-Y\Z[YH[LK I\ZPULZZ V^ULYZ [V OVZ[ VWLU OV\ZL [V discuss unfair assessment process

Jason G. Antonio - Moose Jaw Express

Frustrated with the continued inconsistencies in how commercial properties are assessed, business owners Bernie Dombowsky and Kristy Van Slyck plan to hold two events to shed light on the inequitable situation.

Entitled “The ROAD to Re-establish Fairness for Property Tax Assessments,” the open houses occur Tuesday, Nov.

DQG :HGQHVGD\ 1RY DW WKH &RVPR 6HQLRU &LWL]HQ¶V &HQWUH RQ 7KLUG $YHQXH 1RUWKHDVW

ROAD stands for “restore our assessors’ department.” Each day from 2 to 4 p.m., residents concerned about businesses’ well-being and who want to restore equity and fairness can speak with Dombowsky and Van Slyck and pick up window signs to show support for the business community.

A come-and-go supper with live music occurs from 5 to 6:30 p.m. each day. Residents can eat, see displays, acquire information packets, and pick up window signs.

Tickets cost $25 for adults, $12.50 for kids under age 12 and free for children under six.

If people cannot attend the afternoon open houses, they can attend from 7 to 9 p.m. There will be family activities such as face painting and balloons, along with more displays and informal presentations.

)RU PRUH LQIRUPDWLRQ YLVLW ZZZ PMSDZ FD 3$: VWDQGV for “property assessment watchdog.”

“Our city needs to restore fairness and re-establish its own assessment department,” Dombowsky said.

7KH &LW\ RI 0RRVH -DZ UHSODFHG LWV LQWHUQDO SURSHUW\ assessors — municipal employees — in 2006 with private contractor Saskatchewan Assessment Management Agency (SAMA), he explained. Since then, huge property tax increases have been crushing small businesses because of SAMA’s assessment decisions.

%HIRUH 6$0$ DSSOLHG RQH PDUNHW FDSLWDOL]DWLRQ rate to all Moose Jaw businesses regardless of category. AfWHU WKHUH ZHUH EXVLQHVV FDWHJRULHV DQG FDS UDWHV FHUWDLQ EXVLQHVVHV EHQH¿WWHG IURP D KLJKHU FDS UDWH ZKLOH RWKers suffered because a lower cap rate increased their property values and taxes.

For example, the annual property taxes on a small retail shop on Main Street in 2020 were $6,422. However, after SAMA changed its assessment process, that business’ taxes doubled to $12,948 a year.

Meanwhile, a nearby larger investment broker’s annual property taxes in 2020 were $11,613, but a year later, its taxes decreased by half to $5,806 yearly.

The situation facing Dombowsky came to a head this year after he appealed the property assessment decision on KLV EXVLQHVV &KDUORWWH¶V &DWHULQJ +H VXFFHVVIXOO\ DSSHDOHG 1927, and told me many stories about his experiences there.

In those days, everything revolved around preventing death. Subsequently antibiotics have been discovered, advanced imaging techniques have become commonplace and modern anaesthesia allows complex surgery which ZRXOG KDYH EHHQ XQWKLQNDEOH D FHQWXU\ DJR &DQFHU LV still a feared disease but isn’t the unavoidable death sentence it once was.

Medicine has undergone a revolution since 1927 and I think he must have been jealous.

However, with regard to his training, that was then, this is now. How much has changed? He learned how to save lives and that he did, venturing into the back streets RI (GLQEXUJK GRFWRU¶V EDJ DQG :ULJOH\¶V IRUFHSV LQ hand, using his meager armamentarium to deliver babies, staunch hemorrhages, stitch wounds, treat heart attacks and strokes.

He told me nothing about treating the slow mental and physical disintegration of old patients because, as I later came to suspect, this wasn’t really part of his training or how he himself saw his duties and obligations as a doctor. Or, perhaps, there just weren’t many such patients nearly a century ago, maybe they died quickly, if not always without suffering. Today’s doctors still save lives, but learning about the mental and physical aspects of many elderly peoples’ long, slow descent from a meaningful existence until, as Shakespeare put it, they enter the detestable maw, the womb of death, is for the most part a minor facet of their training and/or practice.

