Sanitary District Screws Up, But Keeps the Money

Less Teapot Dome, more teapot tempest...

Once again, I find myself representing the minority view. Going into last night's Lake Herman Sanitary District meeting, I thought our board faced a big problem with two decades' worth of unauthorized tax collection on property not formally annexed into the district. Apparently, such fiscal sloppiness just isn't that big of a deal. After coverage here and in the real press, the meeting drew only three citizens, none of them from the disputed territory on the map. The other members of the board, Charlie Stoneback and Lawrence Dirks, did not want to open a can of worms. District counsel Jerome Lammers advised us that statute imposes no obligation on the district to act on its own to refund taxes imposed incorrectly or even to proactively seek out affected landowners and inform them of the mistake.

The board's final decision: leave it in the hands of the taxpayers. If anyone's upset, they can call the district. If they want their money back, they've got to speak up.

In the meantime, now that we're aware of the problem, the district does have an obligation to clean up the map. The board will take the tax roll to the county assessor in the next week and cross off the properties that aren't on the official map. So some landowners will see the LHSD assessment disappear from their tax bill in 2008. However, that won't last long. The sanitary district board plans a special meeting on Thursday, December 13 (6:30 p.m., Charlie Stoneback's house -- call for directions!) to begin the process of formally annexing the properties we thought we had and, quite likely, adding more properties. One likely area for annexation: the new houses west of the golf course.

I remain a little bent out of shape over twenty years of unauthorized taxation, and I'm not particularly fond of the idea that state law doesn't require a taxing entity to outright rectify such a screw-up. But then maybe I get too uptight about the jots and tittles of the law. And here majority does rule, and as last night's meeting made clear, the majority -- board members and citizens alike -- aren't too worried about the situation.