News

If you’ve trained your eye not skip over those black and white legal notices in the back of the Journal like we have, you may have noticed a big long list of tax-delinquent properties that ran in June. Nearly 200 property owners around the county had failed, in the last five years, to pay property taxes, and the county treasurer — as he is legally required to do — was noticing them that if the amount owed wasn’t paid, at least in part, the county would invoke its power to auction off the properties.

Among those were eight properties belonging to Rob Arkley-held companies. They included tracts of vacant land on the edge of the bay near Manila and the Arcata Slough owned by CUE E IV, industrial properties at either end of First Street in Eureka owned by CUE V, and the Republican Headquarters building owned by Security National Offices LLC on Fifth Street across from the Humboldt Smokehouse.

Combined, the companies owed $51,519.67 in unpaid property taxes, and were primed to be sold if they weren’t paid by June 30 deadline. Security National has had financial issues for several years, laying off nearly 50 employees in 2011, with one of its subsidiaries declaring bankruptcy later that year, and pulling roots for Lousiana last year. 

According to Teena Spellenberg, an administrative services officer in the Humboldt County Treasurer’s department, all eight Arkely-owned properties were redeemed, meaning the back taxes were paid in full or a payment plan was initiated.

As long as a property owner pays 20 percent of the owed taxes upfront and agrees to a five-year payment plan, the county will not consider sale of the property. Some of the owed taxes on the Arkley properties were paid in full, and installment plans were made for others. At very minimum, $12,915 was paid by June 30 in order to prevent the properties from going to auction.

Properties that remained in default past the June 30 deadline will proceed to auction, Spellenberg said. It takes about 120 days for the department to take the legally required steps and select which properties it will sell. The auction is performed online by a contractor, and will be noticed again before it takes place.