At a recent meeting Gadola tried to distance the County Commissioners from the land bank. In fact four commissioners sit on the Land bank board of directors and the commissioners select the other board members.
The GCLB has amassed more properties in ten years than St Louis did in forty. They turn down offers to sell properties, try to manipulate properties in huge bundles to discourage investors, and want to change the law to stop auctions.
Meanwhile the land Bank is usingthe Oak business center and not paying rent on a piece of property that once rented for $3,000 a month. The Kubota and New Holland tractors owned by the city for maintaing properties are being used by the land Bank aare other equipment once used by city employees. word is they have not been properly maintained. Meanwhile federal grant money from the city and county dollars are subsidizing the maintenance of these properties owned by the land bank.
Past unpaid fines for blight enforcement of private properties ia added to the property liens and raises the cost of these properties. Unpaid water bills in excess, sometimes in the thousands of dollars, of the ordinance limits were also added to the property liens. The result is exorbitants costs for trashed properties when someone wants to buy.