After spending seven years rebuilding “smoldering bridges,” Lake County Chief County Assessor Bob Glueckert retired this month, replaced by Nathan Herbst, the chair of the County Board of Review since 2022.
County Board members praised Glueckert, who stepped into the position in 2019 and got to work patching “strained relationships” with other assessor offices and handling numerous figurative fires across the county, they said.
“To put it metaphorically, it was a bunch of bridges that were smouldering; it was just really a bad environment,” member John Wasik recalled.
After joining, he was a key figure in an overhaul of the county’s tax software with the implementation of the Tyler Enterprise assessment and tax system, as well as the purging of duplicate addresses for thousands of residences in unincorporated areas that were causing issues for everything from emergency services to pizza deliveries.
Glueckert had previously served in Lake County in 2008 as a Board of Review member. He would later leave county government before returning in 2019 to become chief assessor. Glueckert said he was proud of the work the office had done in his seven years, praising his team.
Herbst comes from the real estate world, after shifting from a career in financial services during the COVID pandemic. He started with the Board of Review as an alternate when Glueckert became the chief assessor, later serving as a full member from 2021 to 2022 before becoming chair. Wednesday was Herbst’s first day as chief assessor.
He praised Glueckert’s work to “build bridges and solve some problems that had been open wounds for a lot of people for a long time,” pledging to continue the “compassion, responsibility and respect that Bob has.”
There are two big projects he expects in the near future: the Zion Nuclear Power Plant site will need to be revalued, as will open spaces — which have had their tax values left untouched for years now.
Open spaces are any parcels over 10 acres that meet several criteria and include properties like golf courses. They’ve sat at about $4,000 per acre for a decade, he said. Revaluing those during next year’s quadrennial will cause some agitation, Herbst said, with an “inevitable increase in land property values.”
“Everyone else has experienced mega inflation since 2016; a lot of these property owners have just been sitting pretty at a very, very low favorable treatment,” Herbst said. “There’s not any dirt in Lake County that is close to $4,000 an acre when you look at what you can buy in today’s market”
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But stepping into the shoes of Glueckert, there were “no fires” to put out right away, a testament to the work Glueckert had done.
Glueckert is leaving on a high note, he said, for personal reasons; a two-time cancer survivor, he needed to step away from a position that has grown increasingly stressful. In his view, the times have changed.
Before, even when in disagreement, “we could stick our hand out and shake,” Glueckert said. “Today, that world is much different. People come in; they’re frustrated with the size of tax bills, and it’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back. They come in, and it’s like ‘whoosh.’”
Herbst acknowledged the frustrations people can feel around high taxes, but he said the assessor’s office isn’t the right place to bring the issue, since it doesn’t set tax rates.
“We’ve already eaten the meal; we have to figure out how to split the check with the assessment process,” Herbst said. “Once it’s at the assessment office, it’s a little bit too late.”