SAMA letters with incorrect addresses cause confusion in Esterhazy, mayor upset

May 4, 2026, 2:12 pm
Nicole Taylor Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Esterhazy’s Mayor, Randy Bot, says he was shocked a few weeks ago when the Saskatchewan Assessment Management Agency (SAMA) sent out letters to every household in Esterhazy with the wrong addresses on them, informing residents that SAMA would be doing a reinspection of the town, and signing the letters with his name on them.

Because all the letters had wrong addresses on them, Bot, who hadn’t gone to the mail to receive his own letter yet, says people started asking him questions about the letters and he had no idea what they were talking about.

“They sent out a reinspection letter and it came into our mailboxes and caused a lot of confusion in the municipality, because they had nobody’s address correct,” says Bot. “I live on Lake Street, but there was no house number, and I don’t think anybody in the community actually had a correct address on their letter. And it came with a letter from the town of Esterhazy, and said ‘warm regards, Randy Bot, Mayor of Esterhazy.’ My first time seeing this letter was when I got my mail.

“It was never brought forward to the town for approval, and it was never reviewed by the town or council. And it even stated in the letter that the Council of Esterhazy knows about this. I found it was unacceptable, and when it involves the community and municipal credibility, it feels like they discredited me a little bit because that letter came out, and everybody started calling me and calling the town office and wondering what to do because their address was wrong, and it just caused an uproar in the community, and we had to shoulder it all.”

Bot says all the letters had incorrect streets and house numbers, while some had no house numbers at all.

“A lot of people had the wrong house number and the wrong street. I don’t think anybody actually had the right house number with the right street,” he says.

“They were going to come out and inspect everybody’s homes again, and they stated that this inspection hasn’t been done on their home since 1998, so that also confused a lot of people that built their houses in 2001. It wasn’t clear at all.”

Bot says SAMA tried to reach out to town council when everyone was at the SUMA convention, and by the time the councillors got home, the letters had been distributed already.

“It feels weird when you receive a letter from yourself that you’ve never seen before, and a lot of people had this letter by the time I got back to town, and I hadn’t got my mail yet. So when I went to the grocery store, I’m getting questions. I’m trying to tell them, ‘No, this is SAMA that, has nothing to do with the town.’ And then when I went to get my mail, and I saw that the letter was from me, and then I understood why everybody was coming up to me to ask about this address being wrong on this letter.”

Bot says he got upset and made some phone calls, and now SAMA will be issuing a correction letter to everyone.

“They said that it was some malfunction with the computer, and it just printed them off wrong,” he says.

“It was very confusing for everybody. And with the town letter attached to it that was never, ever approved, or looked at, I was confused too, because I didn’t know what was going on.”

Bot says SAMA told him the incorrect addresses on the letters were a first-time issue, however they said it is common practice for them to have the letters come from the town.

Bot says he asked SAMA to review that procedure moving forward and has also contacted his MLA about the issue.

“It caught me off guard, and it was a very interesting week when it came out,” he says.