Ongoing snow issues on the mind of City Councillors

Snow and the need for its removal
made for a theme for Monday's
Council session

The lingering embrace of winter on the North Coast made for some conversation at Monday's City Council Session, with two councillors calling attention to snow related issues and how the city may wish to approach them.

Council Joy Thorkelson opened up the snow theme, commenting on the state of the crosswalk areas of the downtown area, noting that they have become clogged with snow causing difficulties for some of the city's residents.

While noting that the City crews are fully involved in snow removal at this time, she offered up the suggestion that the city's merchants might want to expand on their required sidewalk clearing duties and also clear out the sidewalk crossing areas adjacent to the city streets, providing clear access from the sidewalks to the streets unimpeded.

Councillor Barry Cunningham returned to a frequent theme of his in recent months, calling attention to the state of sidewalks in the areas of vacant buildings and lots where some property owners are not providing for the required clearing as per the city's bylaws.

He suggested that the City should do the work, hiring a private contractor if required to clear the sidewalks and to send the property owners the bill for the clearing service.

Like Councillor Thorkelson, he observed that the city crews were working flat out and don't need any more work, and if that's the case the city should look into hiring a contractor for the work required and forward the bill to property owners.

You can review the shout outs on snow asking for a bit of help from the community from the City's Video archive, starting at the 45 minute mark.



For more items related to Monday's City Council session see our Council Timeline feature here.

For more items related to City Council Discussions see our Council archive page.