The City of Prince George’s Snow and Ice Control Policy made its way back to the City Council table once again.
City Council was presented with a pair of reports at tonight’s (Wednesday) meeting.
These reports were previously requested by Council during a meeting in January.
The first report presented to City Council includes detailed snow and ice control activity costs between November 1st and December 31st, as well as the number of snow events addressed, costs attributed to snow removal at civic facilities, and snow accumulation during the mentioned time period.
“One of the reasons we’re looking at it is because it is $10 million a year that literally goes down the drain, every spring, all of that snow melts and then it goes down the drain,” said Councillor Trudy Klassen.
“That’s why I think it’s imperative that we do need to look very closely at this budget, because we’re not building anything with it, it’s merely a maintenance issue.”
After Council asked questions on the report, Councillor Brian Skakun put forward a motion requesting a report on a further breakdown of some costs identified in the report, which was passed.
The second report investigated potential savings for reducing snow and ice control operations on statutory holidays and the impacts to winter operations.
“Pausing snow and ice control on a statutory holiday that is encompassed by a defined snow event and deferring the service to the next day would potentially lessen the impact to the annual snow budget, but as outlined in the report, could come with operational challenges that could increase time required to clear the entire city, increase the risk to city infrastructure and create accessibility issues for pedestrians and hazardous conditions for motor vehicles,” said Director of Civic Operations Blake McIntosh.
“Budget savings may not be realized as a result.”
Councillor Cori Ramsay said she thinks the option needs to be explored.
“The potential to see significant costs on a statutory holiday from a major snow event with the budget reduced a million dollars this year gives me angina and anxiety,” she said.
Ramsay put forward a motion requesting a revised policy with two options to be used as a one-year pilot project.
The first option would be no snow removal on statutory holidays, with the second being an increased snow threshold on statutory holidays.
“I would ideally like to see Council choose whether we would go increased levels or no removal and do that for a one-year period to see the cost savings to the city, and then after that pilot period, decide if we would want to implement it permanently,” she said.
Councillor Tim Bennett asked if there was a “happy medium” they could find instead.
“Do we prioritize priority one and two routes on statutory holidays and a change in service level for statutory holidays for our priority three routes,” he inquired.
He also asked about reducing the length of shifts on statutory holidays.
“Is that an option for a cost savings where we run a reduced schedule on stats so that we’re not running ten hour shifts and saving the costs on overtime, recognizing that could have a bit of an impact on service levels in the event of significant snow right before Christmas and Boxing Day?” Bennett asked.
McIntosh noted that overtime is automatically incurred on stat holidays, so every hour that staff worked on that day would be overtime.
“There’s always where we could just work with city equipment and very limited contractors, that would save a little bit of money,” he said.
“The priority one and two model, that’s a possibility, obviously they carry the largest volume of traffic, through arterials and collectors. I guess one of my questions would be, should we adopt this motion, what are the metrics we’re providing at the end of this? Is it just a function of we saved money, or what is the money that we would save? I kind of look at it like ‘if there’s no snow on a stat holiday, are we saving money or is it just money not spent?'”
Ramsay said the metric she intended was to look at the monetary cost savings over the snow season.
Bennett put forward an amendment to Ramsay’s motion, adding a third option of prioritizing priority one and two routes while reducing service on priority three routes.
The amendment and main motion were passed.
Other items discussed at tonight’s meeting included vehicle gates for Moccasin Flats, and unallocated grant funding.
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