Bringing the Spirit of Progress

I see the Assessor’s Office as a service to the public and an opportunity to innovate for our common good. As an elected position, the office can better respond to the needs of our citizens than a simple appointed bureaucratic role. Our forebears knew democratic accountability would ensure this office would adapt to suit both time and place, and I will bring that spirit of progress to this office. I see the office not as a career stepping stone, but rather a chance to bring this office into service to the average resident of this county. 

As a communicator, I recognize communication flows both ways. My ability to listen to the concerns of the employees, and work with them to discover win-win solutions is what I promise to deliver on as Assessor. Building a community in service to the residents of this County. I believe my long record of membership with SEIU 521 & CEMA, and volunteerism in civic and political organizations has honed these skills that I now wish to put into service for your benefit. 

I am a CPA, data analyst, and appraiser - which gives me keen financial insight. My analytics background grounds me in Silicon Valley’s data-driven management paradigm. Above all, I see this elected position as an opportunity to render public service to the people of Santa Clara County through progress and innovation. Policy making should always be driven by data, and I see the data collected by the Assessor’s Office as a way to ground our discussions of the housing crisis with facts. Indeed, making this data readily available could yield more than just statistical insights, but could prove valuable in ways we have yet to determine. 

Silicon Valley has been favorably compared to Renaissance Italy for its innovation and prosperity. I am a Renaissance man - a philosopher and numbers guru - able to look at situations from a wide range of disciplines. Our world is complex and challenges great: we need Renaissance solutions, and should expect nothing less.

Retrofuturism: Creating a New Political Ideal

My campaign was featured in the nationwide Steampunk online newsletter called Steampunk Explorer. This recognition was for our retro-futurist campaign song: “Public Service is What It’s For.”

So, what is punk, Steampunk, and retrofuturism? Punk philosophy stems from the idea that there is virtue in doing something yourself, not because you are “talented” or “gifted” or “well connected”, but because you love it for its own sake. This earnest zeal enables enormous creativity to take shape and also shows up in cosplay across all genres. 

Retrofuturism is an artistic movement rooted in what we thought the future would look like in past eras, with Steampunk being one of many genres within this movement. Retrofuturism in its optimistic form combines, in the present day, the noble aspirations from our past with promises for our future. 

I have been a fan of Steampunk for about 15 years. This punk retrofuturist artistic movement celebrates the aesthetics of the 1830s-1930s, combining them with fantasy and science fiction elements in a Vintage-Fashion-but-not-Vintage-Values way. What makes it punk is the DIY ethos at the heart of it. 

At its core, any genre of punk is about publicly being and owning who you authentically are, knowing that being yourself in public gives others permission to be themselves as well. This ethos is the foundation of the community that congregates at the annual Bay Area Steampunk convention called Clockwork Alchemy. This Steampunk community brings together artists such as Obtainium Works, Samuel Coniglio, and Eerie Elegance, writers such as Harry Turtledove, Valerie Frankel, Drake and McTrowell–and such diverse musicians and bands as Frenchy and the Punk, The Cog Is Dead, Steam Powered Giraffe, swing band Lee Presson and the Nails, Postmodern Jukebox, and singer/entertainer Auralio Voltaire.

My desire to run for office incubated within this community, and I genuinely wanted to serve the residents of my Santa Clara County home. But what I found in the larger world was a network of establishment power brokers who actively discourage grassroots candidates from running. Moreover, the establishment adores curated candidates who have scarcely lived life beyond the petri dish of politics, calling any outsider inexperienced, regardless of their applicable technical expertise. This impoverishes our civic life, discouraging average citizens from running for office. 

Several years back, I sat outside the concert hall at Clockwork Alchemy with Guitarmy of One, alias Scott Helland, the eponymous “Punk” from Frenchy and the Punk, and we discussed how we could make politics less scary and more inviting for people to answer the call to service. He recommended art and music. 

I agreed with Scott, and have since built a campaign with style and sound – to invite people into a more wholesome world of civics, in which each of us belongs. My style serves as a living declaration that your authentic self is no obstacle in seeking a civic office. 

Whoever you authentically are, I want you to know you can be that person and still run for office, get elected, and serve your community. I call this attitude Civicpunk – the idea that we are the leaders of democracy, in all our diverse and idiosyncratic glory. At its core, Civicpunk is the revolutionary idea that you matter – not only do you belong in a voting booth, but you belong on the ballot. Just imagine what sort of nation could we live in if grassroots candidates run and win elections! 

Back in 2008, I was introduced to Steampunk with this quote: “In an era of universal casual-wear, dressing well is an act of rebellion.” The Civicpunk equivalent is: “In an era of political cynicism, civic participation is an act of rebellion.” It is in this spirit I run for Santa Clara County Assessor: with my love of civic life on full display while being authentically myself. 

If Civicpunk inspires you, share this article, follow the campaign’s social media (links here: https://www.electcrockett.com/media) and please donate as well! Thank you! 

Our Data Trapped in a Castle of Stone

Larry Stone is a dragon sitting on a hoard of data collected from you, the citizenry, valuable data that rightfully belongs to all of us, guarded jealously from the light of day. What is this treasure of data, and how is it locked away? Let me explain. 

Within the antique database of the Santa Clara County Assessor’s Office lies a report known as the Property Characteristics File. What is this document? This report summarizes all information related to the physical characteristics, location, assessment value and ownership history of properties within Santa Clara County. This data can be analyzed to gain deeper insights into factors affecting property in a location or area, which is invaluable in analyzing areas such as housing trends, what is driving those trends, and how they impact affordability. But how does one unlock access to this valuable document?

