AutoParkit Owner Pays on Delinquent Taxes

WARREN, Ohio – Christopher Alan, president and CEO of Dasher Lawless LLC, entered into a repayment agreement Monday for back taxes on properties on and near Dana Street where he announced plans just over four years ago to relocate his company’s headquarters. 

Alan, a Warren native, yesterday made a payment of $39,506 to the Trumbull County Treasurer’s Office, 10% of what is owed in back taxes on the properties, the majority of which companies he purchased last year out of bankruptcy.  

The payment had been due on Dec. 1, which was a Sunday, Trumbull County Treasurer Sam Lamancusa said. Because county offices were closed since Thursday because of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, the county permitted the payment Monday. 

With the 10% payment, the properties are now “current with a tax delinquency,” Lamancusa said this morning. 

Dasher Lawless, which is based in Van Nuys, Calif., designs, manufactures and builds AutoParkit automated parking systems. In 2015, Alan announced plans to relocate the company’s headquarters to the former Delphi properties. In 2017, he purchased former General Electric property when it appeared he was going to be unable to purchase the Delphi property.

This fall, Alan reported he had 32 employees working in Warren, roughly half of them in engineering and design positions, with others doing manufacturing work, renovating and maintaining the Packard and G.E. properties, and administrative work. 

Alan had acquired the properties under an agreement that allowed him to enter into a repayment plan for the delinquent taxes, which he would make along with the current taxes. 

The installment agreement was nullified when he did not make the required payments as he pursued a reassessment of the properties, which he maintained should be valued lower than they are now because of demolition work done by the properties’ former owner, Maximus III Properties LLC, who also had incurred the delinquent taxes.

Missing any future payments would “constitute the start of a new foreclosure,” Lamancusa said. Though the next payment on current taxes is due in March, because of the payment made Monday the next payment on the delinquency won’t be due until August. 

“We’re satisfied that we’re moving forward trying to help a business move forward in Warren,” he said. 

Copyright 2024 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.