By Jane Smith
4/5/07 — Despite the fact that Crawford County courthouse records show delinquent real estate taxes for various parcels of land at Conneaut Lake Park date back to 1996, that doesn’t mean no payments have been made for 10 years.
Once taxes are delinquent for two years, the bills are sent to the Crawford County Tax Claim Bureau for collection. It is headed by Crawford County Treasurer Frederic Wagner, who has reported in the past that no taxes have been paid since 1996.
Actually, there have been at least three payments since then — in 1998, 2001 and 2002.
But by law, all tax payments must first be credited to the delinquent year before anything be credited to the current bill.
Thus, even though payments were made over the past nine years, credit for most of them went back to 1996, the year that former owner/operator Gary Harris purchased the park from bankruptcy.
In 1998, payments totaling close to $10,000 were received and credited to the 1996 taxes. On Jan. 18, 2001, the bureau received $22,287.81, which was ordered by the judge to be applied to the 1996 taxes, said Wagner recently.
In 2002, the park sold property it owned in Hayfield Township were a billboard was erected and taxes totaling $817.17 on that parcel were paid so it could be sold free of any tax liens.
Judy Hughes, former member of the Trustees of Conneaut Lake Park, said when she was on the board a payment was made for township and county taxes in August 2005, a month before the board resigned enmass.
The park sent the payment to Summit Township Tax Collector Pam Albaugh.
That’s true, said Albaugh this week. She said she accepted the funds and recorded them as payments of the 2005 taxes, even though she knew that was incorrect. Instead of sending the money to Wagner to be credited toward delinquent taxes, she sent them directly to Summit Township and to the county. Paid was $1,722.16 for Summit Township and $6,501.36 for the county’s portion. No payment was made for Conneaut School District taxes that year.
Although these payments have been made, the park’s delinquent property taxes total more than $470,000.
