Biomass Company Owes Lawrence County, Ohio Back Taxes

- Beni­ta Heath, April 8, 2015, Iron­ton Tribune

Two months after Bio­mass own­er Mark Har­ris paid off two-thirds of the back tax­es he owed on prop­er­ty at The Point indus­tri­al park, he has yet to pay any of the first half tax­es for 2014.

Those tax­es, due on March 6, total $5,193.49 on all six parcels, plus a 10 per­cent penal­ty. On top of that Har­ris has not paid 3,975.25 on two parcels with a delin­quen­cy dat­ing back to 2011.

Lawrence Coun­ty Trea­sur­er Stephen Bur­cham and Lawrence Coun­ty Pros­e­cut­ing Attor­ney Brigham Ander­son start­ed in Octo­ber 2013 to get the back tax­es paid, first by send­ing Har­ris a notice.

Then in July of 2014, a fore­clo­sure hear­ing was sched­uled but Har­ris called the trea­sur­er say­ing he had only received the notice 10 days prior.

At that time Bur­cham gave Bio­mass 90 days to come up with the more than $45,000 it owed the coun­ty then on all six parcels.

On Jan. 27, all parcels were sched­uled for a fore­clo­sure sale in the cour­t­house when Har­ris con­tact­ed Anderson’s office that he would wire enough funds to pay off four parcels.

At that time Bren­da Neville, assis­tant pros­e­cut­ing attor­ney, said that Har­ris had redeemed them but that the prosecutor’s office had just learned there was a mort­gage on the oth­er two. A date for that sale would not be set until the mort­gage is investigated.

“They are going to have to pay their tax­es,” Ander­son said. “If we file a fore­clo­sure, it just costs them more, not only the tax­es, but the inter­est and penalties.”

So far a sale date has not yet been scheduled.

“I am not ask­ing Bio­mass any­thing that we are not ask­ing all of the cit­i­zens of the coun­ty to do,” Bur­cham said. “It is not fair to the cit­i­zens who do pay tax­es in a time­ly man­ner to ignore some­one who doesn’t meet his civic oblig­a­tion. We will attempt to use all the means in our dis­pos­al to col­lect those taxes.