Re-Elect Lloyd Hara for King County Assessor

Since being blessed with the privilege of being your County Assessor, Lloyd Hara has made many fine accomplishments in service to the public. He has improved public accessibility to all the information used to assess individual properties, he has personally visited all 39 cities and all unincorporated areas of King County, to provide education and outreach, and he has reduced appeals into the office by 50% since he began his term – a strong signal of public confidence in his work. Now, with another election coming to determine the next County Assessor, Lloyd needs your help. He wants to continue to serve you as a fair and knowledgeable Assessor, just as he has done since taking office. During his time as County Assessor, Lloyd had delivered on every promise and exceeded others. As an independent-minded public interest watchdog who has studied, taught, and practiced public finance at an expert level, he is leading a cycle of renewal in the Department of Assessments.

Being a public servant with a solid reputation for transparency and straight talk, Lloyd represents the Department most effectively to a deeply distressed taxpaying public. He holds a Master's Degree in Public Administration and a Bachelor's in Economics from the UW, where he also finished all but a dissertation for a Doctorate in Political Science.

Lloyd is a well known and well liked County Assessor. His bid for reelection has already been endorsed by over 40 state legislators, over 40 mayors and other local elected officials, as well as a dozen current and former county-wide elected officials. He is also endorsed by 27 of his fellow Assessors in counties across the state, a growing roster of civic, labor, and district political organizations, and over 300 leading citizens – including Attorney General Bob Ferguson, former State Auditor Brian Sonntag, and former Governor Gary Locke and Mike Lowry.

Lloyd and enjoyed and been privileged to be asked to be your County Assessor, and he now asks to continue the job he started. Lloyd is a strong, competent, and professional man who has proven his abilities as Assessor for King County. He hopes he can count on your support to persevere in the task he has been doing so well.

When Election Day comes, please remember who has already served you so faithfully. Please vote to reelect Lloyd Hara as County Assessor for King County.

Retired Seahawks Cornerback, Marcus Trufant

Marcus was born on Christmas day in 1980 in Tacoma, WA. He went to Washington State and was drafted into the NFL in 2003 as a cornerback for the Seattle Seahawks. In April of 2014 Marcus retired and is now heavily involved in the Trufant Family Foundation and other charity projects.

The mission of the Foundation is show how being of service to others through the giving of time, resources and ourselves is an example of love for the benefit of children, adults and families in the communities we live in. By taking one person at a time and sharing our success is truly how we show that all things are possible and you can achieve what you believe you can.

The Trufant Family Foundation hosts fundraising and other programs that help individuals and companies to become participants in causes that will really affect in a positive way the lives of children. This will hopefully make them want to become successful in the communities in which they live.

Marcus also co-hosts the Barbershop show with his friend Terry ‘T-Holla’ Hollimon every week on The Barbershop website www.barbershop206.com. This show isn’t your normal sports show. Yes, they do the scores and the latest in statistics, but they really have a good time plus their own experience. The reason it’s called ‘The Barbershop’ is cause that’s how you will feel while tuning them in.

Marcus is the founder of the NW Cougars too! As you are beginning to see, he doesn’t let any grass grow under his feet. The Cougars is a brand new football team and our mission is to try to unite the youth and parents within the community. We want to provide an all year sports program to helping them to be able to reach any goals either in or out of the sports arena they desire to get into.

The Trufant Family Foundation also puts on an annual charity event each winter called the 

Annual Marcus Trufant Celebrity Bowling & Billiard Classic. This year will be the 11^th such event. It takes place on Tuesday, December 11^th between 5:00 PM and 9:00 PM. 

Plus the Barbershop with Marcus puts on an annual Halloween Party – this year on October 30^th at the Stone Lounge in Bellevue. This event has been a great party every year and this will prove to be no exception. 

One last item would be the annual Huskers vs Cougars ‘Rivalry Clash’. This is a 5K and a 10K. This is Washington’s largest in-state rivalry. The Barbershop and Marcus have put this on for three years now and they have tremendous turnouts. Come on out and enjoy the fun. 

Marcus Trufant is one of those people you meet in life and will never forget. He has a talent for making things happen and he has spent his life doing just that. His charity projects are well known and he personally participates in all of them. He is most definitely much more than a retired football player.

Re-Elect Lloyd Hara for King County Assessor 2015

King 5 TV included the new application LocalScape.property. My office joined property information, training, grants, deals, registration, and other discriminating data into a dazzling GIS map that even permits the client to draw their own particular modified limits! Patterns like worth changes over a couple of years to monetary action is open all in one stop! The data changes into "on the fly" as you explore the site.

How the new tool came into shape?

Since the introduction of the new technology that new application at King 5 TV has been running super smoothly. This is mainly because the website has been launched by Lloyd Hara himself. According to Lloyd Hara, the County burned through $50,000, and 7 months, assembling the site, which additionally incorporates license information, area utilization zones, and school region data. The site likewise incorporates present, individual assessment demand data. Lloyd Hara says he trusts the information rich site has different down to earth purposes.

Lloyd Hara further points out that they extraordinarily enhanced open openness to all the data we use to survey singular properties. They went to every one of the 39 urban communities and every unincorporated region of King County to give training and effort. Since taking office claims into the workplace are down half flagging more open trust in our work!

