DeKalb County Commissioner Lee May hasn't paid his business property taxes in two years, and now county tax agents are threatening to seize his assets and sell them on the courthouse steps.

May, who represents District 5 in fast-growing southeast DeKalb, opened a movie theater on Panola Road near Lithonia in 2005. The business apparently struggled from the start, because he didn't pay his taxes for 2006 or the following year.

The county tax commissioner's Web site now warns that a tax sale has been scheduled for the property and includes this ominous message in bold red letters: "Take heed and act accordingly."

May issued a written statement Thursday saying he hopes to sell the facility and pay his debts. But he is running out of time.

Andrew Booth, the director of delinquent collections for the tax commissioner, said that if May doesn't pay his $3,501 bill soon, agents will haul away the movie projector and other contents of the cinema. The goods will be sold on the courthouse steps on the first Tuesday of a coming month, Booth said.

Distress sales generally draw bargain basement prices, so Booth said it would be best for taxpayers if May could pay his bill. "We don't want to haul a huge projector out," he said. "We don't like to do it because it's a lot of time and effort for what we actually get."

May doesn't own the land or the building, which is in the Covington Square Shopping Center at the intersection of Covington Highway and Panola Road. So he doesn't owe real estate taxes, but he does owe taxes on the theater equipment and other building contents, which the tax assessor valued at nearly $95,000.

May described his goals for the theater in a 2005 Atlanta Journal-Constitution article. He'd acquired a run-down cinema that charged $1 a movie, and planned to renovate it into a cafe and movie house called "Cinefe 8." In his statement Thursday, May said he had a dream "of bringing a high quality movie theater to my neighborhood."

May, 32, has been a county commissioner for two years. He won a 2006 special election to fill the seat vacated by Hank Johnson who ran for Congress. May must run again this year to keep the seat for the next four-year term.