Candidate shares her side of tax story

Real life is seldom as tidy and simple as news stories sometimes make it appear. I've come under fire in Press Democrat news articles and an editorial because of my inability to pay my property taxes a few years ago.

I deserve criticism for that, but the articles and editorial have told only a small, lopsided part of the story.

Let me tell you what really happened.

My partner, Scot Stegeman, and I are both independent consultants. Scot consults in the area of land use and environmental issues. In the last few years I have worked primarily with nonprofits, although I have done marketing and other for-profit work in the past.

In the spring of 2000, we both experienced lean times in our consulting practices. The resulting cash flow crisis meant we were unable to pay our property taxes.

In June 2005, after our businesses picked up and we finally got on our feet again, we contacted the county, paid our current year's taxes in full, and set up a standard five-year installment plan that allowed us to pay back part of what we owed each year in addition to paying taxes for the current year.

At that point, we owed Sonoma County a total of $47,865 in back taxes and interest. We paid $9,573 in 2005, $15,317 in 2006 and made a final payment of $46,495 in December 2007, completely paying all our back taxes plus interest and penalties.

That totals $71,385 that we have paid to the county.

In the spring of last year, Scot's clients were late in paying him, so he asked the county for an extension of time to make our spring property tax and installment payment. The county granted that extension.

That's when Murphy's law took over.

To our surprise, on June 6th a default notice appeared in the newspaper. We were dumbfounded and called the county, only to learn that the agreement to the extension had, for some reason, not made it into our file.

Assistant tax collector Pam Johnson has told The Press Democrat we could have stayed in the installment program and continued to make payments.

But the person we spoke with at the tax collector's office told us the default meant we had to pay the entire amount of back taxes, plus penalties, plus interest by Dec. 10.

Because of this, we sought a second mortgage -- a task made difficult by the current mortgage lending crunch.

We contacted an independent mortgage broker. The broker arranged a loan for us with Dennis Hunter. The terms were not particularly favorable, but we believed we could lose our home. I am now in the process of obtaining new financing to avoid any appearance of conflict of interest on my part.

For the last 16 years as a Sonoma County Planning Commissioner, I have worked very hard to make decisions that are in the best interests of the public.

As a supervisor, I will continue to serve the people of the Fifth District as faithfully and well.

Rue Furch is a Sebastopol resident, a county planning commissioner and a Fifth Supervisorial District candidate.

For more information, you can go to my Web site, www.ruefurchforsupervisor.com or you can email me at rue@ruefurchforsupervisor.com