After none of the four candidates vying to replace Larry Stone as Santa Clara County assessor received a majority of votes in November's special election, the race comes down to a Dec. 30 runoff between the two highest vote-getters -- Neysa Fligor, a Los Altos-based ex-corporate and county lawyer who is currently the assistant assessor, and Rishi Kumar, a Saratoga-based mechanical engineer and tech executive.
County assessors in California have one job: assess the value of taxable property. They don't set tax rates. They don't collect property taxes. Their job is to apply state law to their appraisals of real and business properties.
And in Santa Clara County, the job leading the 250 people in the Assessor's Office is especially complex. It's not just the most-populous county in northern California, it's also home to the world's largest, most sophisticated companies, like Apple, Nvidia, Alphabet and Adobe, whose cutting-edge technologies must be assessed in addition to their headquarters' land and buildings. All told, there are 500,000 taxable properties in the county with an assessed value of about $750 billion.
We asked the two remaining candidates to articulate why they deserve your vote. Here are their commentaries:
* Neysa Fligor: Ensuring the Assessor's Office keeps working for taxpayers and residents.
* Rishi Kumar: The Assessor's Office needs an outsider as leader -- a changemaker.
The Mercury News editorial board endorsed Fligor. Here is our recommendation: Fligor is ready to be Santa Clara County assessor. Her opponent is not.