To Stone, the answer is easy: money, lots and lots of money. Specifically $47,195. Let that sink in for a moment. Over $47K, which is over 60% of the salary of the average Californian. Oh, but this must be competitive with other major cities? Sorry, not even close. New York provides this data for FREE. Ah, it must be because this is California, in the Bay Area? What about San Francisco? Also free. In fact, of the top 20 municipalities nationally, this data is available for free or for a modest processing fee. 

The office says $47K is to cover their costs. According to their website, this fee structure was evaluated by a third-party consulting firm and approved by the County Board of Supervisors nineteen years ago in 2003. You know, back when a computer mainframe had the storage capacity of your cell phone. And the data is already paid for, as the data’s processing and storage have already been covered at taxpayer expense as part of the duties of the office. (And since the office is not allowed to make a profit, Stone boasts about the money he returns to the general fund, due to his parsimonious habits.) And that brings up additional questions. Is this cost because the data is housed in a database from the 1980’s, when it cost millions to store the amount of data you currently have in your free email account? Does this mean that delivering 500 MB of data is done so inefficiently it would bankrupt a private business? And what about the fact that government - unlike private business - is supposed to be providing a service to its constituents? Other municipalities do this. What makes Santa Clara County different? 

Stone says you can get data for free, provided it’s about your own property. That’s not what we’re talking about here. What about more comprehensive data? What if you’re, say, a nonprofit?

“Oh, wait!” says the data-hoarder-assessor, “you can apply for a fee waiver! You just have to be qualified.” So, what is this qualification for a waiver that is nowhere mentioned on the official Santa Clara County Assessor website? That’s a very good question that doesn’t seem to have a good answer. In the past 28 years, the Assessor’s Office is happy to tell you it has waived their fee 27 times. Fourteen of those were for cities and municipalities within the County. Wait, shouldn’t there be a reciprocity agreement between government bodies within the same county, anyway? Just how dysfunctional are these relationships? Others are again governmental bodies, such as the Sanitation District and the Water District. Again, shouldn’t this data be shared anyway? Of the rest, we have a couple of news agencies, Silicon Valley Clean Energy, and Professor C.J. Gabbe at Santa Clara University studying environmental sustainability and housing affordability–the only one marked “Public Purpose.” 

When Professor Gabbe was contacted to discover what he had to do to get the ONLY “Public Purpose” fee waiver issued by Assessor Stone in the last quarter century, he said “Santa Clara County has the most expensive assessor data that I have encountered. It has only been accessible to me for specific research purposes with a letter from a public agency funder. Santa Clara County's approach inhibits important research in the public interest, including that to address the housing affordability crisis. The SCC Assessor should reconsider its approach and adopt the open source ethos of many other successful counties.”

Others who applied for and were denied the waiver have been told the standard to receive the waiver is that their group must “demonstrably benefit Santa Clara County or the Assessor’s Office.” Wait, what? The Assessor’s Office? So their purpose is self-serving? They also point out that their fees are approved by the Board of Supervisors, who have apparently never questioned why the cost is so high, compared to other jurisdictions.

Now let’s ask who has actually bought this data? Several private businesses marked as “Data aggregator and seller.” So there you go, the data about our property is all about selling to people who hope to profit from it. Draw your own conclusion as to who this serves.

With regard to sharing with nonprofits and civic organizations, the Assessor’s Office waived the fee and delivered data to an average of less than one requestor a year, and only if it is seen as of direct benefit to the County or Assessor’s Office. Fulfillment is determined by an undocumented standard and even the ability to request a waiver is opaque. Contrast that with San Francisco, whose Assessor’s Office has provided the same report, for free, to 5,451 requestors as of 5/30/2022, with a single click to download! No need to prove your case for why you desire this report, and all for free. This is what it looks like to live in the 2020’s! Instead of keeping pace with the past, we need to lean into the future, adopting the model used by so many other California Assessor’s Offices.

We live in the age where data is a vital part of society. Why is it hoarded away, when there are so many ways it could be used, that could benefit us all? The Assessor’s Office is trapped in obsolete paradigms of the late 20th century. Andrew Crockett will release our data from its captivity, freeing the data from its castle of Stone, enabling it to serve us all rather than a chosen few.

Crockett vs. Stone

“What are the basic differences between Andrew Crockett and the incumbent Larry Stone?”

This is an important question, so I have prepared a comparison chart for easy reference. It covers what I believe are points of high contrast between us to aid voters in selecting the next Assessor of Santa Clara County. Since you know that I have an obvious bias in preparing this chart. I have worked to constrain my comparisons to established facts, as I respect your independence as a voter. Please share this helpful chart on social media with your friends.

A downloadable, printable copy of the document is available here.

What Is Social Democracy?

The political philosophy I follow is called Social Democracy. 

I believe in two interrelated principles that guide this philosophy:

• The empowerment of citizens (civic empowerment)

• Fact-informed civil discourse. 

To speak to the first point, the empowerment of citizens is not just the right to vote, but the active cultivation of civic virtues among them. Civic virtues include not just exercising the right to vote but also defending other citizen's right to vote. This comes with a commitment to respect other citizens in our democracy (especially one's political opponents). I also believe we have the duty to make political participation an inviting and hospitable environment. Important metrics to measure this civic empowerment include the rate of voter turnout in elections, and should also include research data on whether or not citizens have the means to run for office, are willing to run for office, or can even imagine themselves (or someone like themself) on the ballot. In a Social Democracy, if any of these metrics are low, it is our obligation to take actions that improve the metrics.

Fact-informed civil discourse goes back to the birth of modern democracy in the Enlightenment era, as articulated in philosopher David Hume's "An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals", which described the necessity to distinguish facts from basic values. In Social Democracy, there is a recognition that valuing fact-informed discourse is a key part of citizen empowerment - as it creates a civic common ground where we productively discuss the issues we face together. When citizens can see the value in data collection and understand the means by which scientifically grounded analysis of that data is produced, the resulting factually-informed citizens are more effective at improving their own lives.

