Prang is a<\/a> graduate of James Madison College at Michigan State University with a B.A. in International Relations. In 2004, Mr. Prang completed the Program for Senior Executives in Local and State Government at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.\u00a0Professionally, Jeffrey Prang is a State Board of Equalization licensed appraiser, an Executive Committee member of the California Assessors\u2019 Association (CAA), and an active member of the International Association of Assessing Officers (IAAO) and the Society of Auditor-Appraisers (SAA). Before his election as Assessor, Jeff Prang served as a member of the Executive Staff in the Los Angeles County Office of the Assessor.\u00a0Prang previously served as Assistant City Manager for the City of Pico Rivera; Senior Advisor to the Los Angeles County Sheriff; Deputy to State Board of Equalization Chair, and current State Treasurer, John Chiang; Director of Public Information, City of Los Angeles Department of Animal Services; Press Deputy to Los Angeles City Council President Ruth Galanter; and Special Assistant to Los Angeles County Assessor Kenneth P. Hahn. In 1993, Prang completed the Los Angeles County Assessor\u2019s Real Estate Appraisal Training program. Prang began his career as a Realtor with Re\/Max Realty in Warren, Michigan. Prang served nearly 18 years as a councilmember for the City of West Hollywood, including four terms as mayor. He was elected Assessor in 2014.<\/p>\nHis website<\/a> indicates that his initiative has been the modernization of our outdated technology to ensure maximum efficiency, fairness, and accuracy in assessments.\u00a0Obsolete technology from 40 years ago, including a mainframe computer and paper-based, inflexible, and inefficient technology platformsand processes. In 2018, all property files were digitized, and a new mobile application has also been developed to serve as a \u201cmobile briefcase,\u201d allowing appraisers in the field to access all property data, retrieve digital records, sketch property diagrams, take photographs, and perform all functions. These seemingly simple tasks previously required in-office access to numerous programs, archived documents, and maps and later had to be electronically linked to the system. The complete technology transformation project is expected to be completed by early 2019 and will represent a new era in government assessment technology. (Alas, he says nothing about the cybersecurity of the effort). He also worked with the Board of Supervisors to raise the minimum threshold for reporting business property \u2013 from $2000 to $5000. He has a one-stop public service counter, and has opened access, through\u00a0the County\u2019s Open Data website, to unprecedented amount of property data going back 11 years, providing it in an easy-to-use format for free download. There are many more details on what he did, but color me impressed. It demonstrates even more that his challengers do not have a viable argument against him.<\/p>\n
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I recently got my sample ballot for the “Statewide Direct Primary Election” on June 5, and boy, is it going to be a confusing election for people. We have two contests with enough candidates to take two pages (27 candidates for Governor, 32 for Senator, and two contests for our assembly district: one for the “short term” because the previous assemblycritter left early thanks to #metoo, and one for the “full term”, with the same candidates). There are going to be a lot of posts as I work through this. Here’s the sequence as I see it (note: links to articles not yet posted will not work or may be incomplete):<\/p>\n