Spin Reduxit: The year in review and looking ahead to 2018

Spin Reduxit is CBC New Brunswick's political podcast and analyzes the latest issues coming out of the legislature.The Year in Review and Looking Ahead to 2018 Edition was published this week.

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Thelatest Spin Reduxit podcast looksback at the biggest stories of the year and ahead at the election year to come.

One of the biggest storiesof 2017wasParlee Beach.

• The secret history of Parlee Beach water testing
• Visitor numbers down at Parlee Beach
• 'What's causing the pollution?': Residents skeptical of new water tests

Water quality at the beachcame under scrutiny after a CBC News investigationdetermined the water was unsafe for swimming on many days in 2016.

ParleeBeach, which has been one of New Brunswick's most popular tourist destinations for decades, saw a drop in the number of summer visitors.

Figures released by the Department of Tourism, Heritage and Culture showed fewer people stayed at the campground and visited the beach. Sales of vehicle entrance permits dropped to 17,110 from 23,569.

Next story on thelist is New Brunswick'sproperty assessmentscandal.

Service New Brunswick's new digital property assessment system, launched last fall, produced inflated property tax bills for thousands of landowners across the province.

Rather than catching and fixing those mistakes, the department made up renovation amounts on some homes to justify the inflated values the new system wasn't properly detecting.

In her investigation,Auditor-General Kim MacPherson blamed the leadership of Service New Brunswick for failing to acknowledge the "high risk" of "fast-tracking" a new property assessment system.

• Auditor general presents report on property assessment mess Thursday
• Some victims of property-tax manipulation wary, despite slashed bills
• Gallant's chief of staff, a key player in the assessment scandal, appealed his own tax hike

MacPhersonsaid she "could not determine" if Premier Brian Gallant himself ordered the fast-tracking, though she found a May 2016 presentation of the new system and a followup call by Gallant's chief of staff Jordan O'Brien "contributed toSNB'sperceived sense of urgency."

Listen to the full discussion andsubscribe to Spin Reduxitfromthe CBC Podcasts page orsubscribe to the podcast in iTunes.

FollowDaniel McHardieandJacques Poitrason Twitter.