By paNOW

RM of Duck Lake talks fair taxes, vicious dogs at annual meeting

Nov 26, 2013 | 12:25 AM

The Rural Municipality (RM) of Duck Lake’s annual community meetings are a chance for residents to come forward with their concerns.

On Monday night at Lily Plain Hall, 20 kilometres outside of Prince Albert, the RM hosted the first of two meetings. The second will be at Duck Lake Legion Hall Tuesday night.

“It’s a public meeting. We like to get input from all the taxpayers that we never see. Like, a lot of these people we don’t see throughout the year, they don’t come to our office or we don’t interact with them so it kind of gives them a chance to voice their opinions,” said Reeve Marcel Perrin.

Tax talk

For the second year in a row, taxes were the cause of heated debate.

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This is year was an assessment year, which many criticized for being unfair for different households.

“We needed to generate a little more income for the RM and we came up with a system that we thought was fair. We tried it for this year and we’ll review it after the first of the year,” said Perrin.

This included implementing a service tax of $250 per household, regardless of whether someone owned many quarters of land or had a small lot.

That fee went towards garbage, policing and fire services.

One man defended council, saying they had done everything they could to even things out. The man brought forward a contested opinion that people building big houses should be ready to pay big taxes.

However, one woman at the meeting countered that her household wasn’t getting services that taxes are supposed to go to, such as snow removal.

“My husband and our neighbours use our own snow plows to clear our road, so then how is that fair? And we’re paying big taxes,” she said. “The services have to be equal everywhere.”

Coun. Don Kasyniuk said he knows it would be impossible to make things completely fair but vowed that as long as he is on council, he will try to lessen the gap.

Vicious dogs another hot topic

In addition to taxes, the issue of vicious dogs and how the RM deals with them was brought up at the meeting.

A couple expressed their concerns about a neighbour’s dogs.

The wife said she had told the owner to tie the dogs up numerous times. While he usually does, on the odd occasion they get loose. That’s when they threaten her family, she said.

“I’m worried about the kids in my yard and me, because I can’t fight of these three big German Shepherds,” she said.

They said they had talked to the RCMP, which told them to go to the RM. However, neither had provided a solution.

Perrin and other councillors said if the dogs get loose again, their bylaw officer has the power to take dogs from the farm, to a place where they can be held.

Marcel Baynton, the pest control officer for the RM said vicious dogs aren’t a common problem in the RM. He’d only heard about two issues this year.

In the meeting, he pointed out that RMs aren’t in the business shooting threatening dogs, although it was brought up by a few members of the public.

claskowski@panow.com

On Twitter: @chelsealaskowsk