CRISSY PASCUALE / Union-Tribune
Retiring county clerk Greg Smith poses with a single day's worth of paperwork filed at the County Administration offices for home loan mortgage refinances. The year was 2003, when mortgage money was plentiful and interest rates were low.
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SAN DIEGO – County Assessor-Recorder-Clerk Greg Smith is retiring after 25 years in public office for a job in the private sector.
Smith, who was first appointed to the job in 1983, is the longest-serving assessor in county history and the most-tenured assessor in the state, according to his resignation letter. His last day will be Dec. 31.
“While I had every intention of serving out the final two years of my term, I have a tremendous opportunity in the private sector that I simply cannot pass up,” Smith wrote in his Dec. 1 letter. “This will not involve me being a lobbyist, consultant or legislative advocate.”
He did not say what the new job was.
Smith recommended the county Board of Supervisors appoint his right-hand man, David Butler, to fill out the remaining two years of his term. He also said he would be supporting Jeffrey Olson, the office's division chief in charge of assessment services, in the 2010 election for the job.
Butler plans to promote Olson to his assistant to learn all aspects of the assessor's operations, Smith said.
“Jeffrey is a dynamic individual who has the passion and desire to run for this office and will make an outstanding candidate and future assessor,” Smith wrote.
Smith has had a challenging year in 2008, with gay marriage becoming legal under a court ruling and then illegal because of a ballot measure. He and his staff have also been busy re-assessing thousands of properties countywide as values have plunged in recent years.
Smith was appointed county assessor in 1983, filling out the term of hispredecessor, who resigned. He was elected assessor in 1984 and in twosubsequent elections.
The duties of the county clerk and recorder were added to the assessor's in 1994 and he ran for that new post. Smith was elected to run the larger operation and has won handily every four years since.
The assessor makes more than $167,000 annually and runs a 466-member staff.
Smith has recorded swaths of development countywide in his tenure. The number of parcels countywide increased by more than 350,000, to nearly 1 million total, during his 25 years. Assessed property values grew from $55 billion in 1983 to about $409 billion this year.
