Editorial for November 30, 2018. Ruffles Takes First Step Against Whack-A-Mole For years now, Otsego County’s annual auction of foreclosed-on tax-delinquent properties has eaten up a lot of oxygen at the county Board of Representatives’ monthly meetings. It’s the Whack-A-Mole of county government, which suggests: There are unresolved issues. So a take-charge presentation by the new county treasurer, Allen Ruffles, at the November meeting was welcome, if partial. First, he declared, having studied the issue, giving delinquent taxpayers four years…
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Maria Ajello
EDITORIAL Maria Ajello’s Travails Reveal Flaws In Back-Tax Collection Editor’s note: At readers’ requests that this editorial reach the widest local readership possible, it is being reprinted from the Hometown Oneonta & Freeman’s Journal editions of Sept. 15-16. It’s time to bring Maria Ajello’s ordeal to an end, to end an unpleasantness – an injustice, even – that has been simmering for 24 months now, as she reminded the Otsego County Board of Representatives at its September meeting on the…
Resident Marks 24th Month Since Losing Home To Taxes County Reps Unswayed By Citizen’s Plea By JIM KEVLIN • for www.AllOTSEGO.com COOPERSTOWN – As she has at every county Board of Representatives’ meeting since losing her home in the county’s annual tax sale in August 2014, tearful Maria Ajello, formerly of the Town of Richfield, pleaded to get her home back for the 24th time at this morning’s meeting. She noted that, for two years as of today, she has appeared…
That Judges Returned 2 Homes Energizes 2 Trying To Save Theirs COOPERSTOWN – Two citizens’ efforts to buy back their homes sold off for delinquent taxes in last year’s tax sale were in the forefront again during public comment at the county Board of Representatives’ February meeting this morning, following a report that, due to irregularities, a judge had thrown out two other tax sales. Maria Ajello, who lost her home in the Town of Richfield, and Robert Force, who…