MELFORT — Melfort residents wanting to appeal the assessed value of their property will have to pay more than double.
Melfort council voted to change the fee at its Nov. 5 council meeting.
“Assessments are done by SAMA (Saskatchewan Assessment Management Authority) and people have the right to appeal them, but we were getting so many appeals because the cost was so low to appeal that people would just throw an appeal in whether they had any grounds for it or not so we’ve increased the prices of appeals,” said Rick Lang, Melfort's mayor.
For a property with an assessed value between $1 million and $5 million, the charge used to be $200 and is now $500. An assessment of more than $5 million used to be $300 and is now $600. If the appeal is won, then the fee would be returned.
“That was to basically curb people from making, for lack of a better word, a nuisance claim and then our staff would have to do a bunch of work. They would lose the claim but it would cost them next to nothing,” Lang said. “We wanted to make sure they thought they had a valid claim before they go and they jump on that, and of course if they win they still get their money back.”
Billboard licence renewed
The licence for the electronic billboard on Saskatchewan Driver has been renewed for another five years.
The City of Melfort gets 15 per cent of the revenue, while the Jim Pattison Group gets the rest.
“It still helping us recoup the original investment,” Lang said. “After five years we still won’t have that initial investment recouped. We will still be about $12,000 short and so when we renew again the theme is to get back our entire investment which was our entire aim to start with. Originally we had settled for an 85/15 split. Our thought was after five years we would be able to go to a 50/50 split because Fabmar who put in 85 per cent of the original cost would have their investment back, but it hasn’t worked out that way because the revenues didn’t come in as well as projected.”
Fabmar Communications was responsible for the 85 per cent before it was bought out by Jim Pattison Group.
“They’re the ones that are now doing the securing of advertising for the Electronic Message Centre and so they felt with the work involved in that and all that kind of stuff they felt they still needed 85 per cent of the revenue. So that’s what it is for the next five years.”
Melfort’s new tourism video
Melfort has a new tourism video made by Dickybird Promotionals.
“It was excellent I have to say. It’s going to be a great tool to promote the City of Melfort,” Lang said. “When we took over Tourism from the Chamber of Commerce the plan was to get a video developed.”
