Editorial: County government that doesn't make sense
Viral Patel, who previously ran a hotel on the Brentwood site, is receiving $2.7 million a year in county money for rent, even as the county is billing him nearly $900,000 for back taxes, public records show. (April 15, 2013) Credit: Ed Betz
It's the kind of story that seems to confirm every negative feeling people have about the incompetence of their governments: Suffolk County is paying $2.7 million a year in rent to a guy who owes the county $900,000 in property taxes for the past three tax years.
A hotel management company owned by Viral Patel has a property in Brentwood that, in a complicated series of transactions, garners him that huge rent payment. For those scoring at home, the state pays Suffolk County for sheltering homeless people in Patel's building, a former hotel just off the south service road of the Long Island Expressway that can house up to 400. The county pays the Long Island Women's Empowerment Network, which then pays Patel's company -- which then does not pay the county all the property taxes he owes.
Because about $200,000 of what's owed by Patel goes back to the 2011 tax bill, the county has the right to seize the property. But confusing the issue is the fact that the mortgage Patel holds on the building has been bought by an investment company that is both foreclosing on the owner and promising the county it will soon pay off at least the most past due portion of the arrears.
These, though, are details the average taxpayer could not care less about.
The message -- all that matters to most people -- is that the county treasurer's office hasn't collected the $900,000 it's owed, yet the comptroller's office has provided huge payments that have eventually wound their way to the scofflaw. At some point, this contradictory behavior may add validity to the argument for merging the offices, as will be considered in a November referendum. It certainly exposes the low level of common sense in county government. And it demands action.
The county needs to collect the tax payment or seize the building while maintaining services for the homeless.
