By: Diane Benjamin
Think you own your property?
Keep reading!
Think back almost a year ago. The Town of Normal tried to collect sewer tap-on fees from Stan for his property on West College.
The property was connected when Stan bought it, and when the previous owner bought it, and the one before that one! The Town insisted he pay even though it was their fault for not requiring payment before the property was hooked up. Stan did pay it, if I remember right it was about $6,000.
At the time Stan made it clear the same thing could happen to any property owner in Bloomington or Normal. He questioned why anyone would buy a local property without knowing when and if a bill would show up in their mailbox because some previous owner or developer never paid required fees. His property did not have any liens when he bought it. He had no idea payment to hook into the sanitary sewer were never paid or even billed.
I have been reading documents from another obscure government unit that taxes you but has little to no oversight. They don’t have a website so it isn’t a surprise when at every meeting there is a call for Public Comment and there never is any. Nobody knows when they meet, what they do, what they spend money on, yet they are vital to your life.
The organization is BNWRD – Bloomington Normal Water Reclamation District.
BNWRD charges you twice for service. You are charged monthly on your water bill and on your property tax bill.
Look at both bills, if you currently are connected to the sanitary sewers system and you aren’t being charged on both – they will be coming for your money. More on water bills in the future.
This story is about property owners in Bloomington who found themselves in the same situation as Stan did. Instead of tap-on fees, these people weren’t charged property taxes.
This is from the minutes of a hearing held on May 13, 2019 for Annexation Non-compliance Violations:
What it means:
just in Bloomington BNWRD identified addresses that have never been charged on their property tax bills for being connected to the system.
Here’s where it gets just like Stan, they hauled in average “Joe” and demanded payment:
I thought a long time about whether to redact Mr. Reed’s name and address. I opted not to because he doesn’t live in a mansion. The taxable value of his property is only $38,155. The house was built in 1999, property taxes weren’t accessed until 2003. The minutes do not say how much BNWRD demanded from him but I can estimate it based on what the house next door has paid since 2003 to BNWRD. It’s around $1000. I don’t know if BNWRD demanded an annexation fee in addition to past property taxes, but I am going to FOIA.
This proves Stan was absolutely right.
You have no property rights when government decides somebody screwed up years or decades ago. If fees weren’t paid by previous owners you have no right to object or even have objections heard. There is no Statute of Limitation on government screw ups.
Mr. Reed has no recourse. He is not going to be the only one. You could be next.
The GIS system usually shows permits issued on properties. Both Mr. Reeds property and the one next door don’t show any permits issued.
Stay tuned, I’ve got much more on BNWRD in the coming weeks.
I’d love to hear what realtors think!
I am guessing they threatened to turn off his water citing “non-compliance” if he did not pay the fee being requested? Hopefully this person was charged the fee that was in place at the time of the connection many years ago – which would be considerably less than today’s connection fee. What is the answer??? because individuals cannot stand up to these office’s when they strong-arm folks like this situation
BNWRD doesn’t supply water do they can’t turn it off
Ok, I was thinking they “bill” based on water usage. And I have experienced the threat of turning off the water service to force similar issues with regard to sewer issues/billing. In the Village of Downs, many residents with fully functional septic systems were required to pay the BNWRD connection fees, permit fees, costs to destroy their functioning septic systems and connect to the Village of Downs sewer system – which includes a monthly portion paid to BNWRD. The Village of Downs Board used the threat of shutting of water service for those households who did not connect by their randomly selected deadline. The connections meant more revenue and fees being collected for both BNWARD and the Village of Downs.
That sounds like Downs. Your mayor should be removed.
AGREE!
Unreal. Knowing the local real estate agents and offices as I do, I suspect they’ll keep their mouths shut since they’re supporters of the Crown. Isn’t it funny how the City will throw millions into the Downtown dumpster fire and buy property only to let it rot, but can’t see their way to forgiving a handful of tax bills for which they were in error? People need to understand that this could be them. Wonder what other paperwork errors have been made or will be made in the future by the City. To error is human, but based on the current precedent, the circumstances won’t matter, we’ll have to pay up.
I have more! How about owning your house for 20 years and getting a letter demanding payment? There is one much bigger issue I’m going to wait to write about until I get a Foia.
Maybe this explains why the town of Normal continues to pay property tax on buildings that should be tax exempt. They’re trying to set an example for the rest of us that where there are errors in record keeping such as the case with Stan Nord of Mr. Reed, we should all just pay up and shut up and follow the example of our government. To quote a former Bloomington City Council member, “paying taxes is our civic duty.”
Paying taxes may be our “civic duty” but it is a moral obligation of elected officials to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars and allocate those dollars for the common good such as infrastructure and public safety. End of story!/
Any chance those well-sourced rumors around town about Stan are true? They sound very believable to me. Lots of evidence.
If you mean that the town of Normal will do anything to destroy him yes that’s true
Has to do with Stan’s time as a Cub Scout Leader….
The establishment hates him because he upset they’re a little apple cart. I’m sure they would spread lies about him.
Things like this only further prove how bad local government and the state of Illinois has become.
We have people chasing after money that was not paid by people thru no fault of their own. It was
due to the ignorant and incompetent actions of the local idiots in government. They really must have to have that money….meantime we waste money on things government has no business being in by forcing taxpayers to make charitable donations forced upon then thru taxation to things like the BCPA or maybe a hole in the ground under railroad tracks and bikes that are NEVER used.
You go local government and chase down these people for mistakes YOU made 10 years ago. Meanwhile I will watch Gov. Bubble Gut pardon and remove people’s history from the public records when then knowingly violated the law. Chock up how many ten’s of thousands Porky Prickster? When are you going to try to give them back all there fines and compensate them for jail time? You and this democratic state are stupid enough to do so. As the commercial said a year ago. I pronounce Illinois F’ked.
VERITA7 – This is Stan Nord. I am proud of my involvement in Scouts and the entire Scouting organization. You apparently are trying to insinuate something negative. I am not sure if you know about the two deep leadership and other mandatory Scout procedures in place so no Scout is ever in a potentially inappropriate situation. I understand some may disagree with my political position of speaking up for taxpayers. But please do not use Scouting as a pawn to attack me or start vile rumors. If you want to talk or just vent at me my contact info is published and I will be present at council meetings.
If you truly have information regarding any inappropriateness with children you have the moral obligation to contact the police the report it. The safety of our children is paramount.
Depending on her profession she has a legal obligation to report it. (Ask Penn State…or Michigan State). But the fact is she has nothing and is in doubt a Koos stooge. Am fed up with these people trying to do anything to shut people up who have new ideas that do not continue to maintain their gravy train. I salute you being the Bufford Pusser of Normal and Walking Tall. Or to draw from another media comparison/crossover….your fighting of the Boss Hogg of the two wheel bicycle group.
Excellent response, sir.
So the BNWRD is admitting a clerical error of some sort occurred approximately 9 years ago. What if, just maybe, the clerical error was a different one? Maybe the fees were assessed and paid, but then not recorded. Maybe it was a computer glitch. If there was some error so long ago, why should the property owner trust that the government body has correctly identified the error that occurred? Just take their word for it? Or, maybe something less innocent occurred. Wouldn’t that make a fine embezzlement scheme? Divert a payment somehow and then never record it. A decade later when the anomaly is discovered, a different owner is involved and can’t prove payment. Nobody’s the wiser. Yeah, it’s likely what they say it is, but how would one know?
Stay tuned! How about 20 years? Story soon