DMV, Tax Collector Have Bone to Pick With Councilman : Moorpark: Scott Montgomery says the expired license plates and back levies owed on his home are personal issues.

A Moorpark councilman is having problems with state and county officials on two fronts--license plates and property taxes.

Councilman Scott Montgomery says it’s ridiculous that anybody’s giving him any grief on either matter. He calls them private and unrelated to his role in city government or his role as a member of the county Waste Commission.

“Both of these are personal stories, and really infringe on my personal life,” Montgomery said. “This is really upsetting. I can’t tell you how much pain it’s already caused.”

One of Montgomery’s problems involves the 1989 Ford Bronco that he sometimes drives to council meetings. The Department of Motor Vehicles is investigating the truck, which has expired Michigan license plates, to see whether the councilman owes any back registration fees or penalties.

“There is an investigation in progress,” DMV Investigator Ron Roth said this week. “It involves a 1989 Ford Bronco registered out of state.”

Roth said residents who bring vehicles from other states have 20 days to obtain California registrations. Some neighbors in the city say Montgomery has been driving the truck around Moorpark for more than a year.

But Montgomery says the Bronco belongs to his mother-in-law, who has a home in Michigan but frequently visits Moorpark, and that he only occasionally drives it.

“It’s not my vehicle,” he said. “She’s the registered owner, the owner of record, whatever. It’s not my vehicle. . . . We’ve broken no laws and don’t intend to break any laws. I have no interest in doing that. Over the registration of a vehicle? Give me a break.”

He went on to say that his mother-in-law is giving the truck to his wife as a gift, and that efforts to register it properly are already under way.

And when asked, Montgomery willingly provided copies of the Michigan registration and title to the vehicle, both in the name of Patricia Overton. He said his wife of four years and her mother are both named Patricia.

“They have the same name,” he said. “What can I tell you?”

Roth said an investigation such as the one involving Montgomery can spring from a wide variety of sources.

“These situations are reported by all kinds of people,” he said. “Over the years, we’ve received them from neighbors, law enforcement, people having fights with each other, spouses divorcing each other, disgruntled boyfriends and girlfriends. We get word of this from all sources.”

Montgomery would like to add another category to the list: former councilwoman.

He says that Eloise Brown is at the root of the DMV investigation. She lost her council seat in 1990 and has lost two subsequent bids to return to the council, including a run last November when Montgomery was returned to office.

“This is sour grapes that comes from losing an election,” he said. “They are investigating a report which ironically seems to have come from Eloise Brown.”

Brown says that isn’t true. She said she did not call the DMV, but was contacted by them as part of the recent investigation.

“The DMV called me on Tuesday,” Brown said. “They called me and asked me if I had any idea how long that car had been in the neighborhood . . . . Truly, I didn’t call them.”

Roth said he may be able to wrap up the investigation late next week. The most serious result of any such inquiry, he said, would be the seizure and sale of the vehicle to pay off the state fees and penalties.

Montgomery’s other difficulty stems from the fact that he hasn’t paid property taxes on his four-bedroom, two-bath Moorpark home on Cloverdale Street since 1990, and owes the county more than $5,000 in back taxes, penalties and interest.

The councilman said the failure to pay stems from a dispute with Wells Fargo Bank, which took over his mortgage from Great American Bank and has failed to turn over to the county money he’s contributed each month to a special tax account.

“It was almost a year and a half before I even found out that the property taxes weren’t paid,” he said. “Here I go, merrily along, thinking that I pay my taxes and I find this.”

Wells Fargo spokeswoman Kathleen Shilkret said the bank could not directly comment on Montgomery’s situation. She did say that the bank routinely sends notices to customers who are delinquent in their taxes and the non-payment of property taxes would appear on each annual statement from the bank.

And John McKinney, assistant tax collector for the county, said that with the many notices of non-payment his office sends to delinquent taxpayers each year, it’s difficult to imagine someone going so long without realizing his taxes hadn’t been paid.

“If he missed a couple of years, he would have gotten a plethora of them (notices),” McKinney said. “It’s hard to believe, with all those things happening, that a person can go 18 months without realizing it’s a problem.”

Under state law, the county must wait five years until it seizes property for the non-payment of taxes, sells the land and takes payment from the sale proceeds.

Montgomery said someone is obviously out to discredit him by trying to publicize his difficulties with the DMV and the county tax collector.

“This is my personal life and I am entitled to a personal life, even though I serve on the City Council,” he said.

“I’ve racked my brain and I tell you, I don’t know what would cause an honest person to conduct such a smear campaign and it’s beyond me to get into the mind of a dishonest person. This is beyond dirty . . . . Thank God my children aren’t old enough to understand.”