The Township has hired a replacement for Linda Solakian, the beleaguered tax assessor who resigned in September following an overload of work and criticism. Edward R. Seeger Jr., the deputy tax assessor in Lacey for nearly five years, will take over starting Monday at a salary of $82,000, the township manager’s office said. Solakian left after 13 years (as first reported here on TLS) when public rebuke from some in the Orthodox community, coupled by an increasing workload, began to take a toll on her health, she said. Two township officials, Aivar Rannamyae, who has a tax assessor’s certificate, and tax attorney Salvatore Alfieri, ran the office in the interim.

Seeger now faces a daunting task. This year, a third of all tax appeals in the county — some 4,500 — were in Lakewood. APP