The ownership of a parcel of property in Winchester has been solved.
The almost 5-acre parcel of land sits off of Coultas Road and East Jefferson Street near Valley Tree Estates. A neighbor to the property, Lucy Reid, believed the ground belonged to the City of Winchester as she had found that the now-defunct Winchester chapter of the Grand Army of the Republic had allegedly deeded the property to the city near the turn of the 20th Century to create a veteran’s memorial park. Despite her research, Reid could not locate a property deed for the ground and found that no property taxes had been paid for it in several years.
The Winchester City Council approved a title search with the Scott County Abstract Company. Mayor Rex McIntire said the inquiry was completed in two days time and the answer was given to the city council Wednesday night: “They charged us $195 to the do work, which is a bargain. We found out that the Frost Family had worked out a situation years ago. Now, I haven’t read it myself, but City Attorney John Paul Coonrod has it. It’s been in control of the Frost Family for years. They actually own the property.”
City Attorney John Paul Coonrod said the opinion from the abstract company found that the Frost Family has owned the property for a number of years after some transfers of the deed: “The opinion basically states that the Frost Family owns the property, and has owned it for many, many years. The most recent deed between members of the Frost Family happened to be filed in 2007, I believe. Prior to that, in the 1800s, there was approximately 80 years between the original land grant from the U.S. Government to a Mr. Claywell and a Mr. Smith in 1853. I want to say there some changing of hands of that property ending up in the hands of a different Mr. Smith, who then transferred it to a member of the Frost Family. It’s been with them ever since.”
Mayor McIntire says that the Scott County Assessor’s office will now likely get involved on the property taxes to see about any delinquent taxes. Coonrod says the city won’t have any involvement in the back tax issues: “For what it’s worth, I don’t think anybody has done anything wrong here. It appears that the county tax records are incorrect, but I don’t think the Frost Family has done anything purposeful here. How would they have noticed that? They own several tracts of land, and it’s really not reasonable to expect them to notice the absence of one tax bill, which would have amounted to a very small amount of taxes on one very small parcel. The city, likewise, it’s really not the city’s occupation to notice that error either. The tax implication and the back taxes are really going to be minimal. It’s a very small parcel. It does not have any structure on it. It’s not even a field. It really doesn’t have much in the way of productive use to be made of it so it strikes me as a minor issue, but a county issue nonetheless.”
Mayor McIntire says though that the city is still looking at options for a sidewalk in that area, as there have been several concerns about pedestrians in the subdivision and speeding cars: “It’s definitely something we are going to look into because I’ve been wanting to do that for quite some time. There’s really just no good place to put one. It’s a bad situation for pedestrians. In fact, I don’t blame people. I wouldn’t want to put my kids out in the street or have them walking around those corners around there either with the traffic that we’ve got. That’s something else I’m going to have to do is talk to the local police department to see about some enforcement. We are going to have to start passing out tickets to let people know that we’re not going to tolerate people speeding through that area.”
In written communication on the final determination about the land’s ownership, Lucy Reid expressed disappointment on the outcome. She had hoped it would remain a park and be used as a walk trail and the current wetlands be maintained for conservation efforts.