Candidate Questions - Clive Tolley
1. In 2023, for several reasons, a secondary audit was requested of SAMA. SAMA declined this request. Currently the City and council have chosen to do nothing in regard to this issue.
What are you prepared to do?
Business property owners brought concerns to Council and asked us to request a Secondary Audit. A Secondary Audit would not deliver the results that these property owners wanted. So, we asked SAMA to explain and defend the assessmentcomparable provided by the property owners. SAMA’s response did not address the concerns we brought to their attention. This disappointed me and led me to lose confidence in SAMA’s assessment services.
We disbanded our assessment department to save money.SAMA’s contract concludes at the end of 2025. I will work with our administration to determine the best course of action for the City of Moose Jaw with respect to our assessment services. It may mean that we do not contract with SAMA and find an alternative assessment service, or we negotiate a better contract with SAMA that gives us more control and makes SAMA more accountable to us and our property owners.
2. Saskatoon has a Governance Committee which oversees their property tax/assessment department, and theirs far exceeds ours. Are you prepared to implement the changes needed in order to mirror/reflect theirs? Or something better?
I am not familiar with the model that Saskatoon is using;therefore, I will not comment on whether we should follow their lead, create a Governance Committee, and adopt their way of doing things.
We have an opportunity now, with SAMA’s contract due for renewal, to review different ideas and produce a made in Moose Jaw solution that combines the best of several other assessment services being used across Saskatchewan.
We know there is a lack of qualified assessors out there. Can wepartner with another municipality to do our assessment? Or is there something better? I want our Council and Administration to study this and make the best decision for our Moose Jaw property owners going forward.
Property assessment drives property taxation. Our Commercial Taxation per capita comparison shows Moose Jaw is the seventh lowest of Saskatchewan Cities.
3. a). In your words, what does a Moose Jaw Citizen say when they are asked “What do you think of Moose Jaw?”
Moose Jaw is a wonderful city in which to live, work, and raise a family. People here are friendly, warm, and welcoming. There is so much to do, so you can stay as busy as you want to be. Our mayor loves our city and works so hard to represent our city and over the last 3 years Moose Jaw has grown in terms of new stores, more traffic, entertainment choices, internationalrestaurants, and just a lot going on. Did you know that our Moose Jaw Warriors won the WHL Championship in 2024 and our Moose Jaw Miller Express came within a game of winning the Western Canadian Baseball League this summer?
b). If you are elected, what will the Citizens be saying in 4 years?
Moose Jaw is a great city in which to live, work, and raise a family. People come here from various parts of the world to visit and often they stay to be a part of our city’s friendly, warm, and welcoming culture. There is so much to do, so you can stay as busy as you want to be. Our mayor loves our city and works so hard to represent our city and over the last 7 years Moose Jaw has grown in terms of new stores, more traffic, greatentertainment, fine international restaurants, and just a lot going on. Moose Jaw people work collaboratively to volunteer andhost many national and international events. Over the past 4 years we have hosted the Men’s World Curling Championships, the World Power Lifting Championships, and the Midwest Shrine Association, along with our second time hosting the World Para Ice Hockey Men’s Championships and the first ever World Para Ice Hockey Women’s Championships. Volunteerismand people working as a team means that Moose Jaw is chosen over and over to host national and international events.
4. Right now, there is a lot of talk about a proposed hotel on the zero block of River Street West. Rumours which include the potential building of a parkade by the City in the area.
The question is as an elected official how much City money - if any - are you prepared to spend either directly or indirectly in an effort to see the proposed hotel development get off the ground?
No taxpayers’ money should go to directly support the Hilton Hotel project or any other private development in our city. The City funded a very reasonably priced parking study to understand what the parking needs will be in the vicinity of the Moose Jaw Events Centre when a hotel is built on River Street West. The results of that study have not yet been published. When the Spa and Casino were built, the City got involved in financing the parkade and that has been a worthwhile investment for the City. Whether a parkade will be necessary or if the City should invest in another parkade downtown, it depends on whether a parkade development is necessary for the area around the hotel and the Moose Jaw Events Centre and whether a parkade investment can provide a positive return for the City.The guiding principle for me is support new developments without risking the taxpayers’ money.
5. Are you in favour of more or less funding by the way of levies? Or do you favour finding more funding by the way of tax increases?
Can you explain your reasoning?
The City of Moose Jaw adopted a levy bylaw in 2018 because we were under charging by approximately $10,000 per residential lot on the true costs of major offsite services.
Most Councils implement the levy across the full land development base of their municipality - the exception to this rule falls under role of economic development incentives. Some municipalities establish policy to provide a conditional reduction in development levy fees to promote new industrial development in specific areas (Agri-Food Industrial Park for example).
Saskatoon and Regina have higher levy charges. Estevan and Weyburn have offsite development levy charges like Moose Jaw.
I am in favour of growing our city by being competitive in our levies, not gouging developers, but, in most cases, recovering the costs of the infrastructure we supplied and installed.
I do not favour more funding by tax increases.
6. In your own words what is the most important infrastructure projection that needs to be completed.
Where or how would you locate funding for this project?
The top priority for our new Council is the replacement of the Crescent View Lift Station as it is the pumping station that lifts our sewage to our sewage treatment facility in southeast Moose Jaw. I did not list this in my platform because this is an absolute need. It is not negotiable. If the Crescent View Lift Station fails, our sewage system fails. We applied to the Government of Canada ICIP program and were denied. Without funding from the two senior levels of government, funding the Crescent View Lift Station completely on our own will mean other projects will be deferred. We have now created and filled a position for a Grant Writer who has already been successful in receiving funding for smaller projects. We are hopeful that our Grant Writer can find funding for our Lift Station and other projects in the future.
7. Affordability is a major concern for many residents.
Are you prepared - yes or no - to strive to make Moose Jaw more affordable?
Can you briefly explain how you would accomplish this?
The cost of living continues to rise while incomes fail to rise at the same rate. We are falling behind.
City governments have negligible effect on affordability. The City of Moose Jaw is under pressure to lower property taxes and increase services. This is not possible.
I have been working with the City Manager to change the culture of our city, so we have a staff willing to give a good day’s work for a good day’s pay. We are striving to be smarter decision makers, spending the taxpayer’s money wisely, trying to get more bang for the taxpayers’ buck.
If we cannot reduce spending, we must increase our income, so we can continue to afford our police and fire services, our infrastructure, and our city services. To increase our income, we must expand our tax base and have more industrial, commercial,and residential property contributing to our bottom line.