Hillsborough property owners review 2025 delinquent-liens list, hear update on Fort Smith cemeteries and rising encampments

Property Owners of Hillsborough members met to approve routine minutes, elect a chair and hear a report from neighborhood services on delinquent property liens, private cemetery maintenance and an increase in homeless encampments and vacant-structure squatting.

Neighborhood services staff summarized the preliminary 2025 delinquent-liens list, saying the city currently shows 399 liens on the preliminary list and that staff will verify legacy entries after migrating records into a new software platform called CityView. Staff said 186 property owners on the list together include 69 repeat offenders; the department reported a preliminary total liens amount that staff read aloud as a figure that was unclear in the record and will be verified during the data-cleanup process. Staff said past years’ collections and certifications reduced lien totals after payments and noted that last year the department certified 190 liens, reducing the balance to about $133,364.33.

The presentation explained the CityView migration has produced “growing pains” because some legacy liens did not import correctly. Staff said entries flagged “not in CityView” must be cross-checked against legacy records and corrected before certification.

Staff described several categories of cases on the draft list: repeated small monthly payments on very old cleanings (one property has reportedly been paying $10 per month since early 2013), properties with payments under active agreement, and cases where the city may move forward with certification and collection. Staff said the usual practice is to refrain from enforcement when a property owner is making regular monthly payments.

Cemetery maintenance and liens

Staff briefed the membership on Fort Smith-area cemeteries—Roselawn, Holy Cross and Forest…