NEHLS LEADS his frisky pony out of the 75-year-old barn built by his father. A neat array of farm tools hangs on the outside wall of the barn

Seventy-eight-year-old Fred Nehls may be evicted from his lifelong farm home on Summit Avenue sometime come fall.

He hasn’t paid his property taxes or assessments since 1968 on three out lots fronting on Summit, including the out lot on which he lives. The land was forfeited to the state last September and is now owned by the state.

The tax forfeiture was mentioned at a recent county board meeting and officials said the county would probably offer the land at a tax sale this fall.

NEHLS DOESN’T believe the state can take his home for nonpayment of taxes and assessments.

“Yah, that’s on land but not on homestead,” he told The Journal.

FRED NEHLS lives a simple life on his farm in New Ulm. He doesn’t think the stat can sell his farm home for nonpayment of taxes.

“They can’t sell it. I had an attorney ask about that,” he says. “I can live on it as long as I live, then it goes to the state.

“Other than homestead, sure, like the other out lots I don’t live on, they could sell that right away. If you don’t pay your taxes then they can sell it, but not homestead.”

COUNTY ATTY. Robert Berens told The Journal this is wrong, that if you don’t pay your taxes it’s just like not paying your mortgage. If you don’t pay your mortgage the bank forecloses, he noted.

Nehls now owes about $12,600 in back taxes, assessments and penalties on the three out lots. General opinion is that the land is worth four times that, but an informed estimate could not be obtained.

WHY DID Nehls stop paying his taxes?

NEHLS FARM YARD with its chickens, old implements and shed is a rural pocket in contrast to city homes in the background (Photos by Ron Griese)

It wasn’t the property taxes but rather the assessment for sewer and water that he and his brother Carl (now deceased) refused to pay, he says. And the county treasurer said they couldn’t pay just the taxes, they had to pay the assessments too.

“We said we won’t pay nothing,” Nehls remembers.

NEHLS’ TROUBLES started in March 1966 when the New Ulm Country Club, TV Signal and one couple asked for a water main on Summit from 10th S. to the country club.

Although the petition signers represented only 35.8 percent of the front footage involved, that was more than 35 percent required by city charter.

A woman at the council hearing on the water main asked if it was advisable to install water and not sewer.

The council ordered in a water main from 10th S. to about 15th S. and decided to order in sewer on its own, without petition, from 10th S. to near 12th S. The council has this power under the charter.

Only one complaint was registered at the hearing, that from a man asking that the assessments be deferred. The Nehls brothers did not appear.

While assessments to the Country Club, the initiator, were $3,975 for water main, the Nehls brothers were assessed $3,455 for water and another $2,725 for sewer.

NEHLS IS still firmly against paying the assessments and says he and his brother refused to pay in the first place because of “the crooked laws they made, the city and the charter.

“Years ago,” he says, “if improvements would be made, over half had to be for it. Well, that you can call fair, huh? If over 50 per cent are for something. But if 35 per cent can tell what the rest do, huh? No, then we quit.”

Before the city adopted its home rule charter in 1940, one city official is pretty sure, the percent required was over 50.

Nehls also says that years ago the city couldn’t assess out lots. City Clerk Andrew Bastian says as far as he knows out lots have always been subject to assessments for adjacent improvements.

BY 1969 property taxes on the three Nehls out lots had jumped by huge amounts -from $6 to $245, from $23 to $245 and from $41 to $184. The out lots were revalued in the citywide reassessment started in 1968 on the hilltop and the sewer and water improvements helped bump the out lot valuations up more than 400 per cent.

The sewer and water assessments were in addition to these taxes and totaled $704 in 1968 and the three out lots and $1,090 in 1969.

The Nehls brothers did continue paying taxes on one out lot west of the other three which does not front on Summit and had no assessments. The tax on that out lot remained low. The out lot is on a hillside and goes down to Flandrau State Park.

THE BIRDS sing, the chickens squawk, and the gander honks outside Nehls’ farm home. The extensive yard is fenced and includes a big space for the small pony to race around, tail and mane flying.

Nehls lives simply, using a wood stove for heat and cooking, a kerosene wall lamp for light. For water it’s a lengthy hike to the well. He has no electricity and never hooked up to the sewer or water mains running near his house.

Last year he built a squat windmill for grinding corn and sharpening axes. He uses his heavy homemade ladder to put up the rotating belt.

Although Nehls used to raise vegetables and peddle them around town, going through alleys with his horse and buggy, now he just sells pumpkins to children who come to his farm around Halloween. He also grows sweet potatoes. Someone else farms most of the 12 acres in the three out lots.

In the winter he cuts wood, listens to the radio, and walks to Hy-Vee or Gibsons to shop. He seldom gets downtown, maybe twice a year when he wants a haircut or some postage stamps. Occasionally he takes his pony with him to carry home a heavy bag of flour or chicken feed.

LAST SUMMER the sheriff served a legal notice on him and he got a letter from the county auditor, he remembers, warning him it was his last chance to pay or lose his land.

When asked if he had considered selling off part of the land and using the money to pay off the taxes and assessments, he says a Minneapolis church wanted to buy some but “that didn’t go last summer any more.”

He says, “Years ago I could have gotten $80,000” for the land, but “who wants that money; I don’t want the money.” And now “that time is gone.”

New Ulm Daily Journal

April 28, 1975