Joanne Underhill writes in the Feb. 15th edition of The Citizen that the city discriminates against one area on Victoria Street, the ghetto as she calls it. I've noticed that too but I've also noticed that she doesn't mention the large number of cars parked there during snow cleaning hours, cars that the usually careful city plowers have to swerve around in order not to damage them.
Yes the streets are a mess in that area after a snowfall but what are the city workers to do?
They could plow the back alleys first, a situation that in my experience when living on Ewert Street many years ago worked, but not very well, as there was no place to move the heavy snow accumulations rapidly if at all.
Or they could have the city tow the offending vehicles and charge the owners then the ghetto would be cleared at the same time the rest of Victoria Street was.
The area she calls the ghetto may contain a lot of shift workers, maybe people who can't afford car insurance, (in which case the car shouldn't be on the street), but if they don't move their cars they should shovel out the unplowed spaces themselves and plan extra time to extricate their vehicles. Lord knows, we had lots of warning for the recent snowfall.
This is not a situation of continuing discrimination but a situation where residents continue to ignore the city's policy of clearing residential areas during daytime hours. And it's been going on for years. If these are rental units perhaps the landlords could be fined for not advising their tenants of city plowing obligations regarding the renters vehicles. Pick your poison if you live in the affected area but the city's position seems reasonably applied to every other area of town.
Alan Martin
Prince George
