By DONALD WITTKOWSKI
Tabernacle Baptist Church, Ocean City’s oldest surviving church, has been saved from a tax sale.
Shari Thompson, chairwoman of the Tabernacle Baptist board of trustees, said a community fundraising effort has helped the church pay off virtually all of its overdue taxes for 2019 and 2020.
“This community has been very nice to us,” Thompson said in public remarks during City Council’s meeting Thursday night.
She also extended her thanks to the Council members and Mayor Jay Gillian for their help in solving the financial crisis just days before a tax sale was scheduled for the historic church property on Oct. 1.
“We’re off the tax sale. I made the payment on Monday,” Thompson said, drawing applause from the Council members and the audience.
With the private assistance of some of the Council members and the community, A GoFundMe campaign was set up to raise money to pay the church’s delinquent taxes.
“I’m just very grateful to this community,” Thomas said. “I’m really touched.”
Thompson said in an interview after the Council meeting that the church owed about $8,700 in back taxes for 2019 and $9,700 for 2020. All but about $1,300 has now been paid off, she noted.
The church is planning to hold a yard sale and a barbecue this Saturday to raise money to take care of the remainder of the tax bill. If it raises more than $1,300, the extra money will help the church with deferred maintenance, Thompson said.
Normally, churches have tax-exempt status, but Tabernacle Baptist temporarily came under private ownership in 2019 during a sale of the property to its former pastor.
Tabernacle Baptist’s board of trustees regained ownership of the property in December 2019 after it filed a lawsuit against Pastor Charles Frazier, who has since died, challenging a deal that he had worked out with the church’s former leaders to sell him the building for $1 in March 2019.
During the time it was under private ownership, the church lost its tax-exempt status. The city was legally required to impose property taxes on the church after it had passed into Frazier’s hands.
Tabernacle Baptist filed a lawsuit claiming that it never lost its tax-exempt status and does not owe any property taxes. City Solicitor Dorothy McCrosson said there is a possibility the courts could rule that the church does not owe the taxes if it finds that the transfer of ownership to Frazier had been improper in some way.
However, while the litigation is pending, the tax sale loomed, so the city and church leaders explored ways for Tabernacle Baptist to pay off the debt.
They had discussed the possibility of having the church enter into an installment agreement to pay the back taxes for 2019 and 2020 over a five-year period. The installment plan would have been another way to forestall a tax sale. However, with the overdue taxes now virtually paid in full, the installment plan is no longer needed.
Tabernacle Baptist, one of South Jersey’s most historic African-American churches, dates back to 1890 in Ocean City, making it the town’s oldest surviving church.
The church cornerstone displays the year 1908, which actually marks the date the building was physically moved from Central Avenue to the corner of Eighth Street and West Avenue and placed on its “new” foundation, now 112 years old.
In other business during Thursday’s Council meeting, Mayor Gillian announced that he plans to hold four town hall meetings to discuss key issues affecting the entire island and to get public feedback. The dates and location of the in-person meetings will be announced later.
One of the meetings will focus on the city’s conceptual plan for the public safety building, the headquarters for the police department and municipal court.
For the past three years, the city has been discussing options for modernizing or replacing the existing public safety building, a former school that dates to 1884.
The mayor has floated the idea of possibly renovating and expanding the old red-brick building or constructing an entirely new headquarters for the police department and municipal court.
Another town hall meeting will be about the city’s dredging program for the lagoons and channels along the back bays. Each year, the city spends millions of dollars to dredge the sediment-choked lagoons to make them navigable for boat traffic.
The mayor also announced that he will hold a town hall meeting to discuss drainage and flooding problems throughout the city, including the neighborhood near West Avenue and 17th Street.
Another town hall meeting will focus on the city’s plans to acquire a block of property bordered by 16th and 17th streets, between Haven and Simpson avenues, and preserve it as public space.
In a separate announcement, Gillian said that he will kill plans for the city to add new lighting to the Haven Avenue bike path between 25th and 29th streets following strenuous objections from local homeowners to the proposal.
Homeowners who live near the bike path complained to Council that the new lighting would be intrusive for them, would disturb the wildlife in the adjacent Howard Stainton Wildlife Refuge Park and would draw bicyclists to the area during nighttime hours.
Bill Long, who lives on Haven Avenue, was one of the residents who called the lighting plan a waste of money.
After listening to Long and other opponents of the lighting plan, Gillian said the city will not go forward with the project after all.
“I’m very happy,” Long said in an interview of the mayor’s decision.
Also at the Council meeting, the governing body honored Ocean City High School senior and Boy Scout Troop 32 member Caleb Schumacher for earning the rank of Eagle Scout.
For his Eagle Scout project, the 17-year-old Schumacher built a drop box to hold old flags so that they may be properly retired. The flag box is located at the American Legion Post 524 headquarters at 46th Street and West Avenue.
Schumacher joined with the Council members and Gillian when a resolution recognizing his “outstanding personal qualities” was read during the meeting.
“He’s an example of what America is,” Council President Bob Barr said while praising Schumacher.