Whether those issues be climate change, civil rights, public health, or the housing crisis, the resulting fact-based data results in an informed citizenry crafting and voting for policies that measurably make the world a kinder, more prosperous, and equitable place.

If you would like to learn more about Social Democracy, please view the excellent historical account of its development in "How Denmark Invented Social Democracy" on YouTube.

Customer Service and Efficiency

In addition to its primary function, the Assessor’s Office also provides a range of services to the residents of the County. These public services are paid for by the budget of the office and include (but are not limited to):

• Notifying owners of changes to the assessed value of their property

• Managing the appeals process allowing challenges to property assessments

• Administering the Homeowners Exemption program

• Administering historic properties under Mills Act designation

• Administering agricultural properties under Williamson Act designation

• Administering qualified transfers of property assessments

• Providing temporary reduction of assessed value under certain circumstances

• Auditing assessable business property records for accuracy

The first-time homeowner is generally unaware of the ways in which the Assessor’s Office can provide benefits or services with regard to how their property’s assessment and resultant tax bill are managed. This is especially true for first-time buyers who come from backgrounds where property ownership is not a standard practice. Most people do not even know they can request to meet with a certified appraiser to discuss forms and guidelines for addressing various types of property issues, whether it be challenging an assessment, programs that qualify certain properties for reduced taxes, or how new construction or demolitions can impact assessed values. Presently the burden of knowledge falls upon the individual and their own research. 

Additionally, there is no established culture of customer service to the broader Santa Clara County community in the current Assessor’s Office. Despite claims of high customer satisfaction with the office, many property owners have reported frustration in dealing with the office in general - especially those who have dealt with the present appeals process - feeling that their concerns are an inconvenience or annoyance to the bureaucracy. Satisfaction can be subjective. It is easy to manipulate and cherry-pick data, especially when there is no independent review of that data to ensure it is true and representative. How many of us have filled out a satisfaction survey that simply asks you to pick a number for how well your needs were met, when the relevant question would be asking how easy was it to have your needs met? Not to mention the surveys do not include those residents who require the services the Assessor’s Office provides who don’t know this office even exists. Dealing with the Assessor’s Office should be both easy and convenient, and we know that change follows the tone at the top. As Assessor, I will make sure both the customer and the employees will be respected and valued, because we know real comprehensive customer service comes naturally from employees who are valued for providing excellent service. 

The office needs to explore innovations that can better serve its public and its employees. The pandemic has shown us that working from home is just as productive as physical presence in the office, if not moreso. Moving forward, the office has an opportunity to embrace the model of hybrid work. This is even more valuable when working in the office has the chance of passing disease to fellow employees when essential functions can be accomplished at home, even if suffering from nothing more serious than a case of the sniffles. In the same mode, the Assessor’s Office has the potential to innovate by using online technology to bring customer service into the 2020s. By offering online meetings for transacting business with the Assessor’s Office to those who have difficulty getting to the county buildings, whether because of physical limitations, lack of transit, or other causes. The Assessor’s Office has the opportunity to both innovate and set an example for other agencies.

Another area where the Office is currently lagging is its woefully out-of-date database. This relic from circa 1980 was supposed to be updated decades ago, but has yet to be successfully upgraded. The current Assessor brags about how he has “saved” the office money during his tenure by, among other things, not investing in this necessary database upgrade. But this false economy will cost taxpayers approximately $2 for every $1 he gave back to the County General Fund during his 28 years in office. Database technology is evolving at a rapid pace, and has made so much more efficiency available. Modernization will not only increase functionality and ease the ability to export data for analysis, it will be able to provide this data service and storage at a decreased long-term storage cost.

And finally, the Assessor’s Office has an opportunity to make available all legally disclosable data contained in its records at a rate commensurate with other counties within the State of California. Currently, Santa Clara County charges $47,195.00 - the highest price in the nation by an order of magnitude - for the Assessor’s “Property Characteristics File,” which contains the data most relevant to analyzing the housing crisis. A price that is far beyond the budget of many nonprofit organizations, and certainly does not serve the common interest. In the 21st century, data is power, and making this data available to stakeholders would yield powerful insights into the housing crisis and the barriers preventing home ownership in this county. 

Santa Clara County is the home of Silicon Valley, the global center of innovation. We have the opportunity to innovate to serve the residents of the county now and in the future. Shouldn’t we take it?

Public Service Opportunities

Unlike many elected offices, the County Assessor does not work to create public policy. The Assessor’s Office, codified in the original California Constitution of 1850, is purely administrative. Its core responsibility is to annually determine and record property assessment values used in calculation of property taxes. However, there are many discretionary duties that are left up to the judgment of the individual Assessors. This is because our forebears trusted their elected officials to work for the public good in whatever capacity they saw fit, responsive to the circumstances of their era. 

We are now in the 2020s. The public trust that was invested in the office over 170 years ago has the opportunity to evolve in new ways to serve needs that were not envisioned even 50 years ago, let alone at the dawn of California statehood. Just as the Santa Clara Valley has evolved from orchards and agriculture to technology and innovation, the Santa Clara County Assessor’s Office needs to evolve and innovate to meet the challenges of both the present and the future. 

The Assessor serves as a custodian of information with a duty to share it under certain circumstances, and is also given discretion, with some legal restrictions, to provide that information generally to the public. One of the required duties is providing property owners with a statement of assessed value on their properties on a yearly basis. Another is maintaining a database of relevant information about characteristics of all assessable properties within the county. In the modern age of data analytics, a great deal of insightful statistics can be mined out of this data. Information that could be put to work in providing insights in numerous areas, though its usefulness in analyzing the housing crisis is of particular interest. 

