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January 2, 2009

Tax-debt sale purchasing group wants to help, not hurt park

By Keith Gushard

01/03/09 — SUMMIT TOWNSHIP — “Our intent is in historic preservation of the park and our intent is to cause it to happen,” Peter Acker said Friday.

Acker, of Hermitage in Mercer County, is the attorney for First Capital Finance Inc., which had the lone bid that bought some of Conneaut Lake Park’s outstanding debt from Summit Township.

The agency submitted the only bid of $200,000 — for an approximate $152,000 debt the amusement park owes Summit Township for back amusement taxes. Acker wouldn’t say why the bid was so high.

In December, Summit advertised for bids to sell a judgment that the township has against Trustees of Conneaut Lake Park for unpaid amusement taxes from 1996 and 1997 when the park was owned by Property on the Lake Inc. The judgment was awarded to the township by Crawford County Court of Common Pleas in 1998.

When Property on the Lake Inc. deeded the amusement park over to Trustees of Conneaut Lake Park, a public trust, in 1998, the trustees also inherited the park’s financial problems with the transfer.

The park owes $99,062.72 in back amusement taxes from 1996 and 1997 plus $52,998.17 in interest as of Aug. 15 this year — for a total of $152,060.90, with interest continuing to accrue at 6 percent per year.

The township set a minimum bid of $152,000 for the amusement debt when it put it up for sale.

“Of course,” Acker responded when asked if First Capital knew it overpaid for the debt. “I can’t discuss why.”

A certified check through First National Bank of Pennsylvania for 10 percent of the bid — $20,000 — was submitted with the bid as required by the township. The balance is to be paid by Jan. 30, 2009, according to the township’s bidding procedure.

First Capital could end up forcing a sale of park assets — including land — to satisfy the judgment by filing for a writ of execution with county court, according to Bob Bailey, an attorney with Shafer Law Firm, who handles sheriff’s sales for the county.

That’s not the firm’s intention, according to Acker.

“It’s not First Capital’s intention to disrupt the 2009 plans of the Trustees of Conneaut Lake Park or its business associates for the 2009 season,” he said. “We expect to work cooperatively with them.”

Jack Moyers, chairman of Trustees of Conneaut Lake Park, treated the news with relief, but also cautiously.

“Hopefully, that will be the plan,” he said of cooperation. “There have been no previous conversations from any group that expressed that type of preservation plan.”

Trustees will continue to look at their options, including paying off the amusement tax lien themselves to eliminate it, according to Moyers, who said, “We’re going to look at the best interests of the park.”

If an asset sale were forced, scheduling a sale would take at least 60 days. The lien still could be paid by the trustees prior any sale, said Bill Walker, Summit Township’s attorney.

But with a sale of assets, all other judgments filed before Summit Township’s would have to be satisfied first, before the holder of the Summit Township amusement tax lien would get paid, according to Walker.

As of the week of Dec. 1, Conneaut Lake Park owed a total of $570,872.34 in back real estate taxes to Crawford County, local municipalities and Conneaut School District, according to the county treasurer’s office.

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