Town of Drumheller council passed first and second reading of a proposed bylaw during the regular Monday, December 2 council meeting which would roll all property tax rolls from manufactured home communities into a singular tax roll which the park owner rather than the homeowner would be responsible for.
The item came before council after administration received feedback following the proposed Minimum Tax Rate bylaw in September which proposed the implementation of a minimum tax rate of $500.
“The Town has received some feedback from the community, primarily regarding two major concerns,” shared Chief Financial Officer, Victoria Chan during the meeting.
Unlike other homeowners in the community, residents in manufactured home parks do not own the land their home sits on and are only taxed on the Improvement and not the land itself. There are a total of 112 manufactured homes across the three manufactured home parks, with an average residential property tax of $264.76; of those properties a total of 97 homeowners would be affected by the minimum tax rate.
Ms. Chan explained the Municipal Governance Act (MGA) allows a provision for the owner of the manufactured home park to be designated as the assessed person, though a bylaw would be required to be passed by council. This would see all tax rolls consolidated into a singular tax roll which would become the responsibility of the park owner, and the minimum property tax would not apply as the single tax roll would exceed the minimum property tax of $500 and would resolve challenges stemming from collecting tax arrears on these properties.
It was noted other communities have passed similar bylaws, including the Counties of Lac La Biche, Red Deer, and Stettler, and the Towns of Oyen and Vauxhall.

The Salvation Army was given a spicy boost this year during its Christmas campaign.
Fermented Fire Hot Sauce is a family business that has been in operation in Munson for the last two years. It created a special Hot Honey Mustard Sauce and emblazoned the label with The Salvation Army. It finished up a batch and has been selling it with all the proceeds going to The Salvation Army Christmas campaign. For all intents and purposes it was a sell-out and they were able to raise about $1,000 for the Salvation Army.
Proprietor Anthony Mason tells the Mail, he started the company a couple of years ago, at the suggestion of his son. They were at home thinking about ordering the “Hot Ones” lineup from the television show to do a sort of challenge.
“He said that would be fun, but you know what would be cool? We could make our own hot sauce,” recalls Mason.
The idea took off. Mason, who worked in restaurants for many years, made the decision to move to the area and start the home business.
“I loved being a chef, but I was never home, so now we can be together as a family and do this,” he said.
The business has taken off and last year he entered his “Cowboy Candy” in the Heating Up The Capital Ottawa Hot Sauce Expo and was awarded Canada’s Best Condiment in Canada.
His products are shipped across Canada and also sold locally.
With this success, he felt they would like to give back and came up with The Salvation Army Hot Sauce.
“This has been on my mind since the beginning of Fermented Fire. We have used The Salvation Army many times,” he said, adding even when the business was in its infancy. “Growing up, my mom was a single mother and I literally can’t count the number of times we had Christmas dinner and presents under the tree because of The Salvation Army. This year we had a pretty good year and we felt it was time.”
On Saturday, December 7 they were at the Drumheller Farmer’s market and they already only had a handful of sauces bottles left, succeeding in their goal.