They say that knowledge is power, and the knowledge extracted from this data will be a powerful tool. Just one of the insights we could glean from this would be a countywide snapshot of the patterns of property ownership and usage, which would clearly reveal some of the contributing factors in the housing crisis. However, in Santa Clara County, this characteristics report is only available at an intimidating price. Unless the requester pays a phenomenal amount of money (over $47,000), they cannot receive this report. Most counties in the US provide this information for free not just to stakeholders such as nonprofit organizations & government agencies, but to anyone who wants a copy. In the counties that do charge a nominal fee for the data, their application for the data includes a section where one can request a fee waiver - Santa Clara County does not provide this option on its data request application. So even though California law explicitly allows Assessors to waive this fee, our county does not inform the public that this is even an option - one must independently know they have the right to ask for it, and even with the right to ask, the Assessor can legally decline requests arbitrarily. So, by creating an application where the only option to get the data is to pay $47,195.00 by cash or check (no credit cards) - an amount greater than the budget of many nonprofits - exactly who does this serve? It certainly is not the average resident of Santa Clara County who suffers the consequences of this artificial data void. My firm belief is that the cost charged for this data should be brought into conformity with the rest of the nation, and the Assessor’s Office adopt a publicly known policy of waiving the fee for any and all nonprofit and government agencies that request it. 

Other opportunities are also available for better serving the property owners of Santa Clara County just in terms of convenience. Most are not aware of services that are provided by the Assessor’s Office. Who knew that you could request to meet with a certified appraiser to discuss concerns ranging from challenging an assessment value to finding out how to transfer your tax basis to a new property? The Assessor’s Office provides this service - and presently does not promote this fact. Considering the number of county residents who moved here from other states or nations, assuming that people know these services are available is a major disservice to our residents. Outreach is imperative. The minimum standard that most counties follow is to maintain online web pages where the Assessor’s Office details all of the services they offer concerning property ownership and purchase, as well as supplemental relevant information for first time property buyers. Though in 2022, it is now expected that Assessor’s Offices should have a robust social media presence that provides regular content about the Assessor’s Office services to the public. Additionally, outreach ought to be performed in ways that are responsive to our residents' linguistic diversity, so that any resident who has a need for our services can access them. 

The pandemic has brought public awareness to online meeting forums such as Zoom, and this or a similar platform could be used to schedule remote meetings with people whose ability to travel to the County government offices is limited either by health, distance, or lack of transit. Just as we no longer pay our taxes with gold and silver coins as was the custom when the Assessor’s Office was established, we no longer need to be bound to older means of doing business. After all, Silicon Valley is at the heart of innovation! 

The data and the services provided by the Santa Clara County Assessor’s Office are ours: we paid for them with our taxes. They should be readily available to whomever has need of them. After all, public service is what it’s for!

Why Is There an Assessor’s Office?

Since its inception, property ownership has been a cornerstone of the American economic system, with our government designed around this assumption. While we have thankfully evolved away from the original concept where owning property was required to vote for your governmental representatives, property remains a keystone of our legal system. Property taxes are the basis for many services we take for granted, and continue to fund most of California’s civic institutions. The Assessor’s Office is essential in this process, as it determines the property valuations that are used in calculating these taxes. Hence why the Assessor is an elected position in local government, as an accurate and fairly-administered system of property assessments is crucial to maintain public trust, as well as integral to the revenues that cities and counties depend on.

This is the basic function of the Assessor’s Office, although there are many more services it can provide. Some of these services are within the discretion of the individual Assessor’s administrative capacity, such as performing public outreach efforts or spearheading assessment-relevant data sharing improvements between county and municipal governments. Though each county may allocate additional, legally assigned duties to the office if doing so is seen as appropriate. Taking San Mateo County as an example: the Assessor there also is assigned the roles of Clerk-Recorder & Chief Elections Officer.

Duties and Responsibilities of the Assessor

Most people do not know what the powers and responsibilities of the Assessor’s Office actually are. Many erroneously think of the Assessor’s Office as “the tax collector.” This is not its function. Its main function is assigning a value, calculated according to law, to each and every taxable property in the county - these values being known as assessments. These values are assembled into a document called the assessment roll, which is passed along to the Tax Collector’s office for the calculation and billing of property taxes. In fulfilling these duties of the office, the Assessor must also keep a database containing a full inventory of assessible properties. The database is of paramount importance, as assessment accuracy is only as good as the data used to determine those assessments.  

Once the public understands the Assessor’s back-end role in government finance, we can begin to discuss its even less known responsibilities, such as managing assessment appeals and the administration of assessment reduction programs. Most of these lesser-known administrative tasks are designed to save taxpayers money. These include programs that provide assessment reductions due to a residence being homeowner-occupied, having suffered a natural disaster, having qualified for historical preservation (under the Mills Act), or for being a contracted agricultural or open space property (under the Williamson Act). Additionally, one of the most important services the office provides is a simple assessment consultation service, where a property owner or potential buyer can meet with a certified appraiser to review the relevant assessment laws pertaining to their property so the resident can make an informed decision. 

As Assessor, I would institute outreach efforts to make sure the public is aware of these services, so that anyone who qualifies can benefit from them. 

Partnering with the Public and Employees

I believe the most useful skill of any public servant is respectfulness, illustrated by the ability to listen and communicate diplomatically with the public they have been elected to serve. Though Assessors are expected to have financial expertise so that they can manage the office well, they must also perform the necessary public outreach and education efforts for residents of their county.

