Snow Plowing Budget Increase Proposals....

To make a bit of a long story quite short, in the last couple of years, we have had a few very challenging snow plowing years in Kamloops. Mother Nature has given us a lot, with more intensity, and with less reprieves between major snowfalls. Our city crews have been awesome but it's been very hard to keep up. 

This has generated more community concern. 

City staff have researched the issues and opportunities and have presented council with a proposal to increase the annual snow removal budget from 1.6 million dollars a year to 2 million dollars a year. This would be to add three new staff, 2 new trucks, and a bit of new technology and training. More details in the photos below. 

This would help city staff keep up with the existing service levels of snow plowing, mainly making sure local roads are plowed by established times.

Significantly, this would not change any city service levels with regards to windrows or snow piles that accumulate on curbs in the city. We received important complaints about these this past winter. I would like to better understand the cost of not having such large windrows accumulate in sensitive areas of the city and I will be asking council to support a report from city staff to research windrow removal practices and costs. 

We will be making a final decision on these proposals in a future council meeting. 

 

 

Comments

[Lawrence Beaton]

If this is going ahead, we must praise the staff for doing what they are doing. But at the same time,maybe private contractors could do a better of cleaning out cul-de-sacs, maybe they would have more time to do so. As we know this city has a lot of cul de sacs, And really, the city should do about cleaning street corners during winter. We don't need to see berms running six to eight feet from curb-side. Nor do we do see all snow plowed to the sidewalk side of streets. Lastly, many vehicles are parked on the streets following major snow instances, might I suggest ticketing them for obstruction of traffic, thereby allowing the movement of snow and the proper widening of roads. Outside of that, thank you.