It has moved from a devotion to “purely” saving lives to an enterprise largely engaged in prolonging life, which, admirable as it may appear, is not always an undisguised blessing.

After a year-long cadaver dissection, my medical training progressed to living patients, where students experience all the facets of life which make them grow up very quickly: disease, pain, sorrow, anguish, hate, violence, bereavement, fear, guilt, addiction.

%XW WKH IUDLO LQ¿UP RU VHPL LQ¿UP JHULDWULF SDWLHQW often wheelchair bound, sometimes aware that something is wrong but not always entirely sure what is amiss – we through the local Board of Revision but felt he was “tricked” by the chairman of the Saskatchewan Municipal Board into abandoning his claim at the provincial level.

The chairman informed Dombowsky that SAMA said he was not allowed to present new evidence for his claims and ZRQGHUHG LI KH ZRXOG ZLWKGUDZ KLV DSSHDO KH DJUHHG %XW LQ a ruling six weeks later, the SMB said he could present new evidence. Since he had withdrawn his claim, he lost the appeal.

“Since I did not know the process, I assumed I had to withdraw my evidence,” he said. “I just felt it was so unfair.”

This prompted Dombowsky to put a “For Sale” sign on his business, while he almost experienced a nervous breakdown because of how overwhelmed he was by the appeal. Someone called the 811 Healthline for him and counsellors paid a visit.

“It is ridiculous,” said Van Slyck.

That example shows how stressful it is for business owners to appeal knowing they can’t win, said Dombowsky. It’s also a hopeless feeling to be a business owner under attack.

“It is an attack on our freedom to own and operate a business,” he added.

:KLOH 'RPERZVN\ LV FRQFHUQHG DERXW WKH FXUUHQW DVsessment process, he thought the two-day open house would be a fun experience. learned little about them.

I remember a short course by an internist who startHG KLV ¿UVW OHFWXUH ZLWK WKH ZRUGV ³2OG SHRSOHV¶ RUJDQV suffer in silence.”

As now one of the aforementioned “old people,” I can attest that he was right, but he was aiming at treating FRQGLWLRQV OLNH K\SHUWHQVLRQ DWULDO ¿EULOODWLRQ DQG VR RQ the treatment of which is often different than in younger patients.

Gawande tells us that grandfather (who died at over a hundred years) lived independently in India, was cherished and cared for by his family and that his opinions about important matters were sought after.

Reading this book, it once again becomes abundantO\ FOHDU KRZ VRFLR HFRQRPLF FKDQJHV LQ WKH :HVWHUQ world have radically changed the situation of the elderly – children do not live near their parents or grandparents, ZKR KDYH ORVW WKH SRVLWLRQ RI LQÀXHQFH RQFH KHOG LQ WKHLU families.

However, it is not only society that is to blame. The central theme of Gawande’s book is how modern medLFLQH KDV LQFUHDVLQJO\ LQÀXHQFHG WKH HOGHUO\ LQ :HVWHUQ society - and it isn’t always a pretty picture.

Life expectancies have increased, but the added years are quite often not pleasant at all, spent as frail, semi-helpless or completely helpless individuals, often isolated – not only in a physical sense but also physiologically and psychologically.

I have frequently asked myself: how important is it to treat, say, high cholesterol in a 85 year old person? :LOO LW PDNH DQ\ GLIIHUHQFH LQ TXDOLW\ RI OLIH" +RZ PDQ\ pills must an elderly person take, bearing in mind that medication is often the cause of confusion in the elderly?

Gawande, a well-known American surgeon, writes DERXW KLV JUDQGIDWKHU ³+DG KH OLYHG LQ WKH :HVW WKLV would have been absurd. It isn’t safe, his doctor would say…. But in my grandfather’s premodern world, how he wanted to live was his choice, and the family’s role was to make it possible.”

:H FDQQRW GR WKDW DQ\PRUH LQ RXU PRGHUQ VRFLHW\ and modern medicine does not allow us to do it.

And that is a tragedy.