By Billy Davis

Curtis Bottling, Inc. of Maryland has paid past-due property taxes for two years for the still-unopened Rolando Curtis Foods plant in Crenshaw.

The last-minute payments for 2008 and 2009 were made last week, just days before land sales for delinquent taxes commenced Monday.

A tax deed for the industrial property in Crenshaw would have gone to High Sierra Tax Sale Properties, which paid the 2008 taxes, if Curtis Bottling had not paid the taxes.

Unpaid taxes “mature” after three years and High Sierra could have requested a tax deed after the maturation date came August 31.

A spokesman for High Sierra has told The Panolian the Meridian-based company pays taxes on delinquent property as an investment, with no interest in gaining ownership.

Rolando Curtis Foods still owes property taxes for 2010 totaling $17,101.

“The deed now goes to us,” declared Rolando CEO Roland Butler from Curtis Bottling in Upper Marlboro, Maryland.

The Panolian reported last August that Butler had resurfaced in his home state of Maryland, where he was promoting alkaline-based bottled water on a Web site, deltabluewater.com.

Blue Delta Alkaline Water sells on-line for $29.95 for two-dozen 20-ounce bottles. The Web site declares Blue Delta is the official water of the Tennis Channel.

A secretary answered the phone at Curtis Bottling Monday and transferred a reporter to Butler, who said he paid the taxes to finally open Roland Curtis Food and bring jobs to the area.

“We are working on the financing for that,” he said.

August 2011 marks five years since the Panola County Board of Supervisors gave Butler the cavernous building at 101 Jones Street in exchange for a promise of 250 or more jobs by the fall of 2005.

The property swap has never produced a manufacturing job for the various products — bottled water, juices, and baby formula — that Butler claimed would be manufactured in Crenshaw. But the company CEO used the plant as collateral to borrow $1.4 million according to county records.