City cleans up gas station tire pile

City workers began removing two giant piles of tires from an abandoned gas station on Main Street five years after the City of Olney’s code enforcement officers began efforts to clean up the dilapidated property. The tires will be trucked to the Olney Convenience Station, where they will be run through the City’s new tire cutter. City officials estimated there are about 2,600 tires in two piles at the gas station at 301 W. Main St.

“The process has been long and arduous, but with assistance from Code Enforcement, Nortex Regional Planning Commission, and TCEQ, we finally came to a solution and reasonable cost without putting it back on the community,” said City Administrator Arpegea Pagsuberon. “We are proud of everyone involved from Code Enforcement, Olney Police Department, Public Works Department and our administration. We will use these resources to continue clearing our City of unused tires.”

After working unsuccessfully for three years with the former owners to clean up the property between the First Baptist Church of Olney and Interbank, the City Council voted in April 2022 to apply for a grant to have the tires trucked away and disposed of. The Olney Police Department pursued a criminal case against the former owners, Rosa and Mark Corwin, for collecting tire disposal fees and failing to dispose of the tires.

Olney Police Chief Dan Birbeck, who spearheaded the code enforcement action, said efforts to remove the eyesore were complex but paid off in the end.

“It’s been a long road and we had a lot of ups and downs with that project but it’s nice to see movement and improvement to our Main Street,” he said. “It definitely looks a lot better.”

The City received a $41,056 regional solid waste grant from Nortex Regional Planning Commission last year to dispose of the tires but the plan hit a snag when the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, which would have administered the clean-up, learned that the tires sat on private property.

The City then revised its grant application to purchase the tire cutter so that City workers could collect the tires and process them. The City debated whether to take possession of the property through foreclosure - with Councilmembers worried that taxpayers would be stuck with the costs of removing two underground gasoline tanks on the property.

City officials worked with state and federal environmental agencies to get a waiver for removing the tanks and were within weeks of taking possession of the property when a Texas-based holding company purchased it at a county foreclosure sale.

The company, GFF Holdings LLC, agreed to pay $23,000 in back taxes, clean up the tires, and remove the underground gas tanks as part of the purchase agreement.

The sale of the property startled the City Council, as it had been listed multiple times at county foreclosure sales with no takers.

The City began negotiating with the new owner in June until after a six-month period during which the former owner could redeem the property had expired. The owner, Jocelyn Shelton, signed a contract with the City last week to pay city workers to collect and dispose of the tires at the Olney Convenience Station.

It is not clear what Ms. Shelton plans to do with the property once it is cleaned up.