By Stephanie Johns
Staff Writer

The Morgan County Board of Tax Assessors spent the first 45 minutes of their March meeting in closed session discussing pending litigation.
Upon resuming their regular meeting, they voted to send a letter of intent to breach to all parties – Ward and Montana Development – provided no legal shadow is found prohibiting it being sent. If a legal shadow is found, this topic will be put on the April agenda.
Chief Appraiser Chuck Anglin later explained that the ‘legal shadow’ pertains to the statute of limitations. He said that county staff must wait to find out if sending the letter falls within the statute of limitations and go forward from there.
The tax board also spent more than 30 minutes discussing a technical issue: whether two parcels can be on one Conservation Use Value Assessment (CUVA) application. While the first CUVA applicant had requested a simultaneous continuation, the board voted to approve the application as a continuation instead.
Two other CUVA applications were tabled: the board wanted to know were any houses are located on those parcels as well as whether those houses are rented out.
Continuation applications for 14 other parcels were approved.
In other news:
• Anglin said that all parties have signed the contract for another year of service from Traylor Business Services, Inc. Traylor audits companies that have personal property in the county.
• The board voted to hold their April meeting on April 15 to give county staff time to process any last-minute CUVA applications. The deadline for those is April 1.

Printed in the March 14, 2013 edition