From The Portage Daily Graphic

Without a doubt, the big story coming out of the Rural Municipality of Portage la Prairie in 2008 was the PCU Centre.

The biweekly meetings of the RM of Portage council had very few residents in attendance until councillors voted on their 2008 budget on April 22. That day, the gallery was filled with ratepayers angry over how the RM planned on paying for the $8 million it promised to give to the PCU Centre project.

Along with the budget, council voted to accept a tax levy bylaw that allowed the RM to increase the municipal millrate from 19.98 to 21.08 mills. The increase meant residents in the RM would see a 5.1 per cent jump in their property taxes in 2008.

Seven farmers from the Oakville area attended the meeting and spoke to council about the effect the bylaw would have on them. They were concerned the boost in property taxes to pay for the multiplex would hit them especially hard because of the amount of taxable land they own.

Farmers in the RM of Portage who own 400 hectares of farmland assessed at $1.2 million saw their taxes jump by $717.60 this year, just to pay for the multiplex, not including the rest of their taxes.

The group of farmers told council they feel the multiplex was being built mainly for city residents, but was being paid for by landowners from outside city limits. Abe Peters, one of the farmers, told reporters after the meeting although he will probably never use the multiplex, he’s more than happy to help pay for it, he just wanted to be taxed the same as everyone else.

“I think they should put the funding on residences only, so across the board everybody pays the same amount per residence. I think that would be fair,” he explained. “I’m not against the rec centre; I just don’t like the way it’s being funded.”

Despite the concerns, the RM passed the levy.

Reeve Toby Trimble told them there was nothing council could do to change the tax increase because the RM had already committed the money to the multiplex and had passed the necessary borrowing bylaw at a public meeting on Aug. 14, 2007, which no ratepayers showed up for. That answer did not sit well with the farmers.

“We were harvesting, and you don’t stop harvesting to come to an RM meeting, because what’s better? What’s more important?” said Peters.

Having angry ratepayers at RM meetings became commonplace after that, with residents coming to every meeting where anything multiplex was voted on.

Despite the concerns brought up at every meeting, council continued to vote in favour of the project. On July 30, the ratepayers decided to take the RM to court to try to quash the borrowing bylaw.

Through their lawyer, the ratepayers argued the RM should be forced to pass a new borrowing bylaw because of changes made to the design of the multiplex, and they said the RM had not properly notified residents of the true costs of the bylaw.

“Initially, the proposal was two arenas, a competitive pool and various other things,” explained their lawyer, Grant Driedger. “When the cost figures came in higher than they initially expected, they had to scale that down considerably.

“So the bylaw that they’re relying on to authorize them borrowing money to fund the project was based on Plan A, and now they’re going ahead with Plan B, so they’re borrowing the same amount of money, but getting a significantly lesser facility.”

When the first tenders were accepted by council at their meeting on Sept. 23, so many people showed up at the council meeting that day that the meeting was moved to the Herman Prior 55-plus Centre so the roughly 70 people had room to sit.

Despite the opposition, council voted 4-3 to accept the first two of four tenders on the project. Coun. Ray Davidson of Ward 4, Reeve Toby Trimble, Coun. Larry Gibbs of Ward 2 and Ward 6 Coun. Owen Williams all voted to accept the tenders.

Ward 1 Coun. Garth Asham abstained from the vote pending the results of the court case filed against the RM by ratepayers. If Asham had voted against the tenders with Ward 3 Coun. Terry Simpson, Ward 7 Coun. Bill Alford and Coun. Arnold Verwey of Ward 5, the resolution would have been defeated, and the project effectively would have been scratched.

After the meeting, Trimble said although the vote was close, he’s glad council will be able to go ahead with the multiplex.

“I would have to say I’m feeling very relieved,” he admitted. “I went into the meeting feeling confident that the outcome would be the way it was. I’m happy that council members stepped up and passed the approval of the two tenders.”

With council’s vote, construction of the PCU Centre was started at the fairgrounds on Island Park.

When the notice of application hearing was held at the Court of Queen’s Bench in Portage on Nov. 17, the judge said he would need more time to make his ruling. On Dec. 9, Justice John Scurfield made his ruling, and it did not go in the RM’s favour.

In his ruling, the judge said the RM of Portage did not present an adequate plan to go ahead with borrowing its share of the PCU Centre’s funding — $8 million — when it passed its local improvement plan and borrowing bylaw for the facility.

Those obligations included knowing how much money will be needed for a project, how that money will be raised and how any proposed tax-based fundraising will be calculated and imposed on taxpayers, as well as designs and locations for projects.

“The RM did not act in bad faith,” Scurfield said in his decision. “It simply acted prematurely. The right to estimate does not include the right to guess or speculate. An estimate must have its roots in a reasonably developed plan. There was no urgent reason to proceed with the local improvement plan prior to developing the proposal to a stage where it could provide a reasonable level of reliable information to its taxpayers.”

The decision quashed the RM’s borrowing bylaw, and leaves the $8 million from the RM in limbo. Following the decision, Trimble had very little to say.

“We haven’t had a chance to talk to our lawyer, and at this time we have no comment,” he said.

No one from the RM has commented publicly about what they plan to do.