News: Family gets $46,000 refund from county

Persistence paid off for the Youngren family of Orcas Island.

County commissioners last week authorized the refund of more than $46,000 in property taxes for James and Kathleen Youngren.

The couple paid a higher rate of tax than they would have owed had their application under the local open-space program not vanished several years ago amid a flurry of procedural miscues and personnel turnover at the Permit Center. They applied to have a portion of their property reclassified as timber open space.

The Planning Commission approved the application after it re-surfaced last year.

Eric Youngren, who filed two applications on his parents’ behalf eight years ago, is relieved by the outcome. One of the two applications was approved by the Planning Commission years ago; he struggled to revive the other when it plummeted into the black hole. After battling bureaucracy for three years, his patience had worn thin, Youngren said.

“I feel we’ve been incredibly patient,” he said. “If anything, I feel like we’ve been too nice about this.”

Prosecuting Attorney Randy Gaylord said county officials erred in the handling of the application and recommended a refund of three years of overpaid property taxes. He said the County Assessor has yet to calculate the amount of interest or determine how much each local taxing district and the state will owe for its portion of the refund.

The commission will soon face another request for partial refund of property taxes from a San Juan Island couple due to similar errors, he said.

“This was an application that slipped through the cracks,” Gaylord said of the Youngren case. “The file was physically lost.”

After considering the recommendation, the commission agreed to extend the refund over a four-year period because Youngren made the problem of overpaid taxes known to the county even though he hadn’t filed his claim with the proper department. Gaylord said the claim should have been filed with the Board of County Commissioners but it had been brought to the attention of former Permit Center director Grant Beck.

Commissioner John Evans said it’s not the responsibility of citizens to make sure their concern is brought to the appropriate agency. That’s the duty of those who work for the county, Evans said.

“It’s difficult for citizens to approach government to get their issue resolved,” he said. “It’s the responsibility of government officials to know how to help them. That should have been handled by the person you talked to directly.”

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