Platte County Collector Sheila Palmer has responded, via her attorney, to allegations made by Jason Maki that she misled the judge who dismissed the case brought against her regarding the Homestead Tax Credit.
Late last week, Maki – who lost his bid for Platte County Presiding Commissioner in the election Nov. 3 – said that 2026 property tax statements were mailed out last week, minus the tax credit.
“That was a deception by the collector’s office,” Maki said. “The judge believed her and dismissed the case as premature until the Collector received the tax book on or about Oct. 31.”
The attorney who made those statements is Lydia McEvoy of Pathguide Law LLC in Gladstone — a former Clay County collector who teaches as an adjunct professor in the paralegal and business law programs at Johnson County Community College.
“Ms. McEvoy ran a collector’s office for years. She knows exactly what a tax book is and when it’s delivered, and she teaches students what a lawyer owes a court,” Maki said. “On Oct. 27 she told a judge the tax book wasn’t due and her client had nothing to act on, while her client’s signature on the receipt was three weeks old. Whether she knew or didn’t bother to ask, she engaged in deception on behalf of the collector, and the court ruled on it.”
In response, Palmer said that Clay County Judge Tim Flook dismissed the suit because the petition failed to state the elements and necessary facts for relief.
“The tax statements that have been sent out reflect and are based on the tax book that my office had from the county clerk as of Oct. 31,” Palmer said. “I do not and have not refused and will perform the duties required of my office under Section 137.1055, RSMo (the Homestead Property Tax Credit), as well as any other statute that places mandatory duties upon my office.”
While the lawsuit asked the collector to calculate the credit, the judge found that the collector “is not statutorily obligated to ‘note’ an amount for a tax credit unless that credit has been previously calculated and the clerk has duly charged and delivered the tax book.” Flook also found the collector had no duty to calculate a credit amount.
McEvoy said in court that a tax book that contained the homestead credit had not been delivered to the collector.
Maki contends that tax statements were being printed long before the hearing, citing a, Oct. 19 video featuring Holly Cayer, deputy collector and the winner in last week’s election to be the next county collector. He says the 2026 statements were rushed to the mail.
““They rushed them out to get ahead of a court order,” Maki said. “That was the plan: make it a done deal before anyone could tell them to do their job. This was their strategy all along. They were going to do this no matter what. They deceived the court to get the statements out the door before a judge could order them to follow the law. They had no intention of ever following it this year, and I doubt they will next year.”
Via her attorney, Palmer said the collector has no power to recalculate a tax book sent to her.
“After delivery of the tax book to the collector, she is charged with ‘the whole amount of the tax books delivered’ (137.290.1, RSMo), and the law’s mechanism for correcting an extended tax book is a supplemental tax book made by the clerk when the county commission so requires (137.300, RSMo). At no point does the law make the collector the officer who calculates liability or revises it.
“If the county calculates the credit and delivers a supplemental tax book the way the law requires, I will do everything I am supposed to do,” Palmer said. “My intention since the first time I warned the Commission about the possible software concerns was to be part of the solution and get this figured out long before we had to think about mailing tax bills.”