In what may be the most egregious and shameful municipal misdeed I've seen around here in a long while, Montville has allowed a significant property owner to duck its tax bill for some seven years, accumulating a back-taxes bill of more than $1 million.

Take note, all you law-abiding, taxpaying residents of Montville who pay up each year under threat of tax lien and tax foreclosure.

Your mayor, Ronald McDaniel, when I reached him this week, had no real answer to the question of why the town hasn't foreclosed on the developer that controls some 246 acres behind St. Bernard School.

Reporter Martha Shanahan told the story in The Day last weekend of how the properties, assembled from a collection of smaller lots in a development frenzy before the Great Recession, are now a blighted neighborhood, full of abandoned, derelict buildings.

McDaniel said the owner, a developer whose lender on the property is foreclosing, has indicated they will pay soon.

Really?

This is tax policy in Montville? When you are seven years and more than a million dollars behind on your taxes, you just tell the town you are going to pay soon, and that's that.

Actually, McDaniel made it very clear there is no town policy, when I asked him why some taxpayers in arrears are foreclosed on and others are not.

Picking and choosing whom to foreclose on for nonpayment of taxes is a frightening form of blatant discrimination.

How do we know, for instance, the developer who is getting this big pass from the mayor is not his wife's cousin, or a business partner? Why is the developer getting this enormous break not offered by law or policy to others?

The mayor couldn't say.

When I first asked him about it, he said: "Decisions were made."

When pressed, he said it was his decision not to proceed with a tax auction. He added that the tax bill was there when he took office five years ago.

Tax Collector Jerl Casey didn't return phone messages I left for him. I can see why a tax collector wouldn't want to answer questions about why he isn't collecting taxes.

I checked with the office of Attorney General George Jepsen, to see if there is any law that would compel a tax collector to collect taxes in arrears. The spokesperson for the attorney general said it is not their jurisdiction.

In reviewing some of the state statutes I could find, it does seem that much of the authority given to tax collectors seems to be in the nature of "may" not "must." I did see one that indicates a tax lien could be released if a foreclosure does not occur within 15 years.

At the very least, it would seem the town may be opening itself to legal challenge by any delinquent taxpayer foreclosed upon if the bill is less than seven years old.

Another significant impact from the dereliction of duty by the mayor and tax collector is that it has allowed the delinquent developer to hang on to the blighted property, burdening the neighboring homeowners who do pay their taxes.

It is the impetus of a tax foreclosure that often moves an abandoned property into the hands of a new owner more inclined to make improvements.

I have heard suggestions the town does not want to foreclose on the property, which abuts the Mohegan reservation, for fear the tribe might buy it and try to put it in federal trust and off the tax rolls. McDaniel gave me a curt "no comment" when I asked if this is the reason he has not pursued a tax foreclosure.

Of course this would be an even more egregious and prejudicial reason for not foreclosing, because you want to stop some specific buyer from buying it at public auction.

If the Mohegans were to successfully bid and try to exercise their federal rights to attempt to take the land into trust, that is a lawful outcome that you can't stop.

Now that municipal budgets are getting tighter and new tax bills coming due, Montville residents might think twice about paying up.

Just call the mayor and tell him you'll be good for it, maybe even sometime over the next seven years or more.

This is the opinion of David Collins.

d.collins@theday.com