  Meeting
Report
January 9, 2004
Wayne Luney
Irene Hickman: Sacramento County's Colorful and Controversial Assessor
There was a
fairly small turnout for this meeting. However, the question and answer
session was quite lively. The following is Wayne's summary of his subject.
Irene Hickman
was an osteopath who ran for Sacramento County Assessor in 1966 and served
one term. She was quite outspoken and controversial.
She believed
in the Georgist1 idea of
taxing the free market rental value of land instead of improvements to
real property. She did what she could to keep land assessments current
(this was before Proposition 13), as land had typically been
under-assessed compared with buildings. She tried to assess real property
at 100% of market value, as the California Constitution then required, but
was told not to by the California Supreme Court. Apparently if a law is
consistently ignored over time it becomes illegal to obey it!
She was a new-age type, believed
in reincarnation, and said so publicly. There was an attempt to recall her
in 1968, but it failed. She was defeated for re-election in 1970, moved
out of state in the 1970s and died in late 2002 in Missouri.
1
According to the philosophy of Henry George.
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