Mayor Admits He Let Details Slip About Proposed Board Of Revision Changes

By Robert Thomas

Mayor Clive Tolley admitted he misspoke by releasing details of an in-camera Executive Committee decision but it was also an issue that was well known in the community.

“Yeah I let it slip that we were thinking about contracting that work out as opposed to having a Board of Revision and of course I realized it had been in the (Executive) Committee and it hadn’t been made public at a Council meeting,” Mayor Tolley said when asked by MJ Independent in the post Council presser if he had discussed the Board Of Revision issue with outside parties prior to it arriving at Council.

“So I apologized for that comment. But I don’t think any harm was done. I think people were there to talk about their assessment, appeals and try to understand the system better and unfortunately I made a slip up,” he said.

Mayor Tolley attended a May 10, 2022 meeting of the Moose Jaw and District Chamber Of Commerce where according to a Moose Jaw Express report Mayor Tolley said the present Board Of Revision (BOR) had been “removed.”

The Chamber’s meeting was held to help commercial property owners better understand their assessments and commercial property taxes.

Mayor Clive Tolley - MJ Independent file photo

Asked further by MJ Independent if the details the Mayor let slip were from an in-camera portion of an Executive Committee meeting he said he could not say.

“I don’t think I can tell you exactly where it was discussed. My recollection isn’t that great where we discussed it. But I do know it had not been brought to a Council meeting so it had not been passed at Council,” the Mayor replied.

MJ Independent went on to ask the Mayor if it was safe to say the issue had not been publicly discussed.

“I was here last June as a member of the Board of Revision and did a presentation to Council along with the Chairman at that time, Mr Terry Gabel, and there was some discussion…I think there was some discussion that evening whether Council would be or the City of Moose Jaw would be better to hire a consultant company to do the Board Of Revision work or would it be better to have a Board Of Revision from the community.”

“I think that discussion has been going on for a quite a few years about what are other communities doing. Do they have a Board Of Revision? Are they contracting it out? Those kinds of issues have been around for quite a few years I think.

Mayor Tolley was asked if he felt then that the discussions about getting rid of the local Board Of Revision should have been public he said he attended the Chamber’s meeting to get feedback from the community.

“These are big issues for the community and what I was doing at that (May 10th, 2022) meeting was trying to understand more about how the community feels about assessment, their appearance before the Board (Of Revision), the Saskatchewan Municipal Board and how they view it.”

“I don’t there has been any behind closed doors drama kind of thing in any of this. I think it has been an honest communication and discussion within the community and Council on how best to serve the citizens,” he said.

Mayor Tolley said the desire was to do something to improve the assessment appeals process.

“It’s an idea. Let’s try it. Let’s contract this service out and see if we can get a better experience and review it. We can always go back to a Board Of Revision if that’s the choice in the future.”

Asked to clarify what he meant by a “better experience” the Mayor replied people who are assessed “have an opportunity to appeal that assessment if they don’t believe it is accurate. If they believe there is an error…I think there was a statement by the City Manager tonight let’s try a contractor and see if we can reduce the amount of files that go to the Saskatchewan Municipal Board. Because each and every time we represent to the Saskatchewan Municipal Board there is a cost to that.”

“It’s a work in progress. We are trying to do things to improve the process for the City and the citizens.”

The Mayor said moving to a contracted company had two sides of the coin with the actual costs of the BOR being more but there would be savings on the other side of the issue with less appeals from the City’s contracted assessment agency headed to the Saskatchewan Municipal Board.

“We’ll just follow it through and see what seems to work best. This is a decision for this year and you know as I said we are not certain which way works better. But we do know that the Board Of Revision was basically one chair and one writer in the most recent year because of the lack of experience in other members,” he said adding “this is an opportunity to do it a different way and see if it works better.”