Anne Ahrendt Responds to Announcement

Dear Editor:

I would like to address several inaccuracies in Mr. Donnie Sparkman’s letter announcing his candidacy for the office of Wakulla County Property Appraiser.

First, Mr. Sparkman is no longer a “registered land surveyor.” On January 11, 2007 a Final Order was issued by the Board of Professional Surveyors and Mappers against Mr. Sparkman, for reasons that Mr. Sparkman should explain. The Department of Business and Professional Regulation has placed him on probation and his license in inactive status. You may check the status of his license at DPBR’s website. It should be noted that it is against the law to hold yourself out as being licensed when you’re not and Mr. Sparkman’s advertisement to that effect is a clear violation.

Additionally, Mr. Sparkman needs to stop taking credit for my innovations and improvements that I made to the Property Appraiser’s office. I was the one that arranged for the training and hiring of personnel necessary to have in-house GIS (Geographic Information System) mapping. Furthermore, I approached Mr. Sparkman in his capacity as Community Development Director to allow us to place zoning information on the property appraiser’s GIS system so that concerned Wakulla citizens and other individuals could have easy access to the information. I was not even granted the courtesy of a reply to my offer. For Mr. Sparkman to take credit for the budget savings from in house mapping is outrageous.

There have been no innovations or improvements in the Property Appraiser’s office since Mr. Sparkman’s arrival. His courteous and professional staff is the same staff that I assembled during my tenure. Planned improvements to the website such as linking with County Clerk and the Tax Collector’s offices were in place prior to his taking office. Furthermore, if you depend on his website to gather comparable sales in your line of work, you are better served seeking another source for your information as his website neglects to list many qualified sales.

Finally, Mr. Sparkman’s “fixes”, as he terms them, will result in the most inequitable tax roll ever. Many of these “fixes” are no more than vote buying at taxpayers’ expense - pure and simple.

Anne Ahrendt
Crawfordville

This letter originally published on May 27, 2008.

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