The local newspaper, The Gem, reported today that the Isaiah 58 Project has not fully complied with the cease & desist order. Most of the trailers, busses, vans and campers have been removed but 6 still remain. Their lawyers are claiming discrimination and have filed a lawsuit against the city. The city attorney says that the papers were to be served on the owners of record but the registered owners are deceased and no heirs can be found.

The good reverend, Mike Hobby, paid the back taxes but can show no proof of ownership of the property. The Quartzsite city attorney says they may actually be trespassing on the property. The city may try to have the project barred from the property unless they can show a deed or lease for the property.

The Rainbow people are famous for squatting on property and asserting that they own it, when they do not own a property.

According to the county Assessor's office in Parker, no owners or heirs can be located for the property. The realtor that had the property listed can not get hold of any owners either. Interesting!

Anyway, the town is filling up again. There are longer lines at the bank, post office, and the grocery stores again. The people on lot 2 returned last Friday and the owners of lot 38 returned for one day. They then went across the street into Mountain View Park.

Clay's brother, Gary, is almost moved out of the lot on the corner by Moon Mtn Ave. He told me that Clay had a massive heart attack.

Gas is now $2.67 for regular and Diesel is $ 2.77 here. It is about 10 cents a gallon less in Phoenix. Fuel is still about 50 cents a gallon more in Blythe.

The wash is still not paved on Quail trail and there is a stretch of about 300 feet that is not paved on Moon Mtn at the corner of Kofa. The county has had backhoes working in the washes trying to put the dirt and gravel back next to the pavement and get the mud and sand off of the streets.

We had a quiet Labor Day weekend here, enjoying the slightly cooler temperatures and beautiful clouds that have filled the sky lately. They say the clouds are from the hurricane that hit Baja California Friday. No rain here, just fabulous cloud formations.

Harvey & Gail Martin

There is a law on the books that if someone pays the taxes on a property for a period of years, usually 5 to 7 years, although some states require ten years, then the state will deed that property over to the taxpayer. Even if the registered owner is still living on the property!!!

The only way to stop the process is for the owner of record to come forward and protest the payment of taxes on his property and refund all of the money, plus 10 percent interest, to the person that paid the taxes for him.

The law was started because of fence line disputes and property line questions. The law states that whomever pays the taxes, undisputed, for the required period of years, is the actual owner and will issue a Tax Deed.

I had a real estate broker friend that made a habit of going in to the assessors office and paying the taxes on properties whenever a notice in the newspaper appeared that one property owner had died. He would always go pay the taxes before tax bills were mailed out so the actual owner never received a tax bill in the mail.

Then, 7 years down the road, he owned it. Much to the surviving spouse's, or children's, chagrin of course. But because the real property owners never received a tax bill in the mail, they never questioned it or thought about it.

If they did find out what he was doing before the 7 years was up, the worst that happened was that he got all of his money back plus 10 percent interest. But what usually happened was that he would sell the property back to the old owner for a little less that the actual and current value. He made a lot of money over the years but made a lot of enemies too, but it was all perfectly legal.

The Rainbow group has been known to do this in the past, in several states, so it would not surprise me if this might be happening on the old Solar City property where the Isaiah 58 Project is now.

The city of Quartzsite is aware that this is probably happening because they can not locate an owner, survivor or heir that is still alive. The 58 Project was in the process of dealing with the old owner when he died before the transaction closed, as far as records indicate.

Interesting, No?

Harvey