Forests_green_space

4:41 We like to keep them informed on what's going on with the fire department. We keep them informed on what's going on with the sheriff's department. And it's really a means for us to get information out that we think is critical. I think the celebration of the 30-year anniversary is important in that it highlights the fact that it's been a successful program. It's a way to foster community. Hi, I'm Marilyn McCall. I'm the Neighborhood Program Coordinator for Clark County. I've been in this position for 10 years. It's really special to be celebrating 30 full years as a Neighborhood Outreach Program. We've gone through a lot of changes and it's good to celebrate how far we've come and the things that we've accomplished and celebrate our volunteers that do such a great job in getting the information out to our community. My experiences with working with the neighborhood organizations has been really great.

5:37 We have really awesome volunteers in our neighborhood that have started food drives, they clean up the parks, they clean up the roads, and all of the organization that they do is all grassroots and it's really fantastic. For more information on the Clark County Neighborhood Program, please visit clark.wa.gov/neighborhoods. Each year, the Assessor's Office identifies and determines the value of all taxable and personal property in the county. Recently, we sat down with Clark County Assessor Peter VanNortwick to discuss how rising property values will impact property owners and learn what types of tax relief options are available. Hello, I'm Jim Demmon with Clark County Close-Up. Thank you so much for meeting with us. Good to be here, Jim. Well, we've done this before, but to remind viewers, what's the role of the County Assessor?

6:34 Well, the role of the County Assessor, the first thing is to value property for the purpose of taxation. That's what most people know the Assessor as. But one of the big roles of the Assessor is actually to protect the taxpayers to make sure that tax districts aren't asking to collect more in property taxes than they're illegally entitled to do. That's called the highest lawful levy, and so that's one of our jobs is to protect that. Once we have the highest lawful levy, then we determine based upon the assessed value what people are going to pay in property taxes. In addition to that, we oversee the annexation process, so if cities are trying to annex property into the city, we oversee that process.