NEWTON COUNTY – There has been one question on the minds of commissioners at the recent Newton County Board of Commissioners (BOC) meetings.
Who owns the Almon Community Center?
Initially stemming from conversation at the Jan. 16 BOC meeting, the former voting precinct and event center – also known by the name “Almon Community House” – has been the subject of many questions regarding its ownership and subsequent tax-exemption status.
Discussion over ownership begins during county manager report
Discussion of this topic first appeared during county manager Harold Cooper’s county manager report at the Jan. 16 meeting. In the report, a presentation with a chart showed a list of properties with owner designations for each listed property.
The presentation listed Almon Community Center as “not county owned.”
This drew the confusion of District 3 representative Alana Sanders.
“When I came in 2021, our former county manager Lloyd Kerr – when I started receiving complaints – he was the one who informed me that it was a county owned property and there was an agreement with the county for Mr. Chuck Berry to maintain it on behalf of the county,” Sanders said. “So now this is the first time I’m hearing in 2024 that it’s not owned by the county.”
County attorney Patrick Jaugstetter said that the county recently compiled research and figured out that it was not owned by them.
“We undertook a thorough title examination of the property and determined the county did not own the property,” Jaugstetter said.
Cooper stated that it is owned by a trust through a “collective of families.”
Sanders then questioned the county’s motives behind the property.
“So why was the county involved? Because when I was speaking to Mr. Kerr, he said the county also does maintenance in the building as far as cutting grass,” Sanders said. “So why has the county been involved in someone’s personal property?”
Cooper replied by stating that the information provided to him about the matter was recent – hence why he brought it before the board.
“The only thing that I know was that the county was assisting them with their water services,” Cooper said. “And I do know that at one point in time this was a voting precinct so I don’t know if it carried on until we did actually did this most recent search on Jan. 10, but once I received the information on Jan. 10, that’s why I wanted to come and bring it before this board today.”
Who owns the Almon Community Center?
According to Newton County Tax Assessors Office public domain, qPublic.net, Newton County was listed as the owner as recently as Feb. 13.
The property located on 65 Mount Tabor Road was listed with an official ownership designation of “Newton County Public Property.”
The Covington News filed an open records request with Newton County on Feb. 13 to determine who possessed ownership of the former voting precinct.
According to a deed from Nov. 5, 1953, the property was formerly owned by G.H. Dobbs, and subsequently put in a trust of successors.
“Title is vested of record in D.T. Dobbs, J.T. Owens, Sr., J.T. Wallace, C.H. Berry, Jr. and James H. Dobbs, as Trustees of Almon Community House, and to their successors thereof by virtue of deed from G.H. Dobbs dated November 5, 1953 and recorded in Deed Book 46, Page 225 in Newton County Deed Records,” according to an official title certification.
The title certification had an effective date of Dec. 13, 2023, and a title report date of Jan. 3, 2024.
On Feb. 23, an update from qPublic.net showed “Almon Community House Trustees of ETAL” as owners of the property.
The News spoke to chief appraiser of the Newton County Assessor’s Office, Martie Kinard, to get further clarification.
Kinard told The News on Feb. 27 that the change was made “either Friday [Feb. 23] or Monday [Feb. 26].”
The change was made due to an email exchange that took place involving the county attorney, Jaugstetter and the assessor’s office.
“There was a title search recently conducted through the Board of Commissioners and I was supplied a copy of that title search through the county attorney,” Kinard said.
Supervisor of the community center, Chuck Berry, confirmed to The News that the property was owned by a trust and not the county.
But as time went on, Berry said that the property reverted back to the Dobbs family and that he remained the caretaker.
“As time went by and people kinda moved on and me being the caretaker, and the Dobbs family basically owning the property on which the building sits , so one goes hand-in-hand,” Berry said. “Whether it be the facility itself or the property, it’s in the hands of the Dobbs family.
“Families kind of dispersed. People passed away. The group itself kind of dissolved over time… Nobody has been directly involved with the community house in several years outside of myself just basically looking after it to make sure we still had it for people in the community to use.”
Son of G.H. Dobbs, Denny Dobbs, told The News the property was never owned by the county and was originally built by his father and a group of men – who were listed as the trustees – to provide a community house for Almon.
Despite this, Denny said that he was never involved with the naming of trustees, and said he was not a trustee himself.
When asked who currently owns the property, Dobbs said that is up in the air.
“We’re trying to figure all that out now,” Dobbs said. “The way I think it is, we’re trying to sort all that – if there’s no trustees to operate it – it reverts back to family, my father, which would be me and my sister who has passed away… what I’ve heard from legal counsel is that it would work back to us.”
As far as whom it may revert to, that is still in talks, too.
“I’ve been in discussions with Chuck Berry about whether he wants to try to put together another group of trustees,” Dobbs said. “He’s been the one who’s been putting all the effort in it for the last 10 years.”
Dobbs said it is likely an LLC will be set up to hold the title of the property and that Berry would continue to day-to-day operations. It was said that currently, all proceeds of the center is in a bank account with Berry’s name on it and used for maintenance and utilities only, and not for any personal usage or profit.
Where did the confusion come from?
Not much was said on why the County thought they owned the property.
However, Newton County public information officer Bryan Fazio stated that the former interim county manager, Jarvis Sims, began to look into community centers during his tenure. After some further digging from Cooper, the title examination was then conducted.
“The interim county manager [Sims] was going through some of our policies pertaining to community centers,” Fazio said. “Upon a deeper dive, a full property title search revealed that we did not own it.”
The Covington News reached out to Jaugstetter to get a further idea on the clarification behind the title examination. However, Jaugstetter declined to comment.
