To the Editor:

Got my “Cease and desist” order the other day. It came in the mail.  “What’s that,” you ask?  It’s the annual letter telling me to stop being a malingerer when it comes to taxes. It’s a form letter from the Warwick Tax Collector, apprising me of the fact I am in arrears – again – and my property will be sold at auction.

The first time I got one of these – last year – I almost had a coronary. You see, this was never a problem until two years ago, when I paid off my mortgage, since my mortgage payments always included payment for taxes.

When that relationship ended, the city never sent me a tax bill.

Last year, when I asked the city’s tax division why I never received that bill, they checked my address and said, “Some people who are Warwick residents but have the 02818 East Greenwich zip [I do] don’t get the bills. “They fall into a sort of black hole.”

Recognizing that, the tax collector canceled my $350 late fee and advised I change my address, with their office, to reflect that, for address purposes, my address is “East Greenwich.” Despite feeling a weird sense of alienation from my resident city, I did that.

The new problem? I made the address change they recommended in August, and apparently the new bill went out in July, one month earlier. As a result, I never got that bill either. Then, this year’s warning letter.

So, I just went down to the tax collector’s office to protest. They tell me the tax bill is “the citizen’s responsibility.” I counter: “What if the citizen never gets the bill?” They answer: “Well, you know you owe it.”

I am pretty much apoplectic with all this for interest charge for this year’s nonpayment is $371.  That’s hefty for something that’s not my fault. All because we in the 02818 zip code fall into some kind of Black Hole of Taxation.

Any lawyers care to weigh in?

Colleen Kelly Mellor

Warwick