The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Jonathon Naylor Editor City council will examine how to trim snow-removal costs amid concerns the current methods of clearing the white stuff are excessive. This comes after taxpayer advocate Blair Sapergia questioned whether the city has to remove snow so quickly and with so many contractors. 'I figure that if we used our own equipment and went about it at a little slower pace, we gotta save money on it,' Sapergia told council at their meeting last week. Sapergia said that over the winter he saw one location with more than 10 pieces of snow-removal equipment, including trucks, running at once. '(You) just blitz into there and clean out a whole neighbourhood in a couple of days,' he said. 'I mean, we didn't have that much snow this year. Do we need to spend that kind of money on moving snow? It just seemed like a huge waste.' No savings Coun. Bill Hanson, chair of the Engineering Services Committee, said there would be no savings in having the city replace snow-removal contractors and their equipment. 'When we sat down and did the figures, it's about the same cost to hire a contractor as it is to buy a truck, hire an employee, put them on payroll, pay the cost of that truck, the cost of maintaining that truck,' he said. Sapergia said that would only be the case if the city added equipment and people rather than relying on what is already in place. But due to a lack of municipal equipment, Hanson said, 'that's what we would have to do.' See 'People...' on pg. 7 Continued from pg. 3 'And the thing is, the people of Flin Flon like having their streets cleaned,' he said. 'If they don't have them cleaned, let me tell you, we hear about it. And Flin Flon probably cleans its streets way better than we should and spends more money than we should. But that's what the taxpayers want us to do.' Nonetheless, Hanson said he is 'sort of leaning towards not doing quite the cleaning we have been doing.' Coun. Karen MacKinnon said she too has wondered whether the city has to clear away so much snow from the streets. 'Is there a need? There should be a review on...the reason that we do remove as much snow as we do,' she said. 'Most people shovel out in front of their homes. And yeah, the amount of snow that we had this year, was there a need for as much snow removal as there was?' To that, Coun. Colleen McKee interjected that perhaps the city did not spend as much this year as in others due to the lower snow volume. She saw no need for wholesale changes. 'We've been removing the same snow for 80 years now and I'm thinking that, you know, we don't need to reinvent the wheel,' McKee said. 'I think maybe (Sapergia's) concern is to ensure that we're spending the money appropriately and that we are being efficient with our spending. Now that to me is something we can look into. Unfortunately, we can't say when it's going to snow and when it's not going to snow.' The city spends roughly $300,000 a year on snow removal, an amount McKee believes 'people are satisfied with' based on the number of complaints from the public. But Coun. Tim Babcock asked whether the city has to maintain such a large snow dump area off of North Avenue and pay contractors who are there 'just moving snow.' Use grater? He wondered whether a city employee with a grater could take over the duty of pushing snow over the edge of the cliff. Hanson said some have suggested the city cut costs by making residents responsible for shoveling the sidewalk in front of their homes, fining those who do not comply. ' Well, you know what, I don't want my mom to have to go out and shovel her front walk just because the sidewalk's in front of her house,' he said. '....with our aging population, I really (don't support that).' That had Sapergia comparing such a bylaw with a decree the city issued last year that forces residents to mow the municipally-owned boulevards adjacent to their properties each summer. 'So it's okay for them to cut the grass but you don't want them to shovel snow?' asked Sapergia. Mayor George Fontaine suggested the snow-removal question be examined by the Engineering Service Committee. McKee added that council could ask for a report on the matter from the Works and Operations department, which oversees snow clearing.
