By Martin E. Comas, Orlando Sentinel
5:39 p.m. EST, September 5, 2012
For a third straight year, property taxes are past due on the condominium unit that Altamonte Springs Mayor Pat Bates shares with her husband, former Mayor James Dudley Bates, county records show.
Taxes and fines totaling $4,034 have been past due since April 1 on the four-bedroom condo, which is owned by James Bates. The home is in foreclosure, and the Bateses have filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
It's not the first time that James Bates, 70, has fallen behind on taxes for the condo in the Lotus Vista gated community, just north of Maitland Boulevard in Altamonte Springs. In October 2011, while his wife was running for re-election, he paid a bill of about $10,000, including fines, for past-due taxes from 2009 and 2010, according to the Seminole County Tax Collector's office.
"We're not avoiding paying taxes," said Pat Bates, who has been mayor since 2008 and votes each year to set the city's property-tax rates. "We're not bad people. But we're struggling mightily, and it's just been overwhelming."
As mayor, Pat Bates, 64, is paid $7,200 annually. James Bates, who was mayor from 1987 to 1999, said he has been unemployed for about four years, since his real-estate consulting business dissolved.
"The cold, hard facts are that for the first time in my life, I don't have the income to sustain a living, to keep the lights on and the power and the telephone working," he said. "As much as I hated to do it, I just had to draw back from paying my taxes. Last year, I had to scrape together the money, and we are currently still trying to do that with these taxes this year."
He bought the 2,452-square-foot condo in 2006 for $772,800, county records show, but it now has an assessed value of $239,887. Pat Bates moved there in 2007, when the couple married.
The Bateses said they plan to move out of the condo and into an apartment within the city limits so that she can remain mayor.
Pat Bates, who has sat on the City Commission since 1997, said: "I love my job, and I'm still going to do my job."
mcomas@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5718
Source: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/os-taxes-altamonte-springs-mayor-20120905,0,2351401.story?track=rss
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