Board member Keith Kramer wrote to Page that he “agreed to serve on the Board as I wanted to serve my community. I thought I could contribute to improving the real estate assessment process in St. Louis County. I have found resistance to change and that change is not likely to occur.”

The position is not staying vacant. Page immediately appointed Thomas P. Craddock, whom Kramer had replaced in early 2018, and the County Council approved the appointment on Tuesday. Craddock had served several years on the board. Page “knows the importance of the board being fully filled as thousands of appeals come in this summer,” spokesman Doug Moore said in a text.

Appeal forms are due to the Board of Equalization by July 8. The board is bound by statute to begin its hearings on the first Monday in July and complete its work by the fourth Saturday in August.

Kramer, 69, who owns an appraisal business in Clayton, told the Post-Dispatch on Wednesday that the assessor’s computer-aided mass appraisal system created great numbers of values that taxpayers did not feel were accurate, creating a mountain of work for people handling the appeals.