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Pipeline company withdrawing lawsuits seeking tax breaks from towns of Canton, Hermon, Pitcairn and local schools

Posted 12/4/15

This is a section of a pipeline map on Iroquois’ web site. It continues south to Long Island and New York City. By CRAIG FREILICH Iroquois Gas Transmission System, operators of a natural gas …

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Pipeline company withdrawing lawsuits seeking tax breaks from towns of Canton, Hermon, Pitcairn and local schools

Posted

This is a section of a pipeline map on Iroquois’ web site. It continues south to Long Island and New York City.

By CRAIG FREILICH

Iroquois Gas Transmission System, operators of a natural gas pipeline that traverses part of St. Lawrence County, have decided not to pursue lower tax assessments in court.

Canton Central School Superintendent William Gregory said “all indications are the petitions regarding all St. Lawrence County entities would be withdrawn.

“It appears it’s going to happen, but we have nothing in writing yet,” he said.

“That would be good news for all taxpayers,” he said.

The company has been asking the towns of Canton, Hermon and Pitcairn for a reduction in the assessments of the value of their pipeline to cut their tax bills.

The Canton Central School district would stand to lose the most, about $250,000 in tax revenue each year, plus about $1 million if a court had ruled that the last four years of the company’s applications for lower assessment were granted.

The Town of Canton stands to lose between $30,000 to $40,000 a year in tax revenue for the two sections of pipeline in the township, currently assessed at $17,769,929.

“The towns will not be impacted as much as the schools,” said Canton Town Supervisor David Button.

“No one likes to litigate,” Button said. “This saves us from a costly process where no one actually wins.” He estimates the legal costs for the town to fight the reassessment would have been between $10,000 to $12,000. That would be Canton’s share of a joint defense of the assessments by them, Hermon, Pitcairn and the school districts involved, which they all had been preparing to initiate.

The consensus among those involved locally was that since the communities had decided to act on a united front, Iroquois was afraid of the negative publicity a suit might bring to them, Button said. Some believe that is the reason Iroquois dropped similar action in Lewis County.

Button said ordinarily a taxpayer with a tax grievance would “come in and discuss what’s happening. That’s not what Iroquois did. They started dropping lawsuits. That’s not the way to build a positive relationship with a municipality.”

He said in conversations he had “it became clear to me adverse publicity was critical in their decision” to withdraw the suits.

“A corporate entity in our communities can destroy a lot of good will in a couple of legal actions like this.”