Ohio Bioenergy Corporation Owes Over $50K in Taxes, Fees

- by David E. Mal­loy, Decem­ber 29, 2014, Her­ald Dispatch

Bio­mass, a Ken­tucky-based com­pa­ny that owns the for­mer South Point Ethanol prop­er­ty adja­cent to The Point indus­tri­al park, will have to pay more than $53,000 in back tax­es, penal­ties and costs by Jan. 27 to main­tain the 78-acre parcel.

Lawrence Coun­ty Pros­e­cut­ing Attor­ney Brigham Ander­son filed suit ear­li­er this year at the request of Coun­ty Trea­sur­er Stephen Dale Bur­cham for back taxes.

The com­pa­ny owns six parcels val­ued at $827,880 in Per­ry Town­ship. The back tax­es, inter­est and fees due on the prop­er­ty now is more than $53,000, accord­ing to court records.

Bio­mass announced plans more than a decade ago to use the prop­er­ty to set up a bio­mass gen­er­at­ing plant and pro­duce elec­tric­i­ty as part of a mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar project. No such project has been start­ed. The firm has been delin­quent on its tax­es on sev­er­al occa­sions over the years, only to pay before a lien is filed.

Ander­son filed a fore­clo­sure action against Bio­mass seek­ing pay­ment of the back tax­es that are more than three years over­due. “We’ve been aggres­sive­ly pur­su­ing the pay­ment of back tax­es for the past two years,” Ander­son said Mon­day. His office hired Bren­da Neville, a Chesa­peake area lawyer, on a part-time basis to work on back tax­es cas­es. “We’ve col­lect­ed hun­dreds of thou­sands of dol­lars in back tax­es,” he said.

The fore­clo­sure action allows the prop­er­ty to be sold if the back tax­es aren’t paid.

Ear­li­er this month, Lawrence Coun­ty Com­mon Pleas Judge Charles “Chuck” Coop­er signed a judg­ment of fore­clo­sure against the Bio­mass Group and South Point Bio­mass Generation.

The prop­er­ty cur­rent­ly is to be up for sale Jan. 27 at the courthouse.

Bill Din­gus, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Lawrence Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion which is over­see­ing devel­op­ment of the indus­tri­al park, said if Bio­mass offi­cials don’t pay the back tax­es, the devel­op­ment cor­po­ra­tion would be inter­est­ed if the 78.12 acre par­cel goes up for sale.

The board has a meet­ing set for 8 a.m. Jan. 27 to dis­cuss the pos­si­ble pur­chase, he said.