he\u2019s mulling a campaign<\/a> for the post in next year\u2019s election.<\/p>\nA low-profile but crucial role in county government, the treasurer-tax collector manages the county\u2019s investment pool and oversees the collection of billions of dollars in property taxes each year.<\/p>\n
Two of the finalists \u2014 David Baker and Detra Williams \u2014 know plenty about the inner workings of the office.<\/p>\n
Baker, the chief deputy tax collector, and Williams, the office\u2019s special functions manager, have each worked in the office for decades and want a steady, experienced hand to lead it for the next year. Neither plans to run in 2026.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m concerned about major changes for just one year,\u201d Williams said in an interview Thursday during a public forum with the candidates. She noted it would take someone new to the office years to fully understand its operations and the money it oversees.<\/p>\n
New technological changes have come recently to the office, too. Only weeks ago, its 30-year-old legacy property tax system was replaced with an upgraded system that integrates records between the tax collector, the county assessor and controller<\/p>\n
Baker agreed the office doesn\u2019t need more disruptive change right now. \u201cI feel my position is to get the team through this transition,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
One finalist for the job has different thoughts.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis position has been dramatically underutilized,\u201d said Larry Cohen, chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Juan Vargas, a South Bay Democrat.<\/p>\n
Cohen was a San Diego City Hall staffer in the 1990s, then worked for pharmaceutical and life science companies, before taking the helm of Vargas\u2019 congressional office in 2020.\u00a0He aims to take an activist mindset as\u00a0treasurer-tax collector.<\/p>\n
The treasurer-tax collector could do more to screen investments to make sure the county isn\u2019t investing in companies that don\u2019t share its environmental and social values, Cohen said.<\/p>\n
He also wants to bring that effort to the county employee pension system. The county treasurer-tax collector holds a seat on the San Diego County Employee Retirement Association\u2019s nine-member board.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not going to be a caretaker,\u201d said Cohen, who plans to run for the office in 2026 only if appointed. \u201cNone of the\u00a0candidates have talked about vision or anything beyond managing daily operations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Finalist Christian Peacox, now Carlsbad treasurer, also plans to run for the seat in 2026 if supervisors choose him. He\u2019ll run for re-election otherwise.<\/p>\n
Peacox points to his record on transparency in his time as his city\u2019s top financial official.<\/p>\n
After being elected to his current post last year, Peacox said he discovered investments the city had made that were illegal under state law. He got them reversed at no cost to the city.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not my goal to fix something that\u2019s broken,\u201d Peacox said of the treasurer-tax collector\u2019s office at Thursday\u2019s forum. \u201cIt\u2019s to build on that legacy and make it better through technology, efficiency and increased transparency.\u201d<\/p>\n
The forum, held at the county\u2019s operations center in Kearny Mesa, was attended largely by employees of the treasurer-tax collector\u2019s office who were hoping to hear more from the finalists who could become their new boss.<\/p>\n
But attendee John Conrad, an accountant at UCSD Health, said he\u2019d feel satisfied with the supervisors appointing any of the final four candidates.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf it were up to me to make a decision, it would be hard,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The next treasurer-tax collector of San Diego County could be someone who sees the job as a temporary…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":348438,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,1370,728,8629,50,80,3549,7264,7289,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-348437","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-latest-headlines","12":"tag-local-news","13":"tag-local-politics","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-politics","16":"tag-san-diego","17":"tag-sandiego","18":"tag-top-stories-sdut","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-united-states-of-america","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","23":"tag-us","24":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115475609367827727","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348437\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/348438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}