City real estate agent files run for Spokane County assessor

A municipal real estate agent and apocalyptic author is the latest candidate hoping to unseat Spokane County Assessor Ralph Baker.

Terry L. Cook, 62, registered his Republican candidacy with the state Public Disclosure Commission on April 8, the day after he registered to vote in Spokane County.

Cook and his wife, former Idaho residents, bought a home two years ago in the 19800 block of North Hazard Road.

“I was so disappointed in the candidates that were running,” Cook said of his failure to register to vote in Spokane County until now. “I didn’t want Bush or Obama.”

Previously announced assessor candidates include Baker and one of his deputies, Vicki Horton, both Republicans, and software programmer Andrew Jackson, who is a Democrat.

Cook describes himself as a “conservative Christian” author, and has written 20 books since the mid-1990s warning of dire conditions facing the United States. One of his latest, about President Barack Obama, is titled “Obama’s Nation! Obama’s Nation is Now a Communist Abomination!”

A summary of the book, on the ArmageddonBooks.com website, says “B. Hussein Obama was programmed for years by his atheist, Muslim, communist, sex-pervert father, Frank Marshall Davis.”

Davis was a radical black activist who died in 1987 at age 81.

Pressed about whether he really was saying the president is Davis’ illegitimate son, Cook said, “Based on all available evidence, it appears that Frank Davis was the actual father of Mr. Obama, yes.”

Some of Cook’s other book titles are: “The Mark of the New World Order,” “America’s Hostile Takeover! The USA’s Soon-Coming Military Dictatorship” and “Food Armageddon 2012! Wake Up America! A Horrible Food Shortage and Famine Is Coming in 2012.”

Cook said his real estate background makes him “probably the most qualified candidate ever to have filed for this position.”

He is a $65,479-a-year senior real estate agent who handles property transactions for the city of Spokane. Before the city hired him in February 2000, Cook says, he previously worked about eight years in real estate jobs for the state of California.

Cook said he also holds two bachelor’s degrees and was a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy.

He was critical of Spokane’s management of its three-person real estate office.

“Our Sister City on the other side of the world has nine people,” he said. “We have three,” and one of those positions is vacant.

“We should have nine people,” Cook said.

As assessor, he would put a stop to an aerial photography program Baker hopes will compensate for staff reductions. “I don’t want Big Brother’s cameras in my backyard or your backyard,” Cook said.

Also, he wants an audit of the assessor’s office, “because I think there’s some really unprofessional things going on, perhaps some valuations that are favoritism.”

Public records show Cook paid $457,500 for his home in May 2008. Although the assessed value has been rising since then, the home currently is assessed at $352,760.