I have honed these leadership and outreach skills through serving as Treasurer for several volunteer organizations paired with more than a decade of experience with educational outreach programs. Furthermore, my technical credentials as a Certified Public Accountant, data analyst, and certified Appraiser are a perfect match for the challenges of this position.

That said, there is one other area of expertise that an Assessor must demonstrate to be effective with any of this: earning the trust of their staff. To do this, an Assessor must be a partner working beside their employees in running the office, rather than a tyrant ruling over them. Here in Santa Clara County, partnership would unlock over 2,000 years of combined employee experience regarding best practices for the office, as well as provide a precise idea of what is working and not working within the office that can be addressed. Indeed, recognizing employees as the stakeholders they are in the future of this office will unlock this office’s potential for public service excellence, with the ultimate honor being handing over a thriving office to the next generation of leaders.

Climate Restoration: Andrew Crockett Talks with Peter Fiekowsky

I recently had the opportunity to discuss new approaches to current issues with climate restoration expert Peter Fiekowsky, founder of the Foundation for Climate Restoration. Being interested in a sustainable future for the Santa Clara County Assessor’s Office as well as the world, this is an important topic to me. Check out our discussion!

Note: this interview has been edited for clarity and continuity.

Andrew Crockett

Hello, I'm Andrew Crockett, CPA running for Santa Clara County Assessor. We’re here today to talk about the ways we can address global climate change and how that plays into how I want to address the Office of Assessor. 

Peter Fiekowsky

And I'm Peter Fiekowsky. I'm author of the climate restoration book “Climate Restoration, the Only Future that Will Sustain the Human Race,” available on Amazon or from any bookstore. 

I'm a physicist by training, and have been a Silicon Valley entrepreneur for 40 years. And for the last 10 years I’ve been taking on climate restoration. This has allowed me to focus on the current question of how we can leave our children a planet that they can absolutely survive on. How do we get to the CO2 level back to what it was before global warming started, maybe 50 to 100 years ago? And it turned out that we can do that. It  turns out that once you've decided what the outcome is, doing it is not expensive at all. People are excited about the fact that we can actually restore the climate and doesn't cost the public anything.

Andrew Crockett

Awesome. You are the founder of a couple climate organizations, including the Foundation for Climate Restoration. I know that people are so caught up in the idea that sacrifice is the way that we get to a balanced future, but you are looking at things differently. Could you unpack that a little bit? 

Peter Fiekowsky

Most people know that the Earth goes into ice ages every 100,000 years and that the last one ended 12,000 years ago.  That isn't that long ago, when you can visualize New York City with a mile of ice. Except there was no city, there was a mile of ice above it.

When nature cools the planet down, it does it by pulling co2 into the ocean, into carbon. The trees do it when they die, when they rot. And plankton and algae in the ocean, when they die, it sinks into the ocean, and the carbon is sequestered for thousands and thousands of years. And the thing is if we duplicate what nature does before the ice ages, then you get rich food in the ocean that gives you more fish. And you can actually pay for the whole system with the fish. So it turns out to be totally viable. And the reason we haven't done it yet is that until now the goal was to zero out emissions rather than restoring the climate. So the key is to get clear about the outcome you want. And then figure out the way to do it. And that's why I was really excited about you running for County Assessor. You look at different ways of doing things. 

Andrew Crockett

How many years have you been a climate restoration activist?

Peter Fiekowsky

Well, I'm actually new. I developed the whole field of climate restoration starting about 2015. So right around the Paris climate talks, that's when I saw that this was the thing we want to do on the climate: Decide what we want, and then figure out how to do it. What we've been doing is figuring out things that we can do, and figuring out how good…or not bad? they might be for the earth. What we want for our children is to give them the same climate, the same CO2 levels that we had for the last 10,000 years, since the last ice age, when we developed agriculture and civilization. Because obviously, that's the climate that's going to be best for humanity, because that's what we evolved for. And that's what we want to get back to, getting the CO2 back to those levels using the same methods that nature uses with ice ages. We know how nature sequesters that carbon, so we can do the same thing.

Andrew Crockett

You endorsed me this week, Peter. What were some of the factors that had you choose to  endorse my campaign?

Peter Fiekowsky

Well, I've known you for about 15 years, and I've known you as someone who puts his mind to something and makes it happen. And what I like about endorsing you, is you and I have something in common, which is getting clear about the outcome we want, then figuring how to make that happen. Because it’s always more productive to focus on what you want to happen, rather than the negatives. And you coming in as a millennial is phenomenal.

Andrew Crockett

Your scientific thinking allows you to come to a problem with a blank slate. That’s the same sort of mindset that I wish to bring to the Assessor's office. We should ask, what do we want? How do we get there? What are we not doing that we haven't explored? Because we have this office that has all of the data for the 484,000 properties in Santa Clara County. And yet, if you want access to it, you have to pay $47,000 for access to that data. This is not a partnership, where you have what you need to succeed, which is this data. So we can look at it objectively, bring scientific methods to it, and say, “Well, what are we not doing that if we did would make all the difference in this housing crisis.” 

Peter Fiekowsky

If that data were available, what would be possible in the county? What would entrepreneurs do with it?

Andrew Crockett

Specifically, it's about precision targeting our solutions, because if you go to a surgeon, and the surgeon says, Okay, you have a broken bone, I'm just gonna kind of cut open here and figure it out along the way to fix it up. This is like, yes, you could get your bone fixed [using that method], and that would be wonderful. However, there's a lot of collateral damage, whereas with modern medical techniques, it's all about scanning, getting accurate data, accurate measurements, so that you can make as few incisions as possible to allow quick recovery time. And we have a housing crisis now. And if we're going to respond to it in a way that benefits us as quickly as possible, it needs to be data driven. And the Assessor's office has that data and is currently on the sidelines in this fight for ensuring that people have an equitable future for themselves and their families.

