Here are some notes from today’s commission meeting.
Payment Plan Audit Questions
Terry Sercer has yet to provide the commissioners with a timeline for when the audit and report will be completed. The commission wasn’t clear if the report would come to them or go to the county attorney or the attorney general. Jingles Endicott will contact Mr. Sercer and have an update on the timeline for Friday’s meeting.
Susan Porter (former employee in the treasurer’s office) said she believed that some of the taxes that were left off of the previous sale went all the pay back to 2004 and that some of those properties were not ever submitted to the abstract office so they never got to the point where the county commission could decided whether or not they were to be put on the tax sale.
The commission was asked if properties that were left out of the paper actually had the redemption start date triggered. They said they had not heard back from Dan Meara regarding the issue of whether or not payment plan properties can be sold. (more info on this issue)
Evidently last Friday someone was at the commission meeting who was five years delinquent and was wondering how many years he would need to pay in order to keep his property off the tax sale. Terri Johnson (County Attorney) is still checking into whether or not the property could be partially redeemed or not. She has asked the treasurer for a copy of the newspaper publications for the previous years to see if this particular property was listed or not.
Gene Cowen asked why the payment plan contracts were not signed. Jingles Endicott explained that the contract didn’t allow the property owner to do anything different than they could have done without the payment plan so whether they were signed or not didn’t really matter.
Vicious dog question
Curtis O’Dell had some questions about vicious dogs in the county. He said has had problems with his neighborhood pit bulls attacking his family. He said that the sheriff’s department has been out there 5 or 6 times.
Harold Coleman said there is a vicious dog ordinance, but no leash laws in the county. He said you aren’t allowed to have a pit bull in Bourbon County, but it is very difficult to say whether or not a dog is a pit bull. He said that anyone who is bit needs to make a complaint. Curtis said there had been a complaint, but it was thrown out of court.
Commissioner Coleman said Mr. O’Dell should take the signed documentation of times the dogs have bit or chased people to the sheriff’s department.
Misc
- $200 to Hammond Community Center for their building.
- Dump site in Garland that needs to be cleaned up, but there is concern that the trash will just get moved down the road instead of being taken to the dump.
- The commission agreed to lease a rock quarry from the George Family Trust & other members of the George family.
Mark: Thank you for updating us again on the county commission meeting. I have a lot of thoughts but anyone that has read my posts to this point knows exactly what I am thinking.
I was at the County Clerk’s Office today around 2:00 pm and Terry Sercer was there getting a copy of a document so the audit is not yet finished. I do not see any negative reflection on Terry Sercer for the length of time it is taking as it has to be a mess and a lot of questions must be answered.
Did you talk to Terry? Did he say if he was going to present the report on Friday or not?
No, I talked with Joanne Long yesterday. I do wonder if the intention is to share it “openly” at the finish or not though depending on what was revealed. I think it is essential that the County Commission get some guidance about the statutes before telling people how the tax deal is going to work since the statutes have not been followed which leaves quite a mess to decipher. I imagine that many wait for that clarification.