City puts lien on gas station

In the latest chapter of a four-year code enforcement saga, the city has placed a lien of nearly $38,000 on the dilapidated Main Street gas station next to First Baptist Church of Olney, City Administrator Simon Dwyer said.

The owners of the property, listed as GFF Texas Holdings LLC, about a month ago put the property up for sale for $89,900, according to Kelli Cuba, a realtor representing the sellers.

The Young County Appraisal District gives the assessed value of the gas station property as $40,430 and shows property taxes owing every year since 2012, an approximate total of nearly $32,000.

GFF originally bought the gas station in December 2022 at a county foreclosure sale for $17,000 and agreed to pay an additional $23,000 in back taxes and to remove two giant piles of illegally dumped tires and to remediate two underground tanks.

The lien was put in place on July 13 after the owners failed to repay the City for the cost of removing and disposing of about 5,000 illegally discarded tires last year, Mr. Dwyer said.

Mr. Dwyer said that in addition to the lien, the city still has legal options, including code enforcement violations and abatement demands.

“At this point, I think it would be better for the city to recoup financial losses rather than spend even more following through with an abatement,” he said.

A search of the Young County Tax Assessor’s website shows that GFF is owned through a series of shell companies registered in Houston that appear to lead back to a purported law firm in Lagos, Nigeria.

The City Council wrestled with whether to take ownership of the gas station due to the potential liability from the underground tanks but did not want to lose a $41,000 state grant the City won in 2022 to remove the tires.

The Council decided to keep the property after obtaining a variance from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality that allowed it to leave the tanks in the ground.

GFF’s purchase of the property stunned the City Council in 2022 after multiple unsuccessful attempts to auction the foreclosed property.