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I. The Authority prefers to handle requests for information on property

by mail rather than on the phone, they advise that they will give information
over the phone where it involves an urgent need for information, however,
they prefer to reply by letter. In the past, when the Assessment
Department was busy, it was easy for us to merely get this type of
faformation ourselves from their files without bothering Assessment
personnel. This method is still available and is encouraged by the
Authority, however, with the office being located in Port Moody, this is not
practical. I must Say that the Authority does co-operate with us when

we need information and I can see the problem that would arise if they

gave all information out by telephone, they would have employees doing
nothing else but responding to requests, particularly when the Real

Estate offices, Law offices, etc. are all wanting the same information.

2. We do not have the benefit of the Authority for preparing appraisals

for our property acquisition, etc, They will sometimes assist with opinions
as to value but will not do formal appraisals, When the Authority was

under our jurisdiction, the Building Inspector called on them periodically
for confirmation of values for Building Permit Purposes. This service

is no longer available. In general if we require any kind of appraisal
information at all, we must now go outside for this work. Council is

aware that we do not have a great call for Formal Appraisals, but we

quite often need estimates of value,

3. Local Improvement processing was previously done entirely by our

Assessment Department. We have not clearly established where the legal
authority lies in assessing for these projects, however, the Authority

has informed us that they will only Provide technical assistance and we
have, therefore, had to appoint our own Assessor for Local Improvement
projects. The Authority did provide us with assistance with this year's
Court of Revision on Local Improvements, but most of the Roll preparation
and Assessment will be done by our own staff. Here again, this is not a

large item as we do not have very many local improvement projects.

4, There was certain records that were conveniently on hand when the
Assessment Department was with us. For example, cross-index of owners to
civic address, the "yellow-back" copies of the Land Registry Office
records, and the Assessment Field cards. Ail of this information was

conventent to all of our Departments when Assessment was located near us