Washington County assessor-elect says his mouth got away from him in saying he didn’t want the job

Nathan Miller’s claim to fame at this point is that he’s the assessor-elect for Washington County – the guy who didn’t want the job but who will now have it come January. 

He says the not wanting it part got a little, if not a lot, overblown during his run for office. A misquote, a misinterpretation, or just his stupid mouth, as he put it. Somewhere in there the idea that he was not up for the job took root and maybe shouldn’t have.

Miller, known as Nature to his friends, decided to throw his name in the hat for the assessor’s position, spending all of $225 on some signs. His opponent was 12-year incumbent Russell Hill. The key element here is that Miller is a Democrat and Hill is a Republican. And the same blue wave that swept across the country on election night swept away Washington County’s Hill, even though he was apparently doing a fine job. By about a 500-vote margin, the wave ushered in Miller, who lives on a farm near Elkins with his wife and two girls and, at age 51, has never worked in an office. And he’s got the grizzled beard and knee-holed overalls to prove it.

“I definitely wanted the job or I wouldn’t have applied for it,” he said, pausing to talk for a few minutes in his woodshop where he was making some shelves. “That was a misquote, but it wasn’t totally a misquote.”

What got him into trouble was what he said on social media, which, dang it, people actually saw.

“I have a TikTok account that I don’t take seriously,” he said, a gobbler interrupting Miller with a loud gobble. “Sorry, it’s a little like Dr. Dolittle around here with farm animals. I take pictures of lambs and turkeys and put them on there, that sorta thing. I didn’t think I stood a chance, so I was on there joking around that I didn’t even want the job, spouting something like that. I’ve got to learn to watch my stupid mouth. That’s about the size of it.”

As it turns out, Miller, a retired carpenter and construction worker, is pretty jazzed about the new job, having worked around new home construction for many years and seen how developments affect real estate. Oh, and there will be handshaking and meeting the public – he thinks there will be a lot of that. 

On his TikTok page, Miller recently posted a hello message to the public. “I reckon I’m your county assessor,” he said, adding that he was still rather shocked by the turn of events, then shaking his head violently like a dog clearing its ears of bath water. 

But he said he does have a lot to learn. At most, he has had a couple or so employees at any given time, and now he’ll have 30. He’s also loving the idea of the hours – 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. A contractor gets after it at 7 in the morning, he said – as early as the neighborhood association will allow. “That’s cool,” he said, adding that working a day job will push his farm duties to the earlier and later hours of the day.

For his part, incumbent Hill said he wasn’t sure where life will now take him, but said the fact that Miller doesn’t have assessor-ing experience was not all that troubling.

“When I was elected, I didn’t have the first thought about how to do it either,” he said. “He does have a great staff, and there are a lot of things in place, but eventually there will be hard decisions to make, and they will be looking to him and asking, ‘What are we going to do?’ It took me about two years to get my feet under me.”

Hill said losing at the ballot box was, in some ways, a relief.

“2027 was shaping up to be a very, very difficult year,” he said. “There was a time when property valuations were pretty flat. Then in Washington County, valuations were rising quickly, like a race car. Now it’s a rocket ship. So in mid year, Miller will be sending out 110,000 letters to property owners about changes in valuations and then having to defend those decisions. So he has a lot headed his way and very quickly.”

Asked how much his new job pays, Miller said he had avoided looking because he just didn’t want to think about his prospects in that way. But he peeked recently.

So how much is it, we asked, $80,000? 

“More,” he said. “One fifty-five. Washington County has a little more money than a lot of other counties. We haven’t had much income around here in awhile. So that made dad feel a whole lot better about taking care of his family, for sure.”