Dispute Leads to Bargains on Tulsa City Land

An apparent tax blunder by Tulsa city officials has allowed residents to buy huge tracts of municipal property for a fraction of the land’s assessed value. Now the city is fighting to get it all back.

Tulsa County officials said they repeatedly warned their counterparts in City Hall that the properties would be auctioned because of delinquent county property taxes or because the city failed to file deeds on the land.

The city contends that Oklahoma statutes prohibit it from paying such taxes, and it is suing in district court to reclaim the properties auctioned by the county.

County Treasurer John Cantrell said he sent notices to City Hall warning of the June 10 auction. Ron Payne, the city’s finance director, said the county refused to take the land off the sale list until a solution could be worked out.

Payne said he believes that it will cost millions of dollars to recover the land.

Real estate investor Larry Williamson paid $400 for a one-eighth-mile stretch of the city’s main north-south thoroughfare, Riverside Drive. The city had paid $80,000 for that section of the four-lane road, which parallels the Arkansas River.

“I might build me a toll plaza there,” Williamson quipped.

Williamson also bought--for $1 each--two tracts of land for which the city had paid $95,000 and $60,000.

At least nine city properties were sold at the June auction.

The city already has lost some battles in court.

In one case, a judge sided with investor Miles Davidson, who spent $750 for a tract of land for which the city had paid $65,000.

The city is appealing that case to the Oklahoma Supreme Court, city attorney Neal McNeill said.