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Nobody shows up for EnCap tax sale
(by Daniel O'Keefe - October 13, 2008)
After two postponements, the EnCap tax lien sale has been pushed off once again. No one, including representatives from EnCap or Trump, showed up to bid this morning, Oct. 13. With interest, EnCap owes over $630,000 in 2007 taxes to Rutherford. Rutherford had budgeted $500,000 in revenue from the tax lien sale into its 2008 budget.
EnCap, the developer whose plans for the Meadowlands would have turned hundreds of acres of landfill in Rutherford and Lyndhurst into housing and golf courses, failed to pay its 2007 taxes, thus leading to a now thrice-postponed lien sale this year.
Rutherford tax collector Caryn Miller said two companies - other than EnCap and Trump - which had previously expressed interest in purchasing the liens said this morning that they wouldn’t be in attendance. They didn’t give a reason.
After no interested bidders showed up at 10 a.m. this morning, Miller postponed the sale for noon. Again, no one was in attendance. Miller said the sale, which can be postponed for up to eight weeks without further advertising, has been tentatively rescheduled for next Monday, Oct. 20, at 10 a.m.
The original date for the sale was May 22, but that was postponed when EnCap declared bankruptcy on May 8. The borough retained special counsel to make sure it would go through, eventually getting approval to proceed with the sale on Sept. 17.
In the meantime, the sale held up passage of the borough’s budget because the state wanted the sale finalized before adoption. However, due to the amounts for the sale being improperly advertised, the borough ended up having to reschedule for today, Oct. 13. Due to the necessity of getting the budget passed before Oct. 1, the Division of Local Government Services gave the borough approval to pass the budget because there were multiple interested bidders.
If the sale doesn’t go through by the end of the year the borough will have to acquire the liens itself, thereby losing an anticipated half million dollar source of revenue. Rutherford’s tax increase for 2008 already jumped from 4.1 to 4.8 percent two weeks ago when $333,000 the borough expected to get from the sale of one of the leases on the police station cellular tower fell through at the last minute.
For more information, see the Oct. 22 edition of the South Bergenite.
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