Bring on the tax sale! Tax sales are in everyone’s best interest. Just like other debt collection processes they provide a means that, although unpleasant if you are the debtor, allow for an effective means to preserve assets and collect from those that cannot or do not want to pay. Debt collection is never a pretty process. Be positive and look on the bright side. Of the two things that are certain in life, death and taxes, taxes is the more pleasant subject.
Today is the last tax sale of its kind in Vandergurgh County, I hope. Not because we do not need the tax sale or that it is an undesirable process, but because we will use the new tools legislated over the last couple of years in handling the tax sale process to make it a more positive, efficient, and effective process.  I hope to enlighten the Evansville naysayers and negative people who are standing in the way of implementing these new positive procedures. With your help we will influence City/County officials to work together and make positive changes that serve everyone’s best interest.
I see the C&P followed my Saturday feature – “If it is not Broken†then “Don’t fix itâ€- tax sale intro with their usual negative connotation of the tax sale in their Sunday edition. As usual they twisted fact and printed propaganda to support their chosen special interest – Evansville Brownfields Corp (Brownfields) – rather than a fair and unbiased positive approach. It is hard for me to believe that a newspaper would actually come out so blatantly misleading the public. When I read the last Paragraph of the C&P article where the King of propaganda himself, Mr. Kelly Coures, Director of the Department of Metropolitan Development (DMD) is quoted as saying the auction doesn’t work, I patted myself on the back for my Saturday feature – Bulls eye, it fits perfect. You should read it.
Now that Mr. Coures has introduced himself into this tax sale issue, I just have to provide a quote from him. Mr. Coures emailed me “Everything is not a Conspiracyâ€. Well maybe “everything†is not a conspiracy but this tax sale issue along with manipulation involving the expansion of the existing DMD owned Brownfields land banking operation appear to be a scheme for special interest instead of our best interest. With all the secret back room deals involving the Brownfields It might even be a conspiracy.
I am actually at the tax sale today to do my part in Keeping Evansville Beautiful. I selected a couple of lots to bid on. I have no use for them except to buy them, maintain them, and pay taxes on them. Yes, I am going to land bank them. One good thing about the USA is anyone can land bank. Look around Evansville and you will see literally thousands of land banked parcels. There are many different types of land banks right here in Evansville. Some are private individuals like myself, if successful today; Some are large corporations with a future purpose for the property; some are large corporations without a purpose that got stuck with them like the banks; some are charitable organizations with a cause like Habitat; some are governmental like the city or county; and one other that I know about is an animal all to its own: the Brownfields.
I am still learning about this tax sale process and how it relates to my positive mission of promoting the use of existing resources to help aging neighborhoods thrive. As I ask the how and why queries I am finding many components that seem questionable. Is there a good reason for these components or are they part of the scheme for special interest?
Is there a good reason to sell the properties without providing any Information? I hear the county does not have any information about them. Oh, but wait a minute, the City/County Building Commission inspected these houses back in the spring in preparation of the deal to stop the tax sale and give everything to the Brownfields. The city would also know and could easily post on line the amount of any weed, trash, or demolition assessments. It would be to everyone’s benefit to make this information public without the time delaying public access request. Why sell a property and then laugh at the buyer because he didn’t know what you knew. Be nice, tell potential buyers what you know at the time of the auction.
Is there a good reason not to educate neighboring owners that if they would be interested in adjoining property that they could buy it before the auction? Yes, the property does not have to go to the public sale where the whole world is bidding on an unknown grab bag that they may or may not want after opening it. Based on records I obtained through Public Access Request at least 25 properties were transferred in the last couple of months to adjacent owners for as little as one dollar each. I have also talked with adjoining owners that called the County Building Superintendent and were told they had to bid on the property at the auction.
Is there a good reason that 60 choice properties were quietly taken from the tax sale list and transferred to the City? The City plans to transfer these properties to the Brownfields land bank. Brownfields plans to sell these properties to? Why promote stopping the tax sale if properties can simply be pulled from the sale and given to Brownfields to land bank or market them? We should be positive and offer this deal to others willing to take the burden of owning the lots.
Is there a good reason these 55 to 75 homes that are repeatedly cycling through the tax sale are being blamed for the 1800 blighted structures that Evansville needs to address? Yes, there are only 170 or so properties and most are vacant lots. The number of actual problem properties related to the tax sale is small compared to the total number of problem properties.
