By Michelle Peirano | Cronkite News
Esther Stewart sat down this week and wrote a check to the federal government, to pay property tax on land she does not own.
She is one of 25 property owners in Mountainaire, a community near Flagstaff, who woke up one morning in 2007 to find the Coconino National Forest boundary line had been moved to take in some – or in Stewart’s case, almost all – of their properties.
The shift was needed to correct a surveying error from 1960. Now, Mountainaire residents hope a bill moving through Congress will let them buy back the lands they thought they once owned.
The bill, cosponsored by Reps. Ann Kirkpatrick, D-Flagstaff, and Paul Gosar, R-Prescott, would let residents buy the disputed 2.67 acres from the Bureau of Land Management for $20,000. It was unanimously approved Wednesday by the House Natural Resources Committee and heads next to the full House.
It is the third time Arizona lawmakers have tried to fix the Mountainaire problem.
