Endorsement: Re-elect Jeff Prang as Los Angeles County assessor

When they are not affixing values to property, incumbent Los Angeles County assessors spend most of their time explaining to constituents that no, they are not the taxman as such – not the office to which our property taxes are paid.

Rather, their job is simply to determine how much real estate – and, for some reason, private boats and airplanes as well – is worth. It's up to the office of the Los Angeles County tax collector, an appointed, not elected, role, to say how much you need to pay the county for that privilege.

Assessors only tend to hit the news when they are elected for oddball reasons – Kenneth P. Hahn shared a name with a famous county supervisor – or are involved in scandal, as with former Assessor John Noguez, who 13 years ago was arrested and charged with 24 felony counts of bribery, conspiracy and misappropriation by a public officer and whose case is only being brought to trial this year.

Current Assessor Jeff Prang was elected after that scandal, in 2014, and was re-elected in 2018 and 2022. He's done a commendable job in the obscure office, and deserves re-election on June 2. He's been successful in modernizing his office's property-assessment technology in recent years and in managing a department with over 1,400 employees that is the foundation for a system that provides the revenue for the nation's largest county.

In an interview with the editorial board, Prang was asked what effect the devastation of the Eaton and Palisades fires in January 2025 would have on his office.

"I'm focusing on that a lot these days," Prang said. "There were about 18,000 properties destroyed or damaged in the fires. In December of 2024, we had been predicting about a 4% growth for property valuation in the county. We've tooled that down to 3.25%, a loss of about $200 billion in value. And many people deserved refunds" as their property values went down.

"We applied the reductions in value whether people asked for them or not."

Because he is charged with assessing the value of private planes in the county, Prang said he was proud of his department developing new software that uncovered aircraft that weren't being reported – almost 1,000 of them. And he's also developed new training methods for junior assessors in a county with complicated values and a $965,000 median price for homes.

Prang is facing opposition on the ballot.

Stephen Adamus is the harshest critic of them, having sued Prang and alleging favoritism by Prang. Adamus vows that unlike Prang he "will not be influenced by the well connected." But such charges demand substantiated evidence of wrongdoing.

Meanwhile, challenger Rob Newland argues it's time for the office to simply have fresh leadership that can do things better. "The Assessor's office performs an essential function and employs many dedicated professionals. However, I believe the office has an opportunity to become far more proactive in how it uses its data and communicates with the public."

That sounds fine, but in Prang we've seen an assessor who is constantly trying to boost the visibility and efficacy of the office.

Ultimately, voters don’t need to overthink this one. Prang, efficient, innovative and a consistent defender of Proposition 13, gets our vote and he deserves yours, too.

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This story was originally published April 15, 2026 at 2:46 PM.