Park District Sets Sights on Couple’s Home

The property seems like a bargain: For the cost of $43,600 in unpaid county taxes, the Conejo Recreation and Park District can acquire a three-quarter-acre parcel and the large, rustic house that occupies it.

Park district officials view the site as a potential entry into the landlocked and largely undeveloped Conejo Creek South Park, the location of the annual Conejo Valley Days celebration and youth soccer matches. What they would do with the multilevel, 3,800-square-foot house, valued at $480,000, has not been determined.

But the homeowners say that until last week, they had no idea the Ventura County tax collector was mere weeks away from selling their house. Charging they were not properly notified, they have hired a lawyer to fight the sale.

“The parks will not be getting the property. No one will be getting the property, except us retaining it,” homeowner John Hajducko vowed.

The only way to stop the sale, however, is to pay the amount owed in full, said John McKinney, assistant treasurer/tax collector for Ventura County. Only cashier’s check, money order or cash accepted.

Every year, the tax collector’s office sells at public auction a handful of parcels whose owners are at least five years’ delinquent on their county taxes. But before the auctioneer starts the bidding, local governmental agencies preview the list and can buy one or more of the properties for the price of the back taxes owed.

Last week, the county Board of Supervisors removed five properties, including the Hajduckos’, from the tax collector’s list of about 100 because various public agencies had expressed an interest in them.

For example, the city of Camarillo is hoping to buy a vacant gas station on Ventura Boulevard for $7,500 as a redevelopment project.

Typically, the kinds of parcels cities, open space agencies and park districts want are undeveloped and unused. McKinney said the Hajduckos’ property is the first in recent memory in the county with an occupied house sought out by a public agency.

The state controller’s office is reviewing the county’s list now and should give its approval in short order, McKinney said. Then the current owners have 60 days to pay their taxes or lose the properties.

Hajducko, a pharmacist who has owned the house since 1984, said he plans to pay all the taxes owed this week.

His wife, Lynne, said the couple had trouble paying their taxes in 1989 after suffering losses in the stock market. In an attempt to make good on their debt, they agreed to a five-year installment plan.

“We only owe one more payment,” Lynne Hajducko said. “We have paid. They kept all the money.”

She believes the problem began when they made their annual payments in June, instead of by April 10.

“I realized we bear some responsibility because we paid in June. I don’t see how they can take away your home because you’re two months’ behind,” she said.

McKinney, however, disputes their account. The Hajduckos stopped paying their county taxes in 1989-90, he said after reviewing his records. They paid half of their 1990-91 taxes and paid nothing until the five-year installment plan was set up in 1995. At that time, they paid one installment and nothing since, including their subsequent tax bills.

“I hope that I’m wrong,” McKinney said, “but I wouldn’t put money on it.”

The Hajduckos also say they never received notice that the county would be selling their home. County records show that a notice of “power to sell” was sent via certified mail to a Thousand Oaks pharmacy where John Hajducko once worked.

John Freudiger, the pharmacist who signed for the letter, said last week he was just filling in at Doctors Clinical Pharmacy for the day. “Never met him, never heard of him,” he said of Hajducko. Freudiger said he threw the notice on top of the pile of mail and left it there.

Even so, the Hajduckos should receive notice again before the sale is final and will have a chance to pay off their back taxes. If they do not prevail, their mortgage lenders could step in and pay the taxes to preserve their investment, said Tom Sorensen, administrator of parks and planning for the park district.

Sorensen acknowledged that the chances for acquiring the home are somewhat slim, but added, “We want to throw the dice because the benefits could be substantial.”

Sorensen said planning for the 55-acre park will begin in the spring and take at least a year to solidify. Because the parkland is landlocked--the Conejo Valley Unified School District owns the property that runs along Janss Road--the Hajduckos’ lot on La Granada Drive could serve as a key entry point through the Conejo Oaks neighborhood.

Tex Ward, park district general manager, said the house itself could be leased to generate income for the district or partitioned off from the land needed and sold separately.

“We feel it is in the public interest to be vigilant if [a tax delinquent property] has value to the park system or open space system,” Ward said.