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No refund for landlord following dispute with city

Two properties impacted by decision

By Bert Lehman


The owner of two properties in the city of Clintonville that were charged two fees each for the city’s garbage and recycling program last year will not receive a refund from the city.

The issue was first discussed at the Feb. 11 Clintonville Finance Committee meeting when Clintonville City Administrator Sharon Eveland told the committee that the properties were assessed as multi-family, when in fact they are single-family.

The properties in question are located at 64 Sixth St. and 120 N. 12th St. They are owned by J&M Holdings.

Eveland explained to the committee that when the city sent out the paperwork for the city’s garbage and recycling program, information was included stating multi-family properties would be charged two fees, or three fees for a triplex.

Property owners needed to call Clintonville City Hall by a specified date if multi-family properties were instead single-family properties.

Eveland said the owner of J&M Holdings, which own more properties in the city than just these two properties, told her the two properties in question were never multi-family units.

After the city conducted more research, city assessors confirmed these properties to be single-family dwellings, Eveland said.

She added that last year the two properties were deemed to be single-family dwellings, and each property was billed for only one charge for garbage and recycling.

“Part of the issue that I see here is the individual has owned this house, [and since he owned it] it has never been multi-family,” Eveland said. “We did charge both of them as single last year.”

Eveland added city staff spent a lot of time the previous year determining which properties in the city were single and multi-family properties.

She also said city staff can’t be expected to devote that much time each year to making those determinations.

“This is in no way anything Peggy [Johnson, Clintonville clerk-treasurer] or my staff did wrong,” Eveland said.

Acknowledging the city has been firm on not waiving garbage and recycling fees to citizens who didn’t return their paperwork in time to opt-out of the garbage and recycling program, Eveland said in this case, an argument could be made that the owner of J&M Holdings would not have known that he needed to contact city hall.

Based on that, Eveland recommended that a refund be granted to J&M Holdings of the second fee charge for the city’s garbage and recycling program, once it is verified that the J&M Holdings has paid its property taxes in full.

The garbage and recycling fees are invoiced on the property owner’s property tax bill.

Finance committee member Brandon Braden, who said he is also a landlord in Clintonville, said: “To me, if [the property owner] didn’t catch this, this is a business mistake, not a city mistake. …While I’m sympathetic towards the company, I also don’t know if it’s necessarily our fault per se. They got double billed based on incorrect information, but it sounds like the information is incorrect because of a change they didn’t make.”

Committee member Brad Rokus agreed it wasn’t the city’s fault, but said the right thing to do would be to refund the cost of the second garbage and recycling fee charged to each property.

Clintonville Mayor Richard Beggs said he was concerned because the property owner was led to believe the properties were determined to be single-family properties the previous year, so he questioned why the property owner should have to do anything different the following year.

“It’s not a mistake on anybody’s part. It’s a lack of communication,” Beggs said.

He added that if the city charged the properties incorrectly, a refund should be given.

By a 2-1 vote, the committee voted to recommend to the Clintonville City Council that a refund be granted to J&M Holdings for the second garbage and recycling fee charged to the two properties. Braden voted no.

By a 4-5 vote, the council failed to pass that recommendation at the city council meeting the following night.

Those voting against refunding the fee included Braden, Alderwoman Julie Stumbris, and Aldermen Ben Huber, Chuck Manske and Steve Kettenhoven. Alderwoman Maggie Tischauser was excused from the meeting.

Both Stumbris and Kettenhoven said the city has already established a precedent when it has prohibited citizens to opt out of the garbage and recycling program if their paperwork was not received by the deadline.

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