Staff
A special committee of the whole meeting with the Municipal Property Assessment Corp., originally slated for this Wednesday, has been postponed.
MPAC officials were supposed to give a presentation regarding property assessment but Fort Frances CAO Doug Brown told the Times late Friday that the meeting has been cancelled.
He noted MPAC assured it will be coming here at a later date.
Brown said the reason is that MPAC staff were not available due to high demand from municipalities across Ontario.
“[Reassessment] is kind of a big issue in the province,” he remarked.
“People are starting to pay attention more.
“My take on it is a lot of communities are asking for the same thing we’ve asked for, and they [MPAC] are just overwhelmed,” added Brown, noting MPAC staff are being highly sought after.
As it was, Brown said MPAC was going to meet with council Wednesday afternoon and provide an overview of what’s going on in Ontario.
But it was not able to hold a second public meeting that evening due to staffing constraints.
Brown added his understanding is MPAC still intends to come here and not only speak to council and administration, but to “service the community properly.”
This might entail sitting down one-on-one with property owners whose assessed values have gone up, as they did in communities such as Schreiber in late October, he speculated.
Once town administration has a date (or dates) confirmed, it will let the public know.
