MARTINEZ — Contra Costa County taxpayers may soon be on the hook for a settlement of a lawsuit accusing Assessor Gus Kramer of improperly slashing a property’s value by millions of dollars — then retaliating against the employee who raised alarms about it.
The potential payout under consideration by the county’s Board of Supervisors would cap another legal battle for the elected assessor, whose three-decade-long career has included campaign finance violation fines, a court judgement in another workplace retaliation lawsuit and allegations of “willful or corrupt” misconduct that ended in a mistrial.
The lawsuit filed against Contra Costa County has resurfaced concerns about manipulated property values during Kramer’s tenure, dating back to 2009, when he avoided paying $21,000 after his own property was underassessed, according to court records and media reports. That same year, Kramer’s office overvalued the vacant dirt lots of a developer with whom he had been publicly feuding, costing the company more than $200,000, according to previous reporting by this news organization…