Gus Kramer, Contra Costa assessor: Deals, deeds and doubts

Contra Costa Times ^ | 10/15/10 | Thomas Peele

[SmithL]

Contra Costa Tax Assessor Gus Kramer used an arcane real estate transaction known as a gift deed to acquire millions of dollars worth of property in the county during the past decade despite an ethics law limiting gifts to a few hundred dollars a year that a public official can accept from any one person.

Public records show Kramer obtained full or partial title to seven properties from 2000 to 2010 for which no money changed hands and no real estate transfer taxes were paid. Kramer didn't list three of those properties on his annual ethics disclosure statements, as required by state law.

Experts in ethics law said the gift transactions and lack of disclosure are troubling and should be investigated.

That Kramer didn't disclose anything about three of the properties "is a huge red flag," said former Fair Political Practices Commission chairwoman Liane Randolph. "I mean, he's the county assessor. He has to know the rules."

Those transactions appear to be more trouble for Kramer, who is already the subject of a county district attorney investigation into his personal real estate deals. The investigation, launched a year ago, followed a Times article in which a woman alleged that her name was forged on a gift deed. Kramer assumed half interest in the woman's property through the gift deed several months before buying it outright. Kramer denied wrongdoing.

Deputy district attorney Steven Bolen, who prosecutes political corruption Advertisement cases, said last week the Kramer probe is ongoing.

In his only response to numerous interview requests, Kramer wrote in an e-mail that he had done nothing wrong and that he believed receiving property titles through gift deeds differed from the definition of a gift in the ethics law.

Randolph, the former Fair Political Practices Commission chairwoman, disagreed....the (gift)limits would apply,"

[SmithL]

It is GOOD to be King (or Assessor)

[afraidfortherepublic]

We had a local assessor here who was a blind partner in many a transaction. We were tipped off by a realtor who spotted him at a closing. He was aware of pending zoning changes at City Hall and managed to acquire, at really cheap prices, pieces of farmland that were ripe to be developed. Nothing was ever done about it, and he retired a rich man. In one case he spun a sob story to the old farmer that somebody’s mentally challenged son was going to live in the old farm house and keep it up to get the farm at a really low price. Of course that never happened and the farm was sudivided into condos — an outcome that the farmer never intended.