Furch taxes ignite as hot issue

Supervisoral candidate Rue Furch’s property taxes, unpaid for five years totalling $70,000, are back as an issue in the west county race that pits her against challenger Efren Carrillo.

Many political insiders have long anticipated it would re-emerge as a hot topic — a candidate who failed to pay taxes that fund the very services she would govern if elected.

Carrillo, a credit union financial counselor, raised the issue anew with a mailer that refers to a Web site called FurchFacts.com.

The mailer contains an abbreviated selection of documents that trail Furch’s sources of income, her house remodeling, her failure to pay five years of property taxes and her securing of loans to pay them off.

For more detailed documentation, the mailer refers voters to the Web site, which grew active last weekend with a “shout box” comment section that allows visitors to weigh in on Furch’s refinancing of the original loan, her use of a bad check to pay off overdue taxes, and her economic disclosure forms.

Furch, a county planning commissioner for 17 years, said:

“There are half truths on the mailer and Web site. It claims to have documentation in support of the Friends of Efren Carrillo mailer, but there is also no indication who is paying for the Web site.”

Carrillo said the mailer is designed to buttress his previous calls for Furch to disclose her income sources, including her income tax forms for the last five years.

“There is an issue around integrity,” he said. “It would give voters better insight why they ended up in such trouble on their property taxes.”

Furch declined to release her income tax statements, or those of her partner, environmental consultant Scott Stegeman, saying they aren’t pertinent to the race.

She said she paid her property taxes after getting a loan last December from developer Dennis Hunter and then last June obtained a replacement loan from Sequoia Pacific Mortgage. She has maintained that the original loan was secured through a broker and that she did not know the funder was a developer.

“In a lineup of two people, I could not pick out which one is Dennis Hunter,” she said.

She maintained there was nothing illegal in the transaction, adding “we refinanced as soon as I knew we had a problem.”

“I don’t know what he is after in looking for the income filings,” she said. “My income disclosure statement for my 17 years on the planning commission is what is pertinent.

Carrillo maintains that voters need to know more details about her income as well as her partner’s income because Stegeman is an consultant who often represents clients before the planning commission and supervisors. Carrillo also raises questions about why she initially borrowed $120,000, almost twice the amount of the back tax bill.

“I think the income tax returns will show whether she had a viable business or not,” Carrillo said. “Her actions should be fully transparent. The common theme here is an issue of integrity.”