Kitsap County Assessor Jim Avery has announced he will run for a second term in the November election.

A retired U.S. Navy Supply officer, Avery holds a BS in Business from the University of Idaho and an MBA from the University of Puget Sound. Following his Navy career he spent eight years in the Kitsap County real estate industry, including three years as the managing broker of the Port Orchard office of a large regional firm.

In only his first term, his peers in the Washington State Association of County Assessors elected Avery to the group’s executive board as the Puget Sound representative. He has also achieved full Washington State Real Property Assessment Accreditation, a noteworthy achievement for a large jurisdiction assessor, new to the business just four years ago.

Avery cites demystifying the property taxation process and providing a totally open assessment environment as accomplishments. He has done this by speaking on all aspects of property taxes to almost all county service clubs, chambers, and other civic groups, personally drafting letters or email responses and personally returning phone calls to hundreds of concerned taxpayers. He has also developed an extensive web site at www.kitsapgov.com/assr with information on property taxes.

Under Avery’s leadership, Kitsap County’s revaluation completion dates have improved each year, uniformity measurements have stayed well below statewide averages and national standards, while the staff size has been reduced.

As chair of the county’s Land Information System Steering Committee, he is working with the County Treasurer, Directors of Public Works, Community Development and Information Services, and Paladin Data Systems in Poulsbo to build a replacement computer system for an 18 year old Assessor-Treasurer legacy system. The new state of the art, integrated, relational database system, to be operational in January 2003, will merge the county’s Geographic Information System with the assessor-treasurer data and a new permitting system to create many operational efficiencies and increased public access to the information.