|
Post by Clipper on Jan 15, 2012 23:22:20 GMT -5
The city doesn't really want to take the hotel. Gaetano is not going to allow it to get to a point of going for taxes to begin with, and the city is always going to do what it can to avoid seizing it for taxes. What the hell would the city do with it? It would be one more management headache for a city that cannot manage it's own affairs without infighting and corruption, much less manage a commercial enterprise and make a profit.
The city simply made a very expensive and dumb mistake in allowing the city to become responsible for the loan payments without any recourse or way to recover the money from the hotel's developer or management if the loan is in default. I guess you can thank Ed Hanna for that debacle.
|
|
|
Post by clarencebunsen on Jan 16, 2012 6:07:31 GMT -5
The city can't take it on the first day taxes are late, there is a process that has to be followed. The hotel has a history of being late with payments but making them before any foreclosure could take place. Often the payments have been made on the last day possible. There is no mechanism by which the city can say "You are chronically late with payments, therefore we will take your property." Late payments does not automatically equal unpaid taxes.
|
|
|
Post by dgriffin on Jan 16, 2012 10:33:16 GMT -5
Do you have a mechanism in Oneida County where the County kicks in the taxes when they are left unpaid to a municipality by a taxpayer and then assumes the collection responsibility? Or is that just for school taxes? At any rate, that would mitigate any pain suffered by the city and lessen the motivation to avoid such circumstances. Some might even consider it fun to stick it to the county, at least temporarily.
|
|
|
Post by clarencebunsen on Jan 16, 2012 11:48:09 GMT -5
At one time I believe it worked exactly the opposite in Utica, the city had primary collection responsibility. I'm working from memory, however. I also believe that may have changed to city & county collecting their own with the city responsible for school taxes.
The city had a huge inventory of properties seized for back taxes at one time & held frequent auctions. I attended one once because I had an interest in who would get the building next to the one we were renting. (The situation was rather strange. The city owned the building but didn't seem to have time to market it, so they left the key with me. If someone was interested in seeing it someone from Urban Renewal would call me & I would let them in. At least I knew the specs on the building.)
The auction was a circus. Fewer than half the buildings got any bids and those that did generally got only. One young couple bid $100 on a house and the Urban Renewal rep verbally abused them for the meager bid. The building I was watching had an actual auction with a winning bid of $50,000.
Later that day I got a call from Mayor Hanna asking me what I thought the building was worth. Still later I learned that the brother of a council person had expressed interest in the building and the Board of E&A rejected the bid.
All the deals on that building fell through & two years later the city sold it to a non-profit. A decade later it is still not on the tax rolls.
|
|
|
Post by Ralph on Jan 16, 2012 18:01:37 GMT -5
|
|