Peter Fiekowsky

I think what you're saying is that the Santa Clara County Planning department and the various groups that are doing planning have some ideas of what they want, but they don't have the data to implement it efficiently. And since the Santa Clara Assessor has the data, he should partner with the people who are doing planning and have the resources.

Andrew Crockett

That partnership is key, because no single person has all the solutions. But when we network together, we can find those solutions that might escape my eyes, but your eyes catch them. This is the whole thing, we are in this game together. Whether it's restoring the climate or solving the housing crisis, we need to bring this fresh perspective, that's data driven, to help us find all the solutions that are currently just sitting there waiting for us to act upon them.

And we need to remember democracy is supposed to be like a relay race, you hand it off. While you’re there, you prepare the people who are going to take over for you. So that you can go and do something else. Because even the best minds are susceptible to stagnation. And once you get really good at something, that's the time to hand it off. So that the next person can not only learn from you to be very good at it, they can then end up bringing the new eyes you were talking about, so that they might be able to improve processes, improve outcomes, improve service. All of these things are possible when we don't think about political office as about me, but about all of us together as a team and a community.

Peter Fiekowsky

I think what is great is bringing new eyes. In the same way, I've only been really working on climate issues for about six to eight years. And the people I work with have been doing it for 40 years. Bringing fresh eyes, you get to shed the preconceptions and say, you know, we want this, let's just see how it can work, what resources we could bring in, that used to not be available.

Andrew Crockett

I want the Assessor's office of Silicon Valley to become the gold standard for the rest of the state, and help bring up the rest of the state so every Assessor's Office is seen as a team player, an essential part of being the data clearinghouse for all things property related. I see it through the lens of having been treasurer for a few nonprofits. The point of the treasurer is not just to make sure that the books are kept accurately, but to make sure that the relevant information from those books is presented to decision makers, so that they can use that information to guide the organization. The Assessor's Office is something that logically should have a data reporting component, not just to community members in positions of decision making authority, but also the community at large. Because where the most innovative solutions are generated is normally not in a committee room. Somebody like yourself, who just sits down and brings those new eyes to it, and then goes to the committee room and says, Hey, have you considered this?

Peter Fiekowsky

Here’s a possibility–we could lead the state! After all, it’s Silicon Valley.

Andrew Crockett

After all, it's Silicon Valley, we could lead the state! It's something you can vote for June 7th. It's pretty amazing. It's like we have the opportunity to live up to our own hype, people! it's like we are right now on the frontier, as Silicon Valley, with myself on the ballot, for us to embrace that future and be at the cutting edge. Isn't that exciting?

Peter Fiekowsky

It is! What I like about working with you is you're looking at it from the view of how do we serve the people? How do I serve the state for the country? It's not just about how do I serve the office?

Andrew Crockett

And we're up to such amazing things. I'm just excited for what the future can bring.

Peter Fiekowsky

Good. Bring it together. Vote for Andrew Crockett. It's time for something new and exciting. And get a copy and read my book: “Climate Restoration, the Only Future that Will Sustain the Human Race.” We were going to do it. Thank you very much. And thank you guys for voting.

Andrew Crockett

Vote by June 7th. Andrew Crockett for Santa Clara County Assessor

Thank you. Live long and prosper y'all!

Public Service Is What It’s For

When did public office become just another trophy? In today’s world, that seems to be the way things are trending. There seems to be a succession of accomplishments: get a degree from some prestige University, acquire a successful business or three, get a trophy wife, run for a small public office, develop a network of supporters, go after a bigger public office, exchange old trophy wife for a new one, get a bigger public office, and keep moving up the food chain. It’s a series of life goals. But where is the interest in serving the public? Being elected to an office is viewed as just one more goal. When you’ve become a CEO, venture capitalist, or real estate baron, now you can move up the chain of office holding as your next set of career goals. But what about those voters out there? All those people who have a stake in whatever it is you’re trying to govern?

The problem is when an office that serves the public becomes just a popularity contest. Instead of aspiring to solve complicated problems and serve the public, it can become about ego, about being someone in power. It’s high school all over again, where there are the popular kids who have a clique. Generally, they’re not the ones organizing trash pickups.

I have neither run for nor previously held public office, making this campaign for Assessor my first political campaign. However, I have extensive community experience. I have been a regular member of and volunteer for progressive, labor, and environmental causes for 20 years. I have held volunteer leadership positions in clubs I belong to, and am proud to be a Mason because of the opportunities it offers for assisting others. Our food drive has contributed literal tonnage of rice and beans to the Second Harvest Food Bank of Silicon Valley.

When the Founding Fathers were looking at how our country was to be governed, they were unsure of how to proceed. But they had a vision, a vision of a country run not by nobility, but by representatives of its citizens, placed there by the public trust. I want to be one of those representatives - and with your support and vote, I look forward to faithfully representing you.

Yesterday’s Solutions Creating Today’s Headaches

You may have heard that today’s problems are often yesterday’s solutions. In this post, we will discuss how an attempt to fix soaring real estate assessments in an era of high inflation both created a homeowners’ tax boon and sowed the seeds for a future problem — namely the future that is now. I am speaking about Proposition 13.

Many of us are too young to know what headaches the homeowners of the1970s faced. Inflation took a heavy toll on the average American, and the economy was stalled, leading to a situation called stagflation. Homeowners struggled to pay ever-rising taxes, trying to put food on the table and pay for basic services like water and electricity, while wages lagged far behind. Despite the rising promise of Silicon Valley, things didn’t look very encouraging in Santa Clara County. In the 1970s many potential home-buyers were hesitant to commit, afraid their property taxes would rise steeply as the real estate prices those taxes were based upon kept rising steeply. Those who already owned homes struggled to keep up, and seniors who remembered the Great Depression feared losing their homes due to unpaid property taxes.

