CLEARLAKE—At Thursday’s meeting, the Clearlake City Council approved a scathing response to a section of the Lake County’s civil grand jury 2019-2020 report. The report, released a few weeks ago, has a segment scrutinizing tax default auctions. The city council retorted for what it said was an inaccurate and flawed assessment while criticizing the county’s tax collector for alleged negligence.
At the city council meeting, an already written response to the jury’s report was unanimously approved by the council. Clearlake City Council had 90 days to respond to the report but did so within a few weeks.
“The tax default properties within the city has been on our forefront for some time now, going back to last year,” said Dirk Slooten, the Vice Mayor of Clearlake, in a Friday phone interview. “And we felt that it was necessary to respond swiftly because the allegations in the grand jury report–what they consider to be facts are incorrect and inaccurate. And we believe our numbers are correct.”
Repeating what the council’s collective response stated, Dirk said the jury’s report undercounted tax defaulted properties by deciding to omit property that does “not have specific addresses, or accessibility, or existing services such as water hookups.” This method of counting, the city council said, overlooks that, regardless of certain factors, taxes are still owed on these properties. In their response to the report, the council said that properties that lack access or services can potentially be redeveloped to provide housing for the homeless, a population that was a focus of a separate segment of the grand jury’s report.
Properties that are neglected and are unsold in tax default auctions are not just a government revenue problem, it’s a threat to public safety said Clearlake Councilmember Russell Perdock. During a Friday phone interview, he said neglected properties can have “overgrown” foliage that can be a fire hazard. He also said such sites have more frequent “calls for service.”
The city council’s response, included a passage slamming some of the jury report’s language as “lazy and confusing.” Russ Cremer, the mayor of Clearlake, expressed irritation, saying that the city council has tried to coordinate with the county and the tax collector’s office over this issue but there has been no progress made. The lack of tax collection has been a problem before the pandemic, said Cremer, and it still must be addressed even as COVID-19 and wildfire season loom over the community.
“This tax situation needs to be cured. It’s costing the county and the city millions of dollars in lost revenue,” said the mayor on a Friday phone call. “That could be recovered-at least a big portion of it-by having the tax sale. The tax sales or even the threat of a tax sale has helped to incentivize taxpayers that are in default or delinquent to pay their taxes.”
The 2019-2020 civil grand jury report, as well as reports from previous years, can be found at www.lakecountyca.gov/Government/Boards/Grand_Jury/FinalReports.htm
The Clearlake City Council response can be found as part of the July 16, 2020 council meeting agenda at www.clearlake.ca.us/agendacenter
