Strong lobbying pays off

John Graham — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 18:18:15 +0000

A recent visit to the County Clerk & Recorders office revealed some interesting recent transactions. The first was the sale of the Gunsmoke property in Johnson Village. This property is the site where Nestle plans to build its loading station to truck water to Denver. Purchase price was 1.125 MILLION dollars. The second transaction of interest was the Ruby Mountain Springs (location of the former hatchery) property where Nestle plans to pump 65 million gallons of water per year. Purchase price for this property was 2.85 MILLION dollars. In 2007 it is recorded that Nestle purchased the Big Horn Springs site for .86 MILLION dollars. A little math shows that these 3 properties resulted in nearly $5 MILLION for the owners of these properties. I think I now understand a little better why a small but influential group of people were pushing so hard for approval of the Nestle project.

John Graham
Salida

Nestlé pays a pittance in property tax

John Graham — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 12:25:39 +0000

Nestlé Waters purchased the 111-acre Bighorn Springs parcel from McMurray Land & Livestock Co. for $860,000 in May 2007. Because the property is being used to graze livestock, it qualifies for an agricultural status which artificially lessens the market value of the property which the the County uses to determine the property tax assessment. The market value of the parcel, according to the Chaffee County assessor’s office, is $854, and the corresponding assessed value is $250.

In 2008, property taxes owed on the Bighorn Springs parcel by Nestlé to Chaffee County were $10.96 (ten dollars and ninety-six cents).

A previous version of this article included a reference to Frank Holman, rather than Frank McMurray. This was not part of the original article submitted by the author and we apologize for the error.

Salida CitizenJohn Graham

Strong lobbying pays off

Nestlé pays a pittance in property tax