Enter Proposition 13, an initiative pushed by Howard Jarvis and passed by the California voters in 1978. Proposition 13 set property assessments at their 1976 assessed value, and it restricted annual assessment increases to at most 2% per year. The resulting property tax bills based off these assessments likewise were capped at no more than a 2% yearly increase. When it passed, Prop 13 was revolutionary, and probably saved many people’s homes. However, it also applied to commercial property, capping their assessments. Property, including large commercial or industrial properties, can now only be reassessed in the case of new construction or transfer of ownership, and even those have some limitations. This has created an incentive for large commercial property holders to invest in and hold property — for decades. This tax imbalance has resulted in a long-term reduction in revenue for the state of California. Such revenue from large corporate properties could be funding schools and public services. Also, Prop 13 proponents had hoped that Prop 13 would keep rents low, as landlords benefitted from predictably low taxes. That did not happen. There is now a huge tax imbalance between long-term property holders and recent buyers. While we see the impact of these unintended consequences, to accurately assess these consequences we need comprehensive and accurate property data - the exact data that the Santa Clara County Assessor is required by law to maintain. Unfortunately, that database has been poorly managed by the current Assessor.

You and I continue to bear the burden of yesterday’s outdated solutions, often unknowingly. The obsolete database at the Assessor’s Office is a similar relic of past solutions. It was very useful when it was created, shortly after Prop 13 was passed, but it’s been lingering (malingering?) well past its time. And unlike Prop 13 which has had major upgrades, the database is aging badly. Prop 13 was modified by later initiatives such as Prop 8. The Assessor’s Office has never successfully upgraded its database. This is theoretically to “save money,” but this is a clear case of being “penny wise, dollar foolish.” By the incumbent Assessor never modernizing the outdated database, Santa Clara County residents now carry the burden of increasing costs for maintaining an ancient COBOL-coded database. When the database finally gets overhauled, this decades-delayed upgrade will eat up all the alleged “savings” from the incumbent Assessor’s procrastination, growing more expensive year after delayed year. Indeed, this upgrade can not be put off much longer. Today’s problems are nightmares, and we must wake up.

Hanging onto old unworkable solutions will only cost us in the long run. We need to change with the times. The incumbent Assessor has repeatedly failed over 28 years to modernize the Assessor’s database. The incumbent Assessor has failed the residents of Santa Clara County. We need a new Assessor - vote for Andrew Crockett by June 7th.

The Lost Art of the Campaign Song

In earlier eras, candidates often had official songs that their constituents could sing to show their support. American political culture has had campaign songs as a central part of political life since before our nation’s founding. Supporters could sing along at political rallies to literally voice their support for the candidate of their choice. Some were catchy enough to be remembered even now. Even if you don’t know the song, you probably have heard the slogan “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too!” That’s staying power! While campaigns have lately neglected music as a medium of messaging, grassroots activists have not. This is how we have been gifted with catchy jingles such as “Give Bernie Sanders Your Vote,” which evokes the ethos of another era.

However, I am now pleased to be able to continue this noble tradition myself. We have our own campaign song, which also features my very own 1930 Chevy campaign car! What’s more, you can find out about the Assessor’s Office while enjoying some retro-style music. For your listening pleasure, I am proud to offer Public Service Is What It’s For. Because this is also a Public Service music video. Who says politics can’t be fun?

Andrew Crockett’s Core Positions: COMPETENCE

On your next plane trip, how would you feel if you found out your pilot had crashed his prior flight? Or maybe a pilot who crashed twice? How about a pilot who crashed the Assessor’s Office three times in the last 28 years?

Would you also feel uneasy if you were flying in an old rattletrap plane like something out of an Indiana Jones movie? And your pilot assures you that he’s giving you a bargain because his good old aircraft was state-of-the-art half a century ago? Because that’s essentially the Santa Clara County Assessor’s Office’s 1970’s-era computer database. And, over the decades, the incumbent has repeatedly failed to upgrade it, then bragged about the money he’s saved. 

For a smooth flight to the future of Santa Clara County, elect Andrew Crockett, CPA, as Santa Clara County Assessor. Because I will ensure that the old rattletrap Assessor’s database finally gets upgraded to reflect the brilliance of Silicon Valley. This upgrade needs happen soon: the cost of the upgrade will only increase over time. The old COBOL programmers we need to export the data are rapidly going extinct!

Cheapness is an expensive habit. By kicking the can down the road, enormous costs will now be inflicted on the taxpayers of Santa Clara County. Costs because of lost upgrade opportunities the incumbent has wasted over the past 28 years! These missed opportunities mean we will need to pay up to $50 million dollars to upgrade in the years ahead. This cost would have only been around $5 million back in 1995, when the incumbent was first elected. Because of his managerial inability to act, the technology that runs the office is now an antique that more properly belongs in the Computer History Museum. 

Andrew Crockett, CPA, believes in expert-led, data-driven decision making and will bring us into the 2020s!

Andrew Crockett’s Core Positions: HOUSING

People ask me why the Assessor’s data is relevant to our current housing crisis. Let me put it this way: Would you agree to surgery if the Doctor was going to just “figure it out along the way?” Of course not - and yet, our officials are currently trying to solve the housing crisis by doing just that! Why? Because they have no authoritative data to help diagnose factors in the crisis. But what if I told you that the present Santa Clara County Assessor has the authoritative data RIGHT NOW? Not only that, the Assessor has actively avoided making this data available to civic, community, and nonprofit agencies for 28 years!

