The following is a profile of one of the candidates for Santa Clara County Assessor. Longtime Assessor Larry Stone is retiring and four candidates have jumped into the race. Profiles of the other candidates are on the front page of padailypost.com.
BY DANIEL SCHRAGER
Daily Post Staff Writer
Former Saratoga City Councilman Rishi Kumar is running as the outsider candidate in the race to replace longtime Santa Clara County Assessor Larry Stone, who is retiring after 30 years in the office.
“I believe Larry Stone failed in his three decades and it’s not the time to pass the baton from one failure to the next,” Kumar said.
Kumar, 58, will appear on the ballot alongside Neysa Fligor, who Stone has endorsed, Yang Zhao and Bryan Do.
Kumar’s platform centers on property tax reforms and exemptions.
“There is a revolution brewing, there is change happening around the country with property tax and the viewpoint on that, and that’s really what we have brought to the table,” Kumar said.
Kumar ran for Congress in 2024, 2022 and 2020. He lost to then-incumbent Anna Eshoo on his first two tries, earning 36.8% of the vote in 2020 and 42.2% in 2022. After Eshoo retired, Kumar received the sixth most votes in the race to replace her.
He served two terms on Saratoga’s council between 2015 and 2022. According to his social media, he’s the CEO of a company called EthosAI.
Senior exemption plan
Among his proposed property tax reforms is an exemption for seniors.
Kumar’s opponents have said that the assessor doesn’t have the authority to exempt seniors from property taxes.
Kumar said he’s still looking into how feasible that would be, but has come up with four possible options: go through the state Legislature, provide seniors with economic hardship-based deductions or propose a statewide ballot referendum to exempt seniors. Of thoseoptions, Kumar says a statewide referendum is most realistic.
“We are still sort of figuring out how to get it done,” Kumar said. “But the bottom line is I want to get it done.”
Other priorities
Kumar’s other property tax priorities include protecting Prop 13, which caps the property tax at 1%, and giving residents an easy way to report declines in property value.
“My objective is to send money back into the pockets of people,” Kumar said.
Kumar isn’t concerned that the lost tax revenue will impact the county’s budget, since he expects pushback against county spending to force local leaders to trim the budget.
“You leverage the platform and now have a megaphone and now you’re shouting about it… As the county assessor, I’ll be yelling and screaming whenever I see county wastage of taxpayer dollars,” Kumar said.
Another priority of Kumar’s would be automating the office’s appraisals.
He hopes to develop a model that can produce reliable assessments, although he knows it will likely need human oversight.
Kumar said he would aim to trim the office’s budget by $10 million, primarily through automation.
Please let Mr Kumar know that the assessor’s office does not set the tax law, they just enforce the law. Also why he is saying he is not the CEO of EthosAI. For last 30 years he is been running for office but no luck. He can try his luck in India. Perhaps there is opening there.
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How is he an outsider? He has been running for political office for a long time. He also has failed to gain meaningful traction and just seems to run for whatever position he try to get. All of his promises are not at all what the job does.