LDS CHURCH CORPORATION AUTHORIZES DEAD BIRMINGHAM DRAINAGE
DISTRICT TO SPENT UNAUTHORIZED TAX MONEY ON ITS PROPERTY
OUTSIDE ORIGINAL DRAINAGE DISTRICT BOUNDARIES
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The Secretary of State reported that the Birmingham Drainage District corporate charter had
expired on December 22, 1963. However, Clay County was still collecting taxes and tuning them
over to individuals claiming to represent the dead drainage district. As the majority landowner
(4,324.5 acres out of 5,390 acres, this corporation would have had the sole vote necessary to
do as it wished with the tax money -- if it had been a legal drainage district.
As it was, the corporation could claim the levee an agricultural levee, since there was no longer
a legal drainage district to sponsor the levee as a part of the federal levee system. The federal
Corps of Engineers rebuilt the levee to federal standards in 1951.
It is self-evident from the following document, the corporation knew :1) the state carried the
drainage district as an expired corporation; 2) it could control the tax money; and 3) no local
landowner would have the opportunity, or the votes, to object to spending public tax money on
a corporate project outside the district.