Cities, County At Odds Over Foreclosure Process
By Patrick Fanelli pfanelli@post-journal.comThere's something to be gained by everyone when it comes to the way tax foreclosures are handled in Chautauqua County, but that doesn't stop participants from occasionally wondering who gets the better end of the bargain.
The county government is responsible for taking control of properties when the owners don't pay their taxes, and it's the county that reaps the rewards - namely, the proceeds from the annual tax foreclosure auction and from selling off the tax certificates.
It's also the county that pays back its 27 towns, 17 villages and two cities for all the unpaid property taxes, ensuring that local budgets don't suffer from delinquent property owners.
That relationship is generally an easy one for towns and villages that possess only a handful of homes that get seized by the county each year. It's a different story when it comes to Dunkirk and Jamestown, the county's two cities, which possess a combined two-thirds of the 500 homes that will be sold at the tax foreclosure auction later this month.
County legislators recently rejected a request from Dunkirk city officials to remove certain properties from the upcoming tax foreclosure auction and transfer them to Dunkirk's control so they can be demolished at the city's expense. During the debate, one legislator complained that Dunkirk and Jamestown are trying to have the best of both worlds.
''As a legislator representing a rural district, more and more issues seem to come out where the two cities in the county want to be handled in some special way that ultimately means taxpayers throughout the county will subsidize benefits that will go exclusively to Jamestown and Dunkirk,'' said County Legislator David Wilder, D-Silver Creek, when the issue came up Monday before the legislature's Administrative Services Committee.
County Legislator Robert Duff, R-Forestville, made the case on behalf of Dunkirk officials that removing the properties from the list and then handing them over to Dunkirk so the buildings could be demolished was in the best interest of everyone since these homes are in terrible shape and could not be brought up to code.
''The city is going to expend a lot of money to take these houses down,'' Duff said. ''They've done one heck of a good job down there with their own money and with their own efforts, and they are willing to do it again.''
Giving city officials back the properties when they've already paid for the back taxes would set an ''incredibly bad precedent,'' Wilder replied.
Allan Zurawski, Dunkirk building inspector, said it would be bad for those properties to be sold at the auction since they are in such lousy shape.
''I'd be really disappointed. We have homes that are not going to be occupied and are not going to be repaired,'' Zurawski said. ''Some are just beyond repair. Some have been around a while that have been troublesome for code enforcement.''
City officials in Jamestown sparred with the county over the tax foreclosure process last year. At issue was the fact that investors at the tax foreclosure auction weren't being told how much money it would take to fix up the buildings on which they were bidding. As a result, the same buildings would remain vacant and eventually return to the tax foreclosure auction in worse shape.
Jamestown city officials have also pointed to the cost of policing these properties - and occasionally putting out the fire when arsonists torch them - as evidence that both sides win and lose more or less equally.
''The expenses of babysitting these properties ... are all taken on by the municipalities,'' said Steve Centi, Jamestown city development director. ''We don't ask the county to reimburse us for those expenses.''
When it comes to the tax foreclosure process in towns and villages, the county makes money, says Darrin Schultz, county finance director. But it's a different story when it comes to Jamestown and Dunkirk. The county ends up losing money on its two cities because of the amount of back taxes compared to the revenue from the tax foreclosure auction, according to Schultz.
''That's been happening with the cities the last half-dozen auctions,'' Schultz said. ''It's just the state of housing in the cities.''
