City granting grace period to pay delinquent property taxes

Because of a lack of clear notification, the City of Ville Platte will grant a grace period until March 3 for people to pay delinquent taxes without having to also pay the $51.50 delinquency fee, Mayor Jennifer Vidrine announced at the City Council meeting Thursday evening.
Last year, the Council engaged CivicSource to help collect and process delinquent property taxes. Although the City doesn’t pay CivicSource to do the work, the company tacks on processing fees to the tax bill.
The initial delinquent processing fee is $51.50. If the tax bill continues to go unpaid, CivicSource continues the process of trying to collect the money. At each step, a new processing fee is added. The new fees change at each step of the process. If the tax remains unpaid at the end of the process, the property goes up for a tax sale.
The first step of the processing fees was to have taken effect on Feb. 1.
Vidrine said that because this process was new to people and not clearly reflected in their delinquent notifications, she was going to extend the time to pay the overdue property taxes without a delinquency penalty until March 3. However, she said, on March 4 the fees will kick in.
Vidrine was also clear that this extra grace period does not include the mandatory two percent late fee required by state law on past-due property taxes. The two percent late fee must still be paid.
In other news, Becky Buller, of Keep Evangeline Beautiful, honored members of Cub Scout Pack #73 for their efforts at litter control. The scouts have adopted Magnolia Street from the Post Office all the way to the library. They already did one pass at trash collection in January.
Buller also invited members of the City Council to join her organization in trying to keep the city clean.
“You can go to KVPI and record some public service announcements” encouraging residents to clean up trash, Buller said. She also encouraged them to write letters to the Gazette and other newspapers asking people not to litter.
Vidrine reminded people that “Not only is littering not good, but it’s illegal. You can get a ticket.”
Councilman Bryant Riggs is particularly incensed by the amount of litter in the city’s streets. He said that the problem was made clear to him at a conference when he saw a flyer saying that Ville Platte was a “nuisance” city due to the litter.
“That made me mad,” Riggs said. “I love my city, and I’m always bragging about it. We need to clean it up.
“We need adequate trash collection in Ville Platte,” Riggs said. “We’re still having people put trash bags on the ground. We need to enforce existing laws about litter. We need to get serious about it in Ville Platte and Evangeline Parish.”
Vidrine announced some good economic news for the city. Sales taxes increased 6.61 percent, one of the few municipalities to see an increase, she said.
“On behalf of the Council, I would like to thank our merchants for making people want to shop at home,” Vidrine said.
In other business, the Council approved hiring a security guard for city hall at least three days a week.
“We’ve had some scary situations,” Vidrine described, “people high on drugs, putting our employees in danger.”
The Council approved changing the date of next month’s regular meeting. Instead of meeting on March 8, the Council will instead meet one week later, on March 15. The move was to accommodate council members who will be attending the National League of Cities conference.
In her Mayor’s Report, Vidrine reminded the public that it is illegal to put flyers and advertisements on utility poles. She has directed city workers to remove any signs that they find attached to poles.
“It’s not only illegal,” she said, “but it’s dangerous.”
Vidrine also announced that City Attorney Eric Lafleur is making progress on the paperwork for establishing a Planning and Zoning Commission for Ville Platte.