Cuyahoga County Board of Revision

HUD does not mean "Housing & Urban Demolition" according to former President George Bush's appointee as Secretary of Housing & Urban Development. For the same amount of money it takes to demolish many homes in Cuyahoga County, cities and counties in Ohio can sell them to prospective homeowners for $1 and use the demolition money to make them livable again.

That's the answer I was seeking when I asked former HUD Secretary Alfonso Jackson if "demolition" could be replaced with "development" during our meeting in Washington, D.C. at the federal agency's headquarters.

Cleveland and Cuyahoga County are spending upwards of $7500 to demolish homes. The county under "thank God he's leaving" Cuyahoga County Executive Ed Fitzgerald is floating a $50 million bond to spend more than $10,000 a home for demolition. The main beneficiaries are the folk who'll get paid huge salaries to spend the money and the demolition contractors.

My sister Brewer Barbra owned 44 homes in Atlanta before the housing market collapsed. She shared with me how homes that had been stripped were usually missing copper plumbing and the copper in the electrical wiring. She also explained how the most expensive item she had to replace was the furnace for far less than $1000.

I've spoken to several demolition contractors who've confirmed that they're knocking down livable homes that only need the plumbing replaced with PVC instead of copper, and less than $500 worth of electrical wiring. Barbra told me PVC plumbing for an entire home for her was less than $300. The most expensive replacement item was the roof. A 4x8 sheet of drywall goes for less than $6.

I toured several vacant East Cleveland homes with Anthony D. Houston and Duane Felix when they worked with me to prepare a grant application to HUD and the Ohio Department of Development. I was leading the city's community development department and we had from Thursday to Tuesday to prepare a grant application to receive $2.2 million in Neighborhood Stabilization Program funds in 2009 and get council to pass it. My plan was to use the money to demolish 150 homes and to rehab 15 for about $15,000 each. I was going to sell them to prospective homeowners at cost. Retired Huron Hospital Gus Kious had agreed to market the homes to lower-waged hospital workers to create a hospital neighborhood near Mayfair Elementary School off Hayden.

Anthony and Duane had met with me and Home Depot's president and a regional vice president who'd agreed to discount building materials. The corporation further agreed to support a housing repair training initiative we were planning. The goal was to identify livable land bank properties and sell them for $1 to people who would do the repair work themselves and live in the homes. Home Depot would show them how to do the work.

East Cleveland's current mayor, if you review recordings of the meetings, called the entire plan his boss at the Cuyahoga County Development department had reviewed and approved "crap." He then took credit for what we'd done after I left office. He hasn't finished the demolition of the 150 homes. He spent the money I'd planned to rehab 15 homes on one.

When I met with HUD Secretary Jackson we also talked about an idea to put Section 8 tenants in the rehabbed homes to let them own home instead of spending money with landlords every month. HUD currently pays 110 percent of market rate rents for Section 8 tenants whose monthly rents are upwards of $800. That's $9600 a year. I know Section 8 landlords who've purchased homes off the sheriff's sale for less than $3500 and who've done nothing more than replace the PVC, add a fresh coat of paint, remove the old carpeting in some homes and are now collecting the $9600 a year in Section 8 rental fees. Jackson told me this would be an "allowable expense" and achieve HUD's national goal of eliminating slum and blight at the time.

For those of you who've wondered about what I'm sharing with you the answer is yes.

Residents of every Ohio city that receives block grant funds. Pay attention. Each year your mayor, city manager or council is required to submit a HUD Action Plan for you to review. They're supposed to hold public hearings and get your input. You have a right to offer this proposal. It's your money they're spending.

Councilors. You have a right - before you vote to approve the action plan - to include this proposal in it. If your city is on time with its action plan, you should be reviewing them this month.

There are people willing to live in the vacant homes in every neighborhood. Don't let James Rokakis, Gus Frangoes and the demolition promoters keep getting rich off a problem Rokakis helped created with that garbage-assed 3rd party tax lien sale he pushed state legislators to support for counties with over 1 million in population back in 1998. Armond Budish and the county council should and must abandon that neighborhood-killing practice.

Secretary Jackson scheduled meetings with me and 16 of his top HUD undersecretaries and directors. Nelson Bregon, HUD's Deputy General Secretary, confirmed all I've shared. He also told me I was the only mayor in America at the time who simultaneously served as a community development director. He shared that in HUD's history, no mayor had ever been given such access to the agency's top leadership. Secretary Jackson, he said, had "hooked me up."

$50 million for demolition instead of renovation. Some houses need to come down. The majority ... don't. Don't be bamboozled. It's your money. The "electeds" are your public officials. Tell them what you want.