There has also been confusion among commissioners and office-holders alike as to if the property was county-owned or not county-owned.
District 4 representative J.C. Henderson – who has served on the Board of Commissioners since 1996 – said he was never aware of the building as anything other than county-owned.
“There never has been since I’ve been on the board a discussion of whether or not it was county property,” Henderson said at the Jan. 16 BOC meeting. “It should have fell under the same rules as any other community center or building.”
While not knowing an exact year, Kinard said that she has always thought that Almon Community Center was county-owned, too.
“I had only ever known it to be in that name [of Newton County],” Kinard said.
But Berry said that despite the tax records, Newton County never owned it.
“It’s listed on the tax records [as the county owning the property] but there’s nothing in the deeds that indicate that,” Berry said. “My guess is that they listed on the tax records as county property so that they can carry the liability insurance on it, seeing as it was used as a voting precinct. Legal ownership was never transferred.”
Dobbs also seconded this.
“The county has never owned it, let me clear that up for you,” Dobbs said.
How much does Almon Community Center pay in taxes?
As recent as Feb. 13, the property had a listed E1 designation – the designation for tax exempt public property. It is also listed on the public domain as “Office - Governmental.”
This meant this property was tax-exempt, therefore, the answer was nothing.
That, however, is set to change. As of Feb. 23, the property’s designation changed from E1 to C4 - commercial.
Kinard stated that the change was made to reflect the proper ownership and that specifics are still being looked into for the future.
“I have my appraiser still looking at the property to see what strata classification it would go into, of course it wouldn’t go into E anymore,” Kinard said.
How did Almon Community Center receive its exemption status?
This part does not seem as clear as others.
Newton County Tax Commissioner Marcus Jordan told The Covington News that each time a property is classified as exempt, the Newton County Board of Tax Assessors would vote to determine whether the property should be exempt or not.
When an open records request was filed to see if an exemption record was on file, the County stated “there are no records responsive to this request.”
How much has Almon Community Center been worth over the years?
Valuations made available through qPublic.net only showed what the property was worth from 2019 to 2023. However, The News was able to obtain the valuation of the property from the Newton County tax assessors office from the years 2016 to 2023.
- 2016: $40,000
- 2017: $125,900
- 2018: $175,000
- 2019: $175,000
- 2020: $180,500
- 2021: $178,700
- 2022: $178,700
- 2023: $191,700
The News asked Berry on whether any changes had been made to the property to warrant an over 300 percent valuation increase from 2016 to 2017.
“No. There were no changes to the building that would have warranted that,” Berry said.
How much in property taxes would Almon Community Center have paid had it been listed as private property?
Kinard confirmed to The News that the Almon Community Center has not been paying property taxes.
Due to the property’s tax-exemption status as county-owned property, property taxes were not collected.
Based on the numbers provided by the tax assessor’s office, here is what Almon Community Center would have roughly paid in property taxes had the property been listed as privately owned and not tax-exempt.
It is important to note that these are rough estimates and are not to be considered as exact calculations.
The formula used to calculate the rough estimations was (Property valuation for each year) * (40 percent) = x. Then (x) * (Millage rate for each year / $1,000).
2016: $549.32
2017: $1,729.01
2018: $2,403.31
2019: $2,387.70
2020: $2,425.63
2021: $2,167.63
2022: $1,939.53
2023: $1,942.38
The Covington News asked Berry if he was aware of the property’s tax-exemption status, to which he said “he did not know.”
“If there was any tax liability on it at that point it would be the Dobbs family because the Dobbs family owned the property,” Berry said.
Dobbs told The News that he never had personal involvement with the property until the issue was brought up by Sanders in a BOC meeting “a few years ago.” He stated that until just recently he was beginning to take involvement in the property.
“I never looked at the tax bill. I never knew who got it. I never got it,” Dobbs said. “I have no idea about any of that. I have no dealings with the community house period.”
How much has Newton County paid to Almon Community Center?
The News also submitted an open records request to determine how much money Newton County has paid to the Almon Community Center – specifically in its utilities.
An official water/sewer log shows data stemming from July 2014 to January 2024 was made available via the request. The county paid the following amount(s) year-by-year:
Jul 2014 - Dec. 2014: $82.32
2015: $187.66
2016: $174
2017: $374.95
2018: $160.73
2019: $204.61
2020: $152.12
2021: $157.86
2022: $168.73
2023: $167.92
An entry for January 2024 was listed is blank.
The payment log had a listed address of “Almon Voting Precinct.”
However, per a February 2022 Covington News article, the voting precinct for Almon was changed from Almon Community Center to Newton Baptist Church.
While Cooper stated that he was only aware that the county paid its water bill, other services were reportedly performed, too, according to Berry.
“The County just basically cut the grass and kept liability insurance on it,” Berry said.
Berry additionally clarified that the other utilities, such as gas and electric bills, were paid from money that was acquired through people who rented the property for its community usage.
What’s next in this process?
As of press time, there are no written plans in any upcoming board meeting agendas for the County to continue discussion on this matter.
Cooper did, however, clarify at the Jan. 16 meeting that Newton County is no longer paying the water/sewer bill.
“Effective immediately we have been removed since I found out about it on Jan. 10,” Cooper said.
Dobbs said that the community center will continue to run as operated for the foreseeable future.
“Far as I’m concerned it’s going to be used in the same manner that it is in the past,” Dobbs said.
Berry shared the same sentiment, stating that the community center will continue to run as operated, and will be able to be rented by anyone interested.
“It’s always been a community center and we’ve always had it available for the community and the County was willing to help us there to make a better facility,” Berry said.
