery on the Nehalem River in Clatsop County before moving to the City of Nehalem as a young child. Fleisher attended school in the Neah-Kah-Nie School District, graduating as valedictorian from Neah-Kah-Nie High School.
After earning a bachelor’s degree in business administration at Southern Oregon University, Fleisher and her husband moved to southern California for a couple of years, before deciding to move back to the north coast.
It was at that point, in 2004, that Fleisher applied for a job with the county assessor’s office and was hired as an appraiser trainee. Once she had completed four years of training, Fleisher became the county’s commercial and industrial appraiser, a role which she has filled for the last 16 years.
In addition to her service with the assessor’s office, Fleisher has extensive experience on public boards and committee, serving as a member of the Neah-Kah-Nie School District’s board of directors, the Port of Garibaldi’s budget committee, the Tillamook County Housing Commission and previously on Bay City’s city council. Fleisher previously ran for the assessor’s position in 2012 and for the board of county commissioners in 2018.
Fleisher said that a desire to be the person at the helm of the department and concentrate on the bigger picture issues facing the office had attracted her to the position, as well as the ability to reach out to the public. “I also think I can have the ability to just kind of reach one on one and meet people where they are and also, I like being able to advocate for people,” Fleisher said.
Fleisher said that she would bring data analytics skills learned while earning a master’s in business administration degree to bear in the office, mentioning using geographic mapping to get a wholistic picture of trends in property values in the county.
“I really like to be able to see things concisely,” Fleisher said. “I think that’s one thing is that sometimes we just get overloaded because there’s so much, I mean 20, 30 thousand tax accounts, it’s really hard to see the big picture and really see what the overall trends are.”
Fleisher also said that many businesses have a high turnover rate and that new employees may have a hard time getting up to speed on the complicated property tax laws in the state, incurring late fees. Fleisher said that if elected, she would start workshops for accountants and tax preparers in the county to educate those professionals about applicable laws to avoid late filings.
The envisioned workshops are part and parcel of Fleisher’s commitment to helping taxpayers be better informed about the office’s work, which she said was also her favorite part of the job.
“The best part of my day is always talking to taxpayers,” Fleisher said, “whether it’s out in the field knocking on their door or having them come in and talk to the counter or meeting somebody out in the community and I just want to be approachable and I think I’m definitely approachable in that aspect.”
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