If your city's action plan is unacceptable to you as a resident, you can always complain directly to HUD at the Cleveland or Columbus office. Believe me. Jorgelle Lawson directs community development for HUD / Columbus and does respond.

 http://www.cleveland.com/cuyahoga-county/index.ssf/2015/03/armond_budish_debt_concerns_put_some_cuyahoga_county_projects_on_hold.html

Remember the study released by "Thriving Communities" WRLC :

"The study also found the amount of delinquent property taxes on homes and apartment buildings has ballooned since 2009 from $89 million to $214.7 million."

Theoretically - tax lien sales engineered by Rokakis-Frangos were to address Cuyahoga County tax revenue, then, after the subprime mortgage and foreclosure crisis, the "Land Bank" would address declining property values in Northeast OH.  Armond Budish actually accelerated the opportunity for investors to get their hands on properties through the passage of SB 172:

"SB 172 improves and streamlines processes previously established in House Bill 294 (2006). That legislation included a nationally groundbreaking alternative to the traditional judicial tax foreclosure process for abandoned properties: the administrative tax foreclosure hearing. The administrative process, performed by the Cuyahoga County Board of Revision, takes between six and 12 months, whereas the customary judicial process can go on for one or two years. Once a property is foreclosed, it is essentially cleansed of delinquent taxes and other financial encumbrances, and can make its way into "someone's hands that can do some thing good with it" by way of the land bank, says Sawyer."

Look at the Tim  Donovan foreclosure case as an example - Aeon Financial were able to tax cleanse the property that is now in the hands of an investor West 133 LLC - the shell for an eastside attorney.  Frangos is very familiar with how that shell company structure works - since he masterminded the system for his shell companies with straw buyers.- see LLC - Quinn Court Properties.

I asked for some information (it should be on the website) - and I did get a quick response (same day).  Thanks Mary Louise Madigan:

Hi,  Laura.

Ms. Davis (Fiscal Administrator for Board of Revision) prepared this response for you (below).  Please let me know if you have questions and I’ll try to help.

Again, thanks for knowing that we’re working to get easier, more efficient access to the public.  

Mary Louise

Ms. McShane:

I’m not sure I understand your questions, but cases filed in 2015 are for tax year 2014.  Currently there are 546 cases not heard for that tax year, which should be 100% resolved by mid-January.  Property owners wishing to file a complaint for tax year 2015 have until March 31, 2016 to do so.  The Board of Revision operated 3 hearing boards for tax year 2014 based on the volume of the complaints filed last year and they hear complaints 5 days a week until all the complaints are resolved.  The individuals who serve as hearing officers are not appointed, they are hired by the  Statutory Board members comprised of County Executive Armond Budish, Councilmember Dave Greenspan and Fiscal Officer Dennis Kennedy Board” as either full time or part time employees.   The Hearing Officer’s names are:

Hannibal Smith

Mathew Grabenstein

Tamzin O’Neil

Anne Klonowski

Bob Hennessy

Bill McAdams

Mike Fanous

Tim Kollin

Dave Harmon

The Board of Revision’s E-filing option for tax year 2015 will be operational  once the tax bills have been created for mailing.  

Ms. Shelley Davis

 This was a total gut and rehab - the house across from Brian Cummin's mother-in-law.  The Ngemba's bought this property unwisely - it was beyond real structural repair.  It sat for a long time after they bought it in 2014- vacant and boarded - the reduction took place in 2015.  Prior to this reduction in the value and tax rate - $11,767 in unpaid taxes was "wited-out."  Rokakis talked about special BOR reductions in 2010 - Brian evidently paid attention.

https://www.cleveland.com/court-justice/2019/10/cuyahoga-county-wrongly-denied-money-to-tax-delinquent-property-owners-through-foreclosure-process-lawsuit-says.html

Engineered by Rokakis-Frangos BEFORE subprime mortgage
scandal:

Plain Dealer, The (Cleveland, OH) - Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Author: Thomas Ott, Plain Dealer Reporter

A new state law will allow counties to more quickly seize many abandoned properties.

The law will let county boards of revision instead of the courts rule on foreclosure of abandoned property for back taxes.

The Ohio House voted 86-1 Tuesday to concur with Senate changes in the bill, sending it to the governor for his signature.

The change would be particularly helpful in Cuyahoga County, where the court system is flooded with foreclosures. The move would require approval from the county commissioners.

A recent count showed that of 13,597 pending foreclosures, 2,053, or 15 percent, were filed by the county for back taxes. The other cases were filed by lenders against owners who were behind on their mortgages.

Most of Cuyahoga County's abandoned tax-delinquent properties are in Cleveland and East Cleveland, said County Treasurer Jim Rokakis, whose aide, Gus Frangos , wrote the original bill. State Rep. Sally Conway Kilbane, a Rocky River Republican, sponsored the legislation.

Frangos , a former Cleveland councilman, said a tax foreclosure may stretch out for more than a year in court, but the Board of Revision could wrap up cases in four or five months.

The board 's main job is to hear appeals of property valuations.