NewsChannel5.com | Nashville News, Weather & SportsCouncil Members Put Off Paying Their Property Taxes

Council Members Put Off Paying Their Property Taxes

They spend the tax money that you and I pay -- so you would think they'd pay their own taxes.

But an exclusive NewsChannel 5 investigation discovered some members of the Metro Council have trouble paying what they owe the city.

Our chief investigative reporter Phil Williams and his team dug through the tax records, then Phil went looking for some explanations.

Among the Council members: Bellevue councilman Eric Crafton was the architect behind Nashville's costly, English-only referendum, professing his concern for taxpayers.
 
That's why Belmont freshman Maria Garza, while backgrounding Crafton for an investigative reporting class, was so surprised to discover "that he hadn't paid his taxes, and there were $20,000 worth of those."

That's right -- when other taxpayers lined up to meet February's property tax deadline, the Metro council member was a no-show.

"If we're a little late, we're doing the best we can -- and if somebody has a problem with that, there's nothing that I can do about it," Crafton told Williams.
 
In fact, our investigation discovered at least five rental properties on which Crafton still owed taxes. The most expensive: a house that he and a partner built in Belle Meade.

Right now, Crafton owes more than $12,000 dollars in property taxes for 2008. And his 2007 taxes were more than a year late. He paid those just a couple of months ago as the city prepared to take him to court.

"Does this say something about your concern for taxpayers that you don't pay on time?" Williams asked Crafton.

"Well," the councilman answered, "what it says is that I'm working, doing the best I can."

Crafton noted that he pays interest when he's late, just like everybody else.

But tax watchdog Ben Cunningham said he expects better.

"These are the people who represent us here in Metro government," explained Cunningham, who heads the Tennessee Tax Revolt campaign. "If anybody ought to be paying their taxes on time, they ought to be paying their taxes on time."
 
And what outraged Cunningham even more was our discovery that Crafton isn't alone.

One of them, Metro Council member Vivian Wilhoite, blamed the "economic downturn." Still, she suddenly found the money to pay taxes on her Antioch home after we began asking questions.

"What I'm saying is we've paid our taxes and we've always paid our taxes," Wilhoite told Williams.

But last week's $2,100 payment came just three months after she paid her 2007 taxes. And her 2006 taxes were also a year late. In both cases, the taxes were paid just before the city took legal action.

Her explanation struck a familiar theme.

"Voters will see that we've paid our taxes and we've always paid our taxes," Wilhoite repeated.

"What kind of message does that send to taxpayers that you would be a year late paying your taxes?" Williams asked.

"What that says to taxpayers," she repeated yet again, "is that we pay our taxes and we always pay our taxes."

But Cunningham said, "To be in arears year after year after year is obviously a pattern which we as taxpayers I don't think want to tolerate."
 
And council member Pam Murray didn't want to talk about the taxes she hadn't bothered to pay on her home in East Nashville until after we called.

"Let me say this to you, Mr. Williams," Murray said. "Let the people know that it's OK."
 
But our investigation discovered that Murray has been sued by the city at least six times for not paying property taxes. In 2006, the city got an order to sell her house, but the sale was cancelled after she paid her taxes.

"As a council member should you not set the example and pay on time?" Williams asked.

"And I'm trying my best," she answered.

"You've paid late repeatedly year after year."

"But they've been paid, right?"

"Late."

"Thank you."

Then, she walked away, into the Council chambers.

"Every taxpayer in Metro knows that the money is due on a specific date, and certainly the people that make the rules up here they know when it is due," Cunningham noted.

Williams asked Murray, "So what would happen to city government if everybody paid late?"

She didn't reply.

"Of course," Cunningham said, "if we all paid late, it would destroy Metro government."

Crafton told Williams, "I'm sorry that you're having such a slow news day that you are trying to pick on the poor councilman you know during hard times -- that's OK, though."
 
Cunningham says voters need to take this issue seriously -- even if some council members don't.

"If our representatives who are setting the tax rates and imposing the tax burdens on us, if they don't take this seriously, then we are in big trouble as a government."

One other Metro council member, Sandra Moore, also still hasn't paid her taxes -- although she has a history of usually catching up just a few months after the deadline.

Councilman Crafton has made a few payments in recent weeks. But right now, he still owes you and me more than $15,000.

As for Pam Murray, Metro records indicate that she didn't personally make the recent tax payment. Instead, it was paid by a methadone clinic where she works in Detroit.

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