Evert Botha addresses the crowd at the inaugural PA BRAG meeting. (Nigel Maxwell/paNOW Staff)

By Nigel Maxwell

Community unrest

Advocacy group calls for forensic audit of city spending

Oct 25, 2022 | 1:03 PM

Issues related to policing, crime and how the city spends its money, were the dominant themes during a first of its kind meeting held Monday night at the Prince Albert Exhibition Center.

The event organized by the Prince Albert Business and Residents Advocacy Group (BRAG), attracted over 180 people. Linda Falconer told paNOW she would like to see what the city plans to do about crime, citing an incident that happened recently in which someone came on to her back deck and stole her furniture.

“Of course we do have a security cam and we did watch them and we are in a seniors’ home too,” she said.

GR Yannacoulais, owner of Venice House Pizza, said he was just interested to hear what the group was all about

“Being a business owner in a small town I have a vested interest because a small business can’t lock the front door and choose who comes in and who doesn’t so I think a discourse about the actual safety of the people working for their wages is a really important one,” he said.

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The discussion

During his opening remarks, group chair Evert Botha cited cases where city employees he has spoken to are either sanctioned, silenced and not allowed to criticize their employer for fear of losing their jobs.

As an example, Botha brought up the two non-confidence votes held by members of the Prince Albert Police Association that seemingly went nowhere.

“Their concerns have fallen on deaf ears and we have witnessed an exodus of members not seen or reported before, in the last three to six months,” he said.

Added to Botha’s frustration was the fact city council agendas get posted on Thursdays — just four days prior to a city council meeting. He explained if someone wants to speak at the meeting though, they have to submit a request by 3:45 p.m. the previous Tuesday.

“So there’s never an opportunity to get onto the agenda to speak for or against an item being considered,” he said.

Local realtor Jesse Honch, who specializes in residential and commercial properties, was among a number of people invited to speak.

Honch addressed issues related to getting information from city hall. In June, he was hired by two different property owners, one on Highway 3 (arena and aquatic centre project), and one on Highway 2 (R.M. of P.A. shop and development), to perform a marker evaluation for their properties.

While both 24 acre parcels were owned by same land developer, the parcel on Highway 2 sold for $325,000 to the Rural Municipality of Prince Albert, while the one on Highway 3, sold for $9 million.

Jesse Honch and others listen intently to the various concerns raised by local residents. (Nigel Maxwell/ paNOW Staff)

Upon taking a closer look, Honch said the parcel on Highway 2 was a fair assessment. However the price tag for the project on Highway 3 still raised too many questions for Honch and so he asked the city to provide documentation.

“When I sent that letter in to council to get that information, they responded back at council that it was an apples to bananas comparison and those two values were not similar,” Honch said.

Honch’s request was then passed on to the planning department.

“The apples to bananas comparison is fair that maybe those two properties aren’t exactly the same value, but there is an 1,800 per cent difference between those two prices,” he said.

Determined to get the answers he was seeking, Honch obtained copies of the contracts and made another request to speak to council, but was denied. Last July, the city manager informed Honch the decision was made and council was sticking with it

Noting his own personal support for this type of project, Honch explained his concern lies with the fact the decision was made during the pandemic, at a time when there was a great degree of economic uncertainty. While further noting the city owns around 170 acres of land, Honch suggested the money might have been better spent on efforts related to addressing crime reduction or homelessness.

Another concern raised by Honch are the city’s property taxes, citing how compared to other secondary markets in the province, the taxes for for the average $300,000 home in Prince Albert is 20 per cent higher, and for a commercial property valued at $450,000, the taxes are almost 45 per cent higher.

“I deal with investors on a regular basis that come to our city and the first question they ask, when they see that listing [is] ‘That property tax amount isn’t right, is it?’ Yeah unfortunately it is,” Honch said.

Honch added he is aware of one case where a business owner’s taxes climbed from $15,000 in 2020 to $29,000.

“For people to be able to continue to have the services that we deserve in the city, those tax amounts have to be fair and the more issues we have with those property taxes, the more we are going to have issues with attracting businesses to our city and keep them here,” he said.

The end result of Monday’s night meeting was the creation of a petition that will ask the city to conduct a forensic audit as it relates to all spending, including the police service.

Speaking with paNOW on Tuesday, Botha said the consensus among those in attendance was a need to ask the city the tough questions where the city has and is going to spend its money. To help circulate the petitions, a volunteer Street Team kick-off meeting has been scheduled for Thursday at 5:30 p.m. at Prince Albert Baptist Church.

When paNOW reached out to Mayor Greg Dionne for comment, he declined.

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nigel.maxwell@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @nigelmaxwelkl