How is he doing this? It’s all in the fees. Want a copy of the “Property Characteristics File”? How deep are your pockets? For the same data that is provided for free in Florida, or is available for $350 in San Francisco, a copy of this file will set you back $47,195 in Santa Clara County. Yes, you heard that right! The incumbent keeps public data collected at taxpayer expense behind a 47 thousand dollar paywall. That’s more than the annual budget of many small nonprofits for a spreadsheet file that fits onto a single CD. His excuse is it’s “not his job” to make this data available to the same people that pay for his budget.

Furthermore, what if you heard that the incumbent is even proud that our rents are increasing, because it benefits investors? I might add that these are the same investors that are presently outbidding first-time homebuyers! In the last decade, Santa Clara County homeownership has fallen 11.9%, according to the Santa Clara County Office of the Assessor’s 2020-2021 Annual Report, yet the incumbent claims in that same report that this is due to a “trend by Millenials [sic] to rent rather than buy.” Considering that rents are often higher than house payments, what else is going on? What insights might be gained from analyzing the data collected by the Assessor’s Office? Perhaps investors buying rental properties have priced first time buyers out of the market. What other factors might be blocking South Bay working families from getting out of the rental trap? Is this trap something the incumbent has helped to create? Some claim data isn’t valuable. Consider that the Assessor’s Office thinks it’s worth $47K, just see it.

We must escape this “Stone Age”, and as Assessor Andrew Crockett, I will make sure the Assessor’s data is available to appropriate stakeholders, and work with them to make the information useful to their needs.

You paid for this data: and I want you to benefit from it - with better planned communities, ample housing, and the ability for anyone who wants to buy a home to have an honest chance at achieving that dream.

Andrew Crockett’s Core Positions: HONESTY

Other organizations have independent audits, why not the Assessor?

Would you trust a college diploma printed on kleenex?

Would you trust a high school transcript that the student created for themself?

Would you trust an organization that never issued audited financial statements?

Would you trust an Annual Report whose figures were never independently confirmed?

Over the past three decades the Annual Report issued by the Santa Clara County Assessor’s Office, printed at Taxpayer expense, has devolved into propaganda literature to aid in the incumbent’s reelection. As a CPA, I know the value of audits and transparency. Given the obvious conflict of interest, a higher standard of proof is demanded for its financial claims. As Assessor, I will guarantee that this document becomes a record of public accountability, containing relevant information verified by independent review external to Santa Clara County government.

For over 25 years the Assessor’s Office has operated with a veil of secrecy around its finances. The incumbent celebrates publicly how he has saved money by starving the Assessor’s Office of budgeted operating funds, returning money unspent. Yet he never issues independently audited financial statements to prove how decades of economic malnourishment have benefited the office. The numbers don’t add up: the only external oversight is offered through a countywide consolidated financial statement. In this statement, all accounts from across Santa Clara County are mixed together. This high-level accounting creates a prime opportunity for deception to flourish. We deserve better than this: we deserve annual financial statements from the Assessor’s Office, audited by independent auditors external to Santa Clara County government. This key office should be accountable to the public’s trust.

Does financial accountability matter to you? Then vote for me, Andrew Crockett, Certified Public Accountant, for Santa Clara County Assessor. As Assessor, I will ensure independently audited Financial Statements and retain external review services to certify the accuracy of the Annual Report of the Santa Clara County Assessor’s Office.

Who is Crockett?

Who I am is that each of us belongs. I am a willing servant to this vision because I have faced bullies in my life, and know the pain of ostracism. Meanwhile, I credit the themes voiced in Star Trek with giving me the hope to carry forward, as they inspired me when I was a kid with a world where no one is left out or left behind - a future we can build together.

This commitment to inclusion has shaped my life in several ways:

• I work in civil service as a Financial Analyst - having earned my Certified Public Accountant license while doing so - because I see governmental fiscal stewardship as being key to the sense of fairness.

• I volunteer with the Registrar of Voters for almost every election since 2008, because few things say “you belong” like enfranchisement.

• I actively participate with my union, the County Employee Management Association (who recently endorsed me), because unions ensure our labor rights are upheld and our contracts are fair.

• I practice public history educational theater, with my focus being on historical truth-telling that is inclusive and relevant to all modern Americans. I find this to be an urgent matter, as who gets included in history conveys whether or not someone belongs. The most recent manifestation of this has been my role as Executive Producer of the upcoming feature-length documentary “Reenactress” which explores the little-known history of the women who fought as soldiers during the American Civil War and the reenactors who portray them.

• I am a Freemason with San José Lodge Number 10, because it gives me a community shaped by brotherly love where I belong.

Why is Crockett Running?

Compassion.

For all my friends and neighbors who have been pushed out of their homes. For my friends who cling to this valley, hidden in garages, living in attics, or sleeping in shifts in overcrowded housing - dreaming of one day owning a home. For my friends who have “made it” and are a mere layoff away from losing it all. I see you, and I am here for you.

Integrity.

We are a valley of genius. The people of this place generate innovations that earn us favorable comparison to Renaissance Italy. We are nerd mecca - and we can solve any problem we set our minds to here. This gives me hope that we are up to the challenge before us: to build a valley of inclusive prosperity.

Foundations Part 1 - Inquiry

A PLATFORM OF INQUIRY

A leader chooses a destination, and then facilitates the inquiry into how we can best get there: listening for the “gold”.

“A future where anyone who wants to own a home can buy a home.” I came to this stand through listening to the struggles and aspirations of my fellow South Bay residents. This was the essence of what all of us want for ourselves or for those we love. Contemplating what office could best facilitate this need, I choose the Assessor’s Office.

In the time ahead, I see there are three inquiries we must engage with to discover the path to that future: Public Civility, Climate Stability, and Ownership Opportunity.