Is there a good reason that we constantly hear the negative: that sixty percent of the houses sold return to the tax sale? I want to promote the positive. The process took care of 40% that did not return without costing the taxpayer a dime.
Is there a good reason that when I tried to promote neighborhood residents volunteering to perform simple mowing and trimming of abandoned properties as the City of South Bend does, Evansville officials intervened and discouraged the practice? Now that is truly a negative stance on my positive initiative for cleaning up the neighborhoods.
Is there a good reason that the news tries to spin facts and blame all the code violations and open case problems on these 170 properties? A recent email from the Building Commissioner stated that he had over 1300 open cases. We should be positive and solve the right problem.
Is there a good reason that per Sunday’s C&P the tax sale of this small quantity of parcels should be stopped, the parcels given to a land bank, Brownfields, which will cost millions to operate so Brownfields can get the properties in “the hands of competent developers� Don’t we already have City/County government functions that do that for all properties?
Well, I am sure you see I could go on and on. Please tune in to read my positive approach with specifics to fixing what is broken, not by depicting people as poor and stupid but by educating and shedding light on what we can do using existing resources to promote better neighborhoods.
By George Lumley
Today is NOT a tax sale! Today is a Commissioners Sale of properties that did NOT sale on previous tax sales in Vanderburgh County.
What ever one calls it, its still a cronies fueled ripoff, as usual in that god forsaken dumpy little town.
Lumbly is right, the process is archaic and needs some updating. The only people you hear opposing his input are those that have the back door feed line into the process. Aka: KC and the anti sunshine players…my that’s so ugly. This should be investigated by the Indiana Attorney Generals office. Period. The taxpayers raping has gone on far to long in that crooked little Burg.
There’s a real solution to blighted properties that does include a multifaceted systematic solution to some other looming issues your crappy little town faces, as well. You can just stick it we’ll keep that to our self for now. 😛
Not going there if I did some ugly old dried up, picked out crony would receive the profit from the solution. We’ll work that in a region where there is a open book for the bidding processes, that certainly eliminates Evansville for sure.
e·lim·i·nate
əˈliməˌnÄt/
(verb)
R/.1 completely remove or get rid of (something).
“a policy that would eliminate wasted funding”
(synonyms:) remove, get rid of, put an end to, do away with, end, stop, terminate, eradicate, destroy, annihilate, stamp out, wipe out, extinguish
“a policy that would eliminate blight”
“exclude” (someone or something) from consideration.
“the city has eliminated them from their inquiries”
synonyms: knock out, beat;
(a rival or political opponent).
Great article, George! T
Great article, George! The city is so good at giving tax abatements to every crony that comes along, it seems they could give a small one to people who are willing to buy and maintain vacant lots. Maybe 50% the first year, 40% the next, then 30% and so on, so that the sixth year of ownership would be the first year of a full tax bill. Most neighborhoods have a few people who can and will work to make them better in a realistic way. Maybe some who don’t have people who can do that could even find a “sponsor”. There has to be a way that those with the most skin in the game could benefit more and cronies and lackeys benefit less from the misfortune of others.
USA, I just asked between properties if this was a tax sale
Very funny yes from auctioneer and response from crowd. Got video, watch for it.
George: If your bids do bring you some properties I’ll make some useful contact. You see there are some processes we promote that makes once neglected properties a Vanguard investment for the whole communities future forward. Its in our science there, no one there can even has a conception of it. We’ll work strong with private investment such as yours, however if that terrible crooked DMD, or that city is involved the offer is strictly off the table! Be sure and post up what you might have secured, we will help, in doing that we will top and exceed anything those political creeps could ever imagine.
V: That sounds intriguing. I was successful on several properties. I plan to use one to demonstrate alternative ground cover. Vegetation can be expensive to maintain. Civil engineering students, one at Purdue and one at USI are interested in this for a school project. Mr. Coures said he pays about a thousand $$ a year to mow each land banked lot in the arts district. I asked him about the alternative cover and he said; NO. Per Mr. Coures all the experts were in Detroit at the conference he attended and you have to plant low growing clovers. I figure the Clover seed industry must have been a sponser of the after hours entertainment.
Well we all know Detroit is a failed answer, what is viable is a more southern realm replication, of imagination, so to speak . It in its commerce it has little to do with the dissolve of abandon properties in that crumby little town of Evansville.
But the plan has worked in other municipalities around the globe, seriously, to date. Its a fit, with that places inert political funding. Big money to those attending, and processing the real time issues. Cronies need not apply.
Thank you for your support…….
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