City of Wagoner making cash purchases and canceling their own liens at County Tax Sale.
No, that’s not the City of Wagoner’s Code Enforcement Officer Gordon Goins and City Planner, Jessica Zwirtz, in court getting hitched. Instead, they’re at the Wagoner County Treasurer’s Sale, purchasing land with cold, hard cash. Whose cash, you ask? The citizens of Wagoner, funded by tax dollars through the Economic Development Fund.
The burning question is: Why? Why on God’s green earth would they be acquiring land?
According to Mayor Dalton Self, Gordon Goins, the code enforcement officer for the City of Wagoner, claims that that if they don’t buy those parcels at the tax sale, they’ll lose their mowing and abatement liens if the property is purchased by another party. But this assertion simply isn’t true. The Mayor was informed of this fallacy last year when Mr. Goins bought tax sale property.
The real answer lies in a straightforward phone call to the Wagoner County Treasurer. As it turns out, the county collects the city’s abatement and mowing liens during the tax sale and pays off the city’s lien. In other words, the city would have been reimbursed each time these properties were sold to someone else! The city’s practice of buying these properties, sometimes paying more than what was owed to them, seems nonsensical. The citizens of Wagoner are voicing their concern: This must stop, and it must stop now. The City of Wagoner should not be in the real estate business, and city employees should not be carrying taxpayers’ money in cash. The City Council should be aware of and approve such transactions beforehand.
One undeniable fact is that the city does not pay property tax on the 77-plus properties they own. Consequently, while they hold onto these properties indefinitely, no tax revenue benefits the county.
This reporter has submitted an open records request to the County Clerk to determine how many properties the City has acquired since 2015 and how many they still hold title to.
The question lingers: Why are they doing this, and why are City Code Enforcer Gordon Goins and City Planner Jessica Zwirtz once again focusing on the southeast side of town? Why didn’t anyone in authority simply call the Wagoner County Treasurer, as I did? Why isn’t this practice being halted? What’s happening in this town? A town that can’t even afford to paint its water towers or install a splash pad.
Stay tuned… 📻🔍
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