ROBERTSDALE, Alabama — The Baldwin County Association of Realtors elected officers and directors for 2012 at its meeting Thursday at the Association of Realtors office in Robertsdale.

Jeff McLaurin was voted in as president for 2012 at Thursday’s meeting with Ginny Stopa as vice president and Linda Brokaw as secretary/treasurer.

Patrick Daily will serve as Southern Region vice president and Morgan Ashurst will serve as Central Region vice president. Kathy Bryars and Mary Jane Owen are Central Region local directors, while Frank Malone and Amy Stehmeyer will serve as Southern Region local directors.

State directors from the Association of Realtors for 2012 are McLaurin, Gloria Sims, Sharon Wright, Kathy Stastka, Rance Reehl, Mike Steward, Marie Kinsaul, Spence Monrow, Leonard Kaiser and Jay Jennings.

All positions were voted on unanimously on Thursday with no other nominations from the floor.

The following appointments to the 2012 Multiple Listing Service Board of Directors, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Association which operates the Association’s Internet listing service: Ginny Stopa, president; Mike Steward, vice president; Joe Webb, secretary/treasurer; Central Region directors, Jennifer Andrews, Amanda Holder and Jerri Mills; Southern Region directors, Craig Jackson, Melissa White and Carla Weeks.

Officers and Board members will be sworn in at the Associations December meeting.

Baldwin County Probate Judge Tim Russell spoke to the Association on Thursday about insurance and property tax reform.

While Baldwin County remains one of the largest property tax generators in the state, the county has taken a massive hit because of Hurricane Ivan in 2004, Hurricane Katrina in 2006 and more recently the Gulf oil spoil and tornadoes that ripped through the area in April.

Those events caused property evaluations to plummet in the county while insurance rates have skyrocketed.

“We were the second most taxed county in the state right up until Ivan and its recovery,” Russell said. “Now we are fifth in property tax revenue. I want to be first. It’s not about raising taxes. I don’t want to raise taxes. In my 10 years as mayor for the city of Foley we never raised taxes and we never raised taxes during the time I served on Governor Riley’s cabinet. What we need to do is change the way property values are assessed and get those values back up to the level they need to be.”

Much of the problems with insurance in the area stems from the fact that, since Ivan and Katrina, along with the other major weather events, wind coverage is now done separately from fire and other types of coverage, with the vast majority of companies handling wind coverage coming from outside the United States.

“Those companies don’t want to do business here, why should they when it costs so much more for them to do business here,” Russell said. “We’ve got to be able to reform the way business is done in order to reform the system.”

Another area being pushed for, Russell said, is the ability to use revenue generated from drilling in Weeks Bay and Mobile Bay to help boost the economy impacted by last year’s oil spill.

“We have $2.6 billion in a trust fund from oil and gas revenues,” he said. “All we’re asking for is for us to be able to use that money. If Jefferson County were generating billions in coal mining revenues and there was an accident which impacted those workers, I don’t think we would have a problem with using that money to help them. Why is there a problem with our using the money we generate to help businesses and residents who have been impacted?”

Russell, a native of Foley, served as the city’s mayor from 1996 to 2006 and was an officer with Baldwin Mutual Insurance in Foley when he resigned to take the position as treasurer of the Alabama Insurance Underwriting Association in 2006.

He was appointed to the Alabama Revenue Commission in 2008 before being appointed by Gov. Bob Riley in 2010 to fill the term of Probate Judge vacated by Adrian Johns.

In addition to his duties as a sitting mediator to approximately 1,200 cases per year, Russell said, his office is also charged with generating $40 million per year in revenue, which comes largely from the distribution of vehicle licenses.

“We are charged with generating $40 million,” he said. “I want that figure to be $100 million. We’ve got a lot of challenges we’re going to have to face to make that happen.”