The first meeting of the regular fall schedule was held last night for Weyburn City Council. Among agenda items was the nearly $70,000 in property taxes left unpaid from last year, for which the City is seeking Consent of Title from the Provincial Mediation Board.

"With the way the economy is, and COVID and everything, I'm sure that has some bearing on people being behind in their finances," said Councillor Mel Van Betuw. "I think people look at taxes maybe as something that's easier to put off, and they wait for this push to get it paid."

"Over the years, I can't recall any properties that we've actually taken back, but it can happen though, so people have to be careful," he noted. "But if finances are hard, hopefully people come in and try to make arrangements with the City administration to have taxes paid, because there's that option out there, and they do work with their taxpayers."

During her presentation, City Planner Janine Fletcher noted that the City did give homeowners an extra three months to pay the 2020 property taxes. While normally the taxes are due in July, they had until October.

Council also approved the amendments to the Official Community Plan and Zoning Bylaw, which had been up for review by the Ministry of Government Relations.

Van Betuw gave Fletcher props for her thorough work on the document.

"For her to take on this task has been monumental," he said. "She's had a lot of studying to do herself, and reviewing and she's 'heels-in' and done a great job there, getting all these little particular items in place, and you know, it's such a large document that there's always little things that are missed on it, and they come up over time, and I think she's fit a lot of them in here, just so that in the future we don't have to review it again."

He added the OCP is a living document, and can change over time, but these amendments are for the purpose of having the phrasings line up with those in the provincial government.

Mayor Marcel Roy also declared Communithon month for October 2021.

Community Agency representative Tasha Collins, Program Director with the Weyburn Branch of the CMHA, was in attendance for the signing.