Political Desk

By DAVID BATES
Of the News-Register

Scott Maytubby, a property tax appraiser for the past 17 years, has become the first to file for election to the nonpartisan county assessor post in the May 20 primary.

The Newberg resident filed quietly last fall with no formal announcement. He’s hoping to win the office now held by his boss, David Lawson, who has not publicly revealed his plans.

Maytubby, 45, was hired by then-Assessor Linda Stephenson in 1990. He moved to Oregon to take a job in Clatsop County, then had second thoughts about living on the coast.

He’d previously been employed by a company that developed software for tax appraiser use in government offices.

Yamhill County was not among his customers, but that served as his entree to government appraisal work. It was his job to help appraisers at both the state and local levels figure out how to use the company software, and to interface the data on their old systems with that on the new.

Maytubby said he had nothing against Lawson, but he feels he could squeeze more efficiencies out of a small staff: He’s one of seven appraisers, six of them full-time and one training under an internship program.

Maytubby has a Bachelor’s degree in business administration and finance from Central State University in Oklahoma. He also studied at the Appraisal Institute in Chicago, and he completed the Master Woodland Manager Program through Oregon State University’s Extension Service in 2002.

Although not new to appraising, Maytubby is new to politics. That’s why he hadn’t announced yet.

“To be honest, I thought it was kind of early,” he said. “I guess it’s that time of year.”

The assessor’s office is one of several up for grabs this year in the county, all on a nonpartisan basis. In multicandidate races where no candidate manages a majority in the primary, the winner will be decided via a two-way November runoff.

Three candidates are vying to replace Clerk Jan Coleman, who is retiring at the end of the year. They are Jeff Doty and Rebekah M. Stern Doll of Sheridan and Kent Van Cleave of McMinnville.

County Commissioner Leslie Lewis’ term is up this year in Position 2 on the three-member board. Neither she nor anyone else has filed to date, and she has not indicated her plans.

The same holds true for District Attorney Brad Berry and Treasurer Nancy Reed. Berry said last week that he’s currently mulling options with his family and expects to make a decision soon.