If you ever want to draw the ire of a Moose Jaw property owner just ask them what they think of their property taxes.

With one theatrical performance ended, there is still another playing out at the Moose Jaw Cultural Centre.

After 16 months and seemingly endless hours of debate at Council, it now appears the transition to curbside conversion may have finally hit the political landfill, and for more than a few, hopefully it will be buried in the rubble.

This coming week is a big one for local politics watchers, as many big issues are set to take centre stage. 

Throughout the past week, the top local news has been the release of a survey on city-wide conversion to curbside garbage collection and Council’s response to it. You remember that issue don’t you?

The opinions expressed in this letter are simply the opinions of the person who wrote it and do not necessarily reflect those of the people at MJ Independent.

Well after weeks of work and having to almost face the potential of going back to square one, the 2018-2019 City of Moose Jaw operating and capital budgets are in the bag, and whether or not they stay there likely depends on what comes out of the Province's budget on April 10th.

For those of you paying attention, something seemingly incredible happened at the last meeting of Moose Jaw City Council. The proposed budget, that had been worked out over weeks during Budget Committee, failed to pass.

What is that you just read in the headline? Are our taxes going up 5.01%?

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Do we finance our future through debt and keep taxes lower now, but in effect, mortgage our future like Swift Current has done or do we negate financing but instate large property tax increases now?

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One of the biggest questions I hear amongst regular followers of city council is, "who are these big businesses with deep pockets that “beat” their tax bill? Who isn’t paying their fair share?"

It's a good question; and to get to the bottom of it, I did a little research. It's true, there is one business not paying their share and they're a biggie: it's WalMart.

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