Coun. Dawn Luhning is concerned about how quickly city crews remove snow from downtown parking spaces with meters and believes the delay negatively affects businesses and their customers.
While Luhning understood that two major blizzards had hit Moose Jaw within three weeks, she didn’t understand city hall’s process for clearing downtown parking stalls. She pointed out that city hall sends yearly letters to businesses reminding them to clear sidewalks for pedestrians so they shovel snow into the street.
City council passed a motion years ago that crews had to clear snow from downtown metered spots within a certain time, she said during the Nov. 14 regular council meeting.
“For businesses downtown, the city needs to try and do something about the fact those meters tend to be clogged for quite a bit of time, longer than is appropriate for those businesses and (their) patrons … ,” she remarked.
Luhning recalled seeing a bylaw enforcement officer ticket a vehicle because it was parked on a snowbank on the sidewalk outside a business on High Street West because crews hadn’t cleared the snow.
She added that she understood there were priority streets but noted that residents must access businesses downtown such as doctors’ offices.
The downtown core consists of Main Street and then the side streets that branch off east and west for one block, explained Darrin Stephanson, director of public works and utilities.
Public works crews deposit snow onto the centre medians on Main Street as the main storage solution, while it starts hauling that snow and snow from the side streets around day 3, he continued. Meanwhile, business owners can shovel the snow into the parking stalls and public works will remove it.
Side streets such as High Street, Athabasca and Hochelaga are purely hauling zones because they have limited storage capacity, said Stephanson.
“So, for streets … that are off Main Street that have businesses, we do temporary storage in one-half of the parking meters, which is typically our strategy for a large snowfall,” he stated, adding crews will eventually haul away everything.
The city uses third-party contractors to assist with clearing snow, but most were unavailable because it was an early season blizzard and they were still finishing summer projects — some for the city — and had not switched their vehicles to winter-oriented initiatives, Stephanson said.
That left city crews to handle everything themselves, which took longer because of the limited equipment, he added. Most supporting contractors won’t be available until December.
“It’s fortunate that we extended (crews’ working) hours a couple of years ago,” said city manager Jim Puffalt. “We have crews scheduled to work through the night with a big storm. It gets us ahead of the game versus the way it used to be.”
Roof replacement
The blizzard damaged the roofs at Golden Ticket Sports Centre and the Pla-Mor Palace because contractors had been upgrading the roofs and the temporary seals failed to hold.
The roof replacement at Pla-Mor concerned Coun. Heather Eby, who wondered why that work wasn’t finished during the summer when there was less ice-related programming.
“There is (currently) hockey and figure skating and the construction is a little bit in the way,” she added.
That is something the parks and recreation department will investigate because the work should have been finished by Oct. 1, said director Derek Blais.
“We awarded the tender in May and the contractor had plenty of time to complete it in the summer,” he added. “We will work with (the legal department) in the future on tenders to see if we can hold contractors to a timeline.”
Won’t you be my neighbour?
Coun. Crystal Froese commended residents for being good neighbours and helping dig out others nearby. She heard many people lent snowblowers and helped remove tree branches from yards.
“I’m not sure if that snowstorm was one in a hundred (years), but I hope we don’t see that one any time soon,” she added.
The next regular council meeting is Monday, Nov. 28.