Reaction from neighbors

Lloyd Hara simply began conveying evaluation notification to neighborhoods, including East Ballard. He says that area went up 11.5 percent in worth in 2015. He trusts the evaluations will demonstrate that most neighborhoods will be equivalent, or over 2008 top levels. He trusts the site can in the end lead to the end of the mailings, and save money on postage long haul.

Technology and innovation

The King County are the first Assessor's office in the country to utilize IPADs in the field, significantly expanding efficiency and giving snappier data readily available. We killed the need to travel downtown to survey and record an offer with the dispatch of appeals. The device helps you contrast your home with comparable homes and on the off chance that you choose to record an advance you can inside of minutes on the web. In just the second year, 52% of all claims were gotten on the web. This enormously lessened "paper pursuing" and enhanced our reaction time.

Awards for technological advancement

After the launch of the new tool King County has grabbed numerous awards which include

• Award for innovation and public education
• Best Evaluation Jurisdiction
• Honor for Technology and Innovation
• WA State Excellence Award
• Maximum King County Worker Satisfaction scale as nominated by workers
• Best Civic Appointment Award and Public Learning Award

Along with all such awards they also possess the 2nd most checked in webpage of King County with more than 4 million page reads per month. They are also looking forward to create a property shop under one umbrella where any kind of property is easily assessable. They are looking forward to do more in the near future. They seek more vote and support to get re-elected.

Lloyd Hara for King County Assessor

The Atlantic Street Center

There are many non-profit organizations out there that deserve to be supported, but the ones that should be the focus of our attention as a society are those that help children and also help family members deal with all kinds of issues in their lives and get the support they deserve. The Atlantic Street Center makes sure that plenty of people can get the right kind of results from their needs and they always look ways to expand their help in the community.

The best thing about this particular organization is that they have been given plenty of awards for their accomplishments. They have the families count award, the social work agency of the year award and the neighborhood excellence award amongst others. There are thousands of people who have been able to get help for their problems thanks to the Atlantic Street Center. 

You can learn anything you need and want about this amazing organization through their website and they also have a phone number and email that you can call if you are interested in making a contribution to help them in their excellent cause and their outstanding community services. 

You can also become a volunteer and provide your help by sharing your skills in any way that can help the center. They have services that range from basic teaching for children, to counseling for adults in all kinds of issues related to depression, substance abuse, relationship issues and much more. They help people who have income that is below the federal poverty level and they also provide special services for single parents. 

There are many ways in which people can support this kind of centers and the Atlantic Street Center is definitely a very valuable place that deserve the attention of the community because it works for the community. 

Enjoying the company of 2Pac's mother (Afeni Shakur) for a weekend

Have you ever pondered what it would feel to be in the presence of arguably one of the most influential rappers of all time? Well so have I. Better yet one of the women who brought to the world the biggest hip hop icons of all time. Luckily for me I got the chance to do the latter and it was quite an experience. The icon in question was Tupac Shakur and the woman was none other than Afeni Shakur.

 Like most rappers, their circumstances and environment growing up greatly account for their rap careers and indeed their resonance with those growing up under similar circumstances. For those unfamiliar with Shakur’s background, he grew up from an early age with people who were involved with the Black Liberation Army and convicted of criminal offenses and were imprisoned. Afeni Shakur was quite an honor to meet and the setting for this meeting was Snoqualmie Casino.

 At this point it’s important to state that it would not have mattered if we had met in the middle of the Mojave Desert in a hungry and thirsty delirium, I would be just as excited. First, she acted as her own criminal defense attorney after being accused of taking part in numerous bombings as a member of the Panthers. Afeni founded the Georgia-based Tupac Amaru Shakur Foundation, which provides art programs for young people, and Amaru Entertainment, the holding company for all Tupac's unreleased material. She however presents herself as a cool, collected and highly reflective woman despite her numerous challenges.

 As we sat across each other the slot machines rattled in the background, people laughed and chatted away oblivious of her presence.  ‘Dear Mama’ was released as the album’s first single in February 1995. It would go on to be the album’s most successful single, topping the Hot Rap Singles chart and peaking at the ninth spot on the Billboard Hot 100. This was directed at the lady sitting across from me. I asked if this motivated her to preserve Shakur’s legacy to such an unparalleled extent but her motivation was that her son’s legacy needed to be shared, to give hope to those that grew up under similar circumstances to those like her son who needed  ‘a leadership void amongst hip-hop artistes’.

 His mother founded the Shakur Family Foundation which sponsors essay contests and offers undergraduate scholarships. Her son spoke with brilliance and insight as someone who bears to witness to the pain of those who would have never have his platform and this clearly was forged from his mother and other figures that surrounded him. Afeni is an intellectual, focused and strong willed who still remembers to make the most of life. ‘Dear Mama’ depicts this and pays homage to all mothers struggling to maintain a family in the face of poverty, and societal indifference. 

So what did I get out of this meeting? That perseverance is molded from hardship, that suffering does build character and that bravery is infectious.

Ton Tran

CEO of BYTE ME