K.C. Jordan, LJI Journalist
A crowd of about 40 residents from across the MRC Pontiac were present at the monthly MRC council of mayors meeting in Campbell’s Bay on Wednesday night.
Some were there to express their frustrations around what many felt were unfair property evaluations, which were released in September, while others were there to once again urge action from the MRC on producing a new bylaw that would reconfigure the calculation of municipal shares.
In August, the 370% Evaluation Taskforce from Alleyn and Cawood presented a draft bylaw to the MRC which suggested the total elimination of the comparative factor as a way of calculating the amount each municipality owes to the MRC every year.
The task force was hoping the MRC would adopt its suggested bylaw, but neither the bylaw, nor an alternative version of it, has been tabled in either of the two council meetings that have taken place since then.
At Wednesday’s meeting, Alleyn and Cawood mayor Carl Mayer requested to add the proposed bylaw to the meeting’s agenda, but he was ultimately the only mayor on council to vote in favour of this amendment.
For context, the comparative factor is a number determined in the property valuation process. According to the MRC’s website, it is “established based on sales on the municipality’s territory during the previous year, compared with the value deposited during the first year of the triennial roll.”
The sale of over 120 vacant lots in Alleyn and Cawood in years two and three of that municipality’s triennial roll led to a high comparative factor of 3.7 last year, causing all property values, including those of full-time residents, to increase by as much as 370 per cent.
While the municipality changed its mill rate to reduce the impact of higher property evaluations on ratepayers’ wallets, it still had to pay municipal shares to the MRC based on the inflated comparative factor and therefore pay money it hadn’t collected in taxes. It’s this system that Alleyn and Cawood residents and elected officials are taking issue with.
On Wednesday, several fellow mayors expressed support for the residents’ desire to see this process changed, but ultimately said they were not ready to vote on the matter because they still lacked the information they needed to make a decision.
“The bylaw that was presented, there has to be so much more put into it so we know what we’re voting on,” said Litchfield mayor Colleen Larivière. “We want to make sure that what we’re doing is right. Patience and understanding is what we’re asking from you.”
In an interview with THE EQUITY on Friday, Allumette Island mayor Corey Spence also voiced his support for the residents.
“We do support them. We understand their pain, of course we do. We want to do something about it,” he said, noting that there are still certain guidelines that need to be followed.
“There’s only so much the MRC can do, because we get the laws from the province. So we have to work with the tools we have.”
Spence, who chairs the MRC’s budget committee, said they discussed the item at a recent meeting and have come up with a few different options for recalculating municipal shares.
He said the meetings have been going well, but they need to wait for approval from their legal counsel and from the ministry of housing before writing a bylaw.
“We’re working on ways to make sure it’s fair for everybody, and first we’ve got to make sure it’s legal.”
While Toller wouldn’t say what ideas have been discussed in the budget committee meetings, she noted there is some payment flexibility in other provinces, which she thinks is a good idea.
“You can give people a break by not expecting it all to be paid in the first year,” she said.
She also said the possibility of evaluating all 18 municipalities at the same time, instead of the staggered system that currently exists, is attractive.
Alleyn and Cawood director general Isabelle Cardinal said during Wednesday’s question period the municipality will be meeting with the province’s Ministry of Municipal Affairs and will discuss the possibility of changing the evaluation process at a provincial level.
“We put a big package together with what we think are the problems [ . . . ] and we also have solutions. We’re not just saying, ‘your system doesn’t work,’ we actually have solutions to present,” she said, adding that in their conversations the department agreed it was an outdated system.
“We’re not fighting for just Alleyn and Cawood, we’re doing this for all of us small municipalities.”
Toller said the budget committee will continue to look at solutions, but they will require two more meetings before a bylaw can be passed; first, a meeting where the motion for the bylaw would be tabled, and second, a meeting where the bylaw can be voted on by the council of mayors. She did not provide a timeframe by which they intend to have a bylaw.