City council should convene a special meeting dedicated to finding improvements to Prince George snow clearing operations, according to one local politician.
Coun. Brian Skakun has suggested a separate committee of the whole meeting be scheduled to discuss the whole gamut of plowing policies and procedures.
Council will discuss snow clearing at the next regular meeting on Jan. 20. Skakun, who is going on holiday, will not be in attendance.
The councillor has circulated a letter to the mayor and his council colleagues outlining his thoughts in anticipation of his absence. In terms of having a dedicated snow clearing meeting, Skakun said he would like to see something with participation from workers, contractors, and administration, where there could be discussions about how the work force is allocated, which areas could be plowed first and whether there needs to be more money invested in the entire operation.
"For myself and many other people enough is enough and as a city councillor I can set some policies but have no control over what happens with the day to day operations - not that I should - but we need to make some serious changes with the way we remove snow," he said. "Really what I'm looking at is making sure what happened with the snow removal this year, make sure it doesn't ever happen again - if possible."
Skakun also cited the city's 2004 participation in the International Association of Mayors of Northern Cities. Prince George sat as the secretariat for body's sub-committee on snow management.
"People were proud of our snow removal," said Skakun, who said he and other members of council have been contacted by long-time community members who say this year is the worst they've ever seen for snow clearing. "There's no reason we can't get back there."
Another one of Skakun's issues was with the amount of equipment on, or not on, the roads.
On Monday morning, he posted a photo on Facebook shot over the weekend showing snow-clearing equipment sitting in the public works yard.
He said he thinks the city needs more flexibility among its workforce to ensure all available equipment is going.
City street operations supervisor Mick Jones says with three snow clearing shifts, there is likely to always be equipment not in service at any given point during the day, especially in the afternoons where there is a reduced schedule.
According to the city website, a fully operating morning shift running from 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. uses 21 pieces of city equipment. The afternoon shift running from 3:30 to 11 p.m. uses six pieces of equipment. The night shift, running 10:30 p.m. to 7 a.m., uses 22 pieces of city equipment.
"Every afternoon between the day shift and the night shift where we have our smaller afternoon shift out, there will be equipment parked in the yard," said Jones. "If those six pieces are out in the afternoon shift, that leaves a lot of pieces of equipment that aren't out."
In addition, said Jones, this past weekend when the posted picture was taken, it was a major shift change where the rotation between day and night shift switches over. Those typically working the afternoon shift were brought in to supplement the day shift, said Jones.
"But on Saturday, Jan. 11, the city had 34 city staff members and contractors out working clearing the streets," Jones said. "And on the Sunday, we had 29 city staff members and contractors out clearing the streets. So we didn't have all the equipment parked in the yard."
Other councillors are also equipping themselves with ideas about handling the current snow clearing problem.
Coun. Cameron Stolz has forwarded to city staff an idea he came across in New York regarding attaching plow blades to garbage trucks.
"I go to Toy Fair in New York almost every February and that's one of things they do out there," said Stolz, who hadn't thought about raising the issue in the past. "As the old saying goes, necessity is the mother of all invention and when you start going 'what are we doing, where can be creative,' maybe this is one of those options."
Stolz said staff are already doing research on the matter and he hopes that there will be some administrative response by the Jan. 20 council meeting.
With the snow and ice accumulations, roads are taking longer to clear, said Jones. The department has also attempted to time the plowing of residential areas differently.
"The last snow event, we tried to skip a zone and we went two zones ahead to try to stay ahead of garbage collection that didn't really work either," said Jones. "It's so dependent on weather. At the end of the day, I wish people would understand we are doing the best we can, but it's not an exact science."
