There were a number of items on the agenda Monday evening's City Council meeting. One of the topics discussed was the SaskEnergy Municipal Surcharge.

"This has been in place for the City of Estevan for a long time," explained Mayor Roy Ludwig. "Whereby SaskEnergy remits 5% of the total bill to the City of Estevan. They've been doing that for awhile. With some of the reductions the provincial government had, the communities were concerned about further reductions but thankfully that did not happen so this is something that we will continue to collect."

Also discussed was whether or not the City would continue to contribute to the Federal Canadian Municipalities (FCM) Special Advocacy Fund. 

"The FCM is an advocacy group on behalf of all villages, towns and cities throughout Canada. What they like to do is find out the platform for especially the three main parties, but even the Green Party. They flesh out the complete platforms and they try and make them more towards things the RMs, the villages, the towns, the cities would like to see."

"One of those main things that we continue to strive for is more infrastructure. That could be paving, that could be water main replacements, sewer line replacements. We've always advocated through FCM and SUMA for more of that."

Council agreed that having a voice that would advocate for municipalities and their needs is something that is important to Estevan and decided to contribute again with $500 plus tax.

One topic of contention was the fact that the Tax assessment Roll Report from SAMA was late by two months. This was likely due to the fact that Estevan was reassessed and every property had to be inspected. However, because of the lateness of the report, the City missed the early deadline to submit and could be facing penalties. They do not think they should have to pay the penalties and have invited representatives from SAMA to the next council meeting. 

"There are not only questions pertaining to that, we have questions that we still aren't comfortable with from the last assessment. The main issue with that is the wide swings. We've had some properties double we simply do not think that is fair. When you are looking at more than doubling, that is very hard to take."

Now that the assessment roll is done, Council will look to pass the 1% mill rate increase.

There were also a number of requests that Council received from the Kinsmen, OTS golf tournament, and the Exhibition Association to hold events and be able to sell alcohol. They were all passed. 

 

Next City Council meeting is on June 11.