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Airmotive in Chino where we repaired airplanes that had supplied Berlin during the Russian blockade of that city. My experience with motor and flight controls at Douglas stood me in good stead . We used the money I earned at Pacific Airmotive to pay for Kay's "delivery" costs. It is a darn shame that she now hates to fly considering her "birth costs" came from an air craft repair company.
Although my relationship with Board Members was outwardly cordial I knew their resentment of me was still simmering underneath so I told them that as soon as I could find a suitable position I would leave Corona. I must give them credit for being patient because it was April of 1953 before I was able to find an acceptable position and submit my resignation to the Board. I hated to leave Corona where we had so many good friends but the petty attitude of the Board was intolerable. The Board subsequently hired a yacht broker from San Diego to take my place as Business Manager. They stated that they wanted a "Business Man" in that job. I went back after July 1 and helped develop a budget for 1953-54 but the Business Manager did not last long in that position and I suspect the Board did not give him a chance to succeed before they began to chew on him.
This part of this paper appears to be the appropriate place to comment about the County Assessor's impact on tax supported entities. The Assessor's duty is to establish the value of real property for tax purposes in accordance with State Law. Since there is a great variety of properties in each county and since the valuation of each property establishes the amount of tax an owner will pay, there is constant pressure by owners on Assessors to keep their values low. In Riverside County the Assessor always yielded to pressure from citrus growers and kept values of citrus groves at an unrealistically low level. A family could prosper greatly if they owned fifteen acres of lemon trees and they paid virtually no property taxes. Other kinds of property supported the local infra-structure and that property was mostly residential lots and houses. This situation resulted in Corona School District being "very poor" when in fact Corona was a very wealthy district and perfectly able to pay its own way but for the actions of the Assessor who gave in to the pressure from citrus growers. The State of California soon corrected this problem by establishing criteria for setting the value of various properties and then monitoring each county to make sure the procedures were being followed.
Lesser jurisdictions complain about their loss of authority to larger ones but when they cheat in carrying out their duties, they deserve to lose authority. If County Assessors did an honest job of establishing property values, the state would have no reason to check up on them.
