Goodbye, eyesores. The Springfi eld City Council approved the purchase in June of 71 properties from Sangamon County to demolish the buildings for blight relief under a program started in 2012. The city paid $45,369 total for the properties scattered throughout the city’s core and near east side. The purchase was made possible through what’s known as a tax sale, in which the county seizes – and then sells – land for which property taxes haven’t been paid for a while. Each of the properties has already been condemned, but because the process allows landowners time to redeem their properties by paying back taxes, the city works with the county in the mean time to put a demolition lien on such properties. Often, abandoned buildings are demolished by the time the city offi cially takes ownership of the property. Once the properties are cleaned up, they’re sold at a surplus sale, but the city hopes to fi nd funding for a bigger redevelopment project with those properties. Find a map of the properties recently purchased by the city online at bit.ly/demoblight.