I see that my successor as county assessor, Mike Schultz, was in front of the League of Women Voters recently trying to explain the county’s current tax mess saying the “back-up started with the previous assessor” but he neglected to put the blame where it really belongs: the two Long Beach property owners who sued and tied up assessments for years and were supported by the Mitch Daniels administration for much of that effort.
The bottom line is that the head of the DLGF approved the 2006 pay 2007 assessments twice in 2007 before these two very wealthy Long Beach homeowners and their Indianapolis attorney challenged my numbers that were developed by The Nexus Group.
After years of challenges, the Nexus numbers and the county ultimately settled and paid Nexus’ bill.
The Nexus attorney was right when he later called this a perfect storm: Two well-funded remonstrated who were backed by the Daniels administration and a couple local elected officials like former Commissioner Bohacek and former Auditor Hinchman who succeeded in throwing our county’s tax collection system off by years.
– Carol McDaniel,
Former La Porte County Assessor
