Two appraisers in the Coos County Assessor’s Office are vying in the May Primary Election to succeed their boss, Steve Jansen, who intends to retire when his term expires in January.
It’s a four-year term and the winner would serve through 2028.
Jason Corbus, a residential appraiser, and Jeff Etzel, a commercial and industrial appraiser, have filed for election as Coos County assessor.
Their names will appear on the May 21 Primary Ballot, which will be mailed to voters by May 2, according to the Elections Department of the Coos County Clerk’s Office.
Corbus, 45, a Coquille resident since 1991, and a 1997 Coquille High School graduate, joined the Assessor’s Office in 2018 after working 20 years at Safeway. He attended Southwestern Oregon Community College, Coos Bay, for a time before entering the grocery business. After 20 years at Safeway in Coquille, the last 10 as grocery manager, Corbus realized that to advance with the company he’d have to leave Coquille.
“I wanted to remain in this community because I love it,” he said. He and his wife, Sheena, have two sons, Jaxon, 17, and Parker, 14. Sheena is a commercial loan officer at First Community Credit Union in Coquille.
Corbus is running for assessor “for the opportunity to make a bit of an impact in the office,” he said, adding that he wants “to take what we have and find ways to streamline and become more efficient” and to continue steps to improve data accuracy “and continue to press toward utilizing new technology for efficiency.”
In the past five years, he said, the assessor has focused on cross-training employees so more workers can handle more duties. The office has 15 employees, including four residential appraisers, each of whom work in specific geographic areas of the county.
“Jansen implemented new things and has gone to bat for us as far as staffing our office when we were down some employees and making sure our office stays well-staffed. That’s been a real big positive,” Corbus said, indicating he doesn’t intend to make a lot of changes in the office’s operations if he’s elected. “We’ve tried to make steps toward getting new mapping systems, like EagleView, which helps to view rural properties that are difficult to access.”
If elected, Corbus would like to implement steps toward more digital record keeping (and, therefore less paperwork) in the office, he said, “utilizing our mobile computers … to do our data input out in the field while visiting properties.”
As a residential appraiser, he’s often not welcomed to homeowners’ properties. He prides himself on facing sometimes hostile homeowners with a cheery attitude and pleasant demeanor.
“This happens a lot,” he said. “We go into a property and the owner doesn’t really want anything to do with us,” but with good people skills Corbus and his partner often are able to turn a hostile situation into an amicable one.
“We try to be on their side and work with them, not against them,” he said.
Appraisers work on a cycle, attempting to visit every property in the county once every six years.
“It used to be a hard and fast state rule,” Corbus said, “but not so much anymore. We try to get to every property through every appraisal cycle. It helps to be a lot more accurate, especially in rural areas — because there are structures we usually don’t know about — for the accuracy of our records.
“Things pop up all the time,” he added, referring to buildings on rural properties, sometime built without a permit.
Also seeking the assessor’s position is Jeff Etzel, a commercial and industrial appraiser who has worked in the Assessor’s Office nearly four years.
Etzel, 57, North Bend, has lived in Coos County since 2004, moving from Reedsport, where he worked five years in food service and more than 16 years with computer software. He grew up in Salem and graduated from North Salem High School in 1984. He has a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Baker College, Flint, Mich., which he earned online.
In high school, Etzel got a job at a local Dairy Queen, where he met his wife, Terri. He worked his way up in the company and became manager of the Reedsport store in April 1989 and married in August. He continued at the Reedsport restaurant until June 1994, when he made the move to the local software company. He and Terri, have two adult children, Matthew and Rachel.
The Etzels moved to Coos Bay in 2004, and he commuted to Reedsport. When he graduated magna cum laude in 2009 with his computer science degree, he was a computer programmer for the Reedsport firm. He remained there until December 2010, when he began repairing computers and working in construction. In about 2012, Etzel joined South Coast Office Supply in Coos Bay as a copier repair technician. He also was doing private commercial and industrial appraisals, mostly machinery and equipment, which led to him applying at the Coos County Assessor’s Office.
As the county’s only commercial-industrial appraiser, Etzel visits businesses with less than $1 million in improvements. State appraisers handle the larger industrial firms. His job involves measuring outside of structures and photographing the buildings and the surrounding area, if it’s a new business, and/or a new structure. City and county building permits usually trigger appraisals.
“We don’t chase sales,” he said. “We’re not like California.”
One of Etzel’s goals, if he’s elected, is educating taxpayers about what the Assessor’s Office does and doesn’t do.
“That’s part of what I want to do because we don’t raise your taxes,” he said. “We’re not the bad guys.”
Etzel said taxpayers raise their own taxes when they improve their properties. He also hopes to educate the public on how the tax system works and show people how they can get property and tax information on their own.
“Most people don’t understand,” he said, explaining that every property has three values, Real Market Value (RMV), the Maximum Assessed Value (MAV) and the Assessed Value (AV).
“You’re taxed on your Assessed Value,” he said. “The Assessed Value is equal to the lesser of the Real Market Value and the Maximum Assessed Value.”
If he’s elected, Etzel plans to continue the efforts of the office personnel, “giving what I think is pretty good customer service,” he said. “I enjoy helping people and I think I can help co-workers in ways that I can’t do now.
“We’re understaffed,” he added, “so there are ways we can work smarter. There are some efficiencies that I’d like to make.”
Etzel said the difference between residential and commercial appraising is that most houses are the same, with living rooms, kitchens, bedrooms and bathrooms.
“But with commercial, you’ve got different types of buildings with different kinds of businesses in them.”
Generally, he said appraisers use three methods of valuing a business or industrial property: a sales comparison, an income approach and a cost approach.
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