The owner of a former cannery building has 30 days to appeal a bill for $45,822 for demolition of the structure.
The City Council authorized staff to place a special assessment and tax lien on the property, located at 325 W. 700 North, to recoup money Orem spent tearing the building down in September. The special assessment is due next November along with property taxes.The lien ensures that the debt will be paid off if the property is sold in the interim.
But the council's motion also gave AWC Inc., which owns the property, 30 days to contest the city's bill. That provision was an attempt to keep the matter out of court.
By law, the owner of a property can seek legal recourse to protest an assessment on a building a city has ordered demolished.
The council voted 4-2 to proceed with action to recover money spent destroying the once-historic building. Council members Steve Heinz and Keith Hunt opposed the motion.
Richard Bradford, an attorney for AWC Inc. and its principals Peter and Janelle Lysenko, said after the meeting his clients will appeal the decision. AWC Inc. was formed in 1978. The registered agent of the corporation is Janelle Lysenko, according to the Utah Division of Corporations. Her husband, Peter, is the president/director.
Bradford tried to convince the council to delay action on the assessment because Peter Lysenko was out of town.
Bradford said the city did not give the Lysenkos adequate notice of its proposed action and its notice did not conform with the abatement ordinance. In particular, he said the notice did not itemize charges for the demolition. He asked the council to delay action on the matter.
He also said Peter Lysenko "has been dealing with large issues in his life over the past six months to a year." Lysenko has filed for personal bankruptcy, his wife told the Deseret News.
Council members Hunt and Evans initially were inclined to postpone discussion until Peter Lysenko could prepare a rebuttal to the bill. That also would have delayed the assessment a year.
"I suggest in the interest of fairness, we let it slip," Hunt said. "It gives him some breathing space to somehow recover from this."
But a motion for a continuance failed on a 2-4 vote, and the more Bradford talked, the less support he received from the council.
"The truth is Mr. Lysenko has not had time to prepare his response," Bradford said. He added that the council "might as well give the illusion of fairness by giving a continuance."
John Park, city building official, said the city had been more than patient with the Lysenkos.
The city began abatement proceedings on the cannery building, which it deemed unsafe, in 1992. Lysenko appealed the decision twice, but his appeals were denied.
The city then delayed demolition to allow Lysenko the opportunity to hire his own contractor to demolish the building, Park said. After Lysenko failed to get the building torn down, the city proceeded with the work in September.
"I would have preferred that Mr. Lysenko abated the building on his own," Park said.
Lysenko bought the old cannery in 1982 to house a food distributorship. The business failed and the cannery sat empty for years. Earlier this year Lysenko proposed renovating the building for a vault storage business, but the City Council refused to make a necessary zone change for the proposed business.