INNISFAIL – The town will take a look at whether the community should have expanded snow removal service.
But it’s unlikely that could mean faster clearing of roads after a snowfall. However, the town could decide that local trails and sidewalks should get greater attention.
None of this, however, is likely to happen this winter, as council is reluctant to open up the budget.
However, administration is now tasked to study the current level of service and report back to council for further direction, which will likely happen in April.
The issue of possibly increasing snow removal service levels for trails and sidewalks first came up at town council’s Agenda & Priorities meeting on Feb. 17, and again at its regular meeting on Feb. 24.
Todd Becker, the town’s CAO, said administration’s review would include a good look at the current level of service for both roadways, and trails and sidewalks. From there, said Becker, council can then direct administration to do the research on whether any level of service can be reduced or increased.
Coun. Jean Barclay noted the town is doing an excellent job with the current level of snow removal for local roads but is wondering if another level of service should be added.
She said this issue came to her attention last month just before the Family Day weekend when a heavy snowfall was not immediately cleared in many areas because municipal crews were not working. Barclay, who was a volunteer at the Innisfail Ski Hill on Sunday of the long weekend, noticed there were people getting stuck in the parking lot. She contacted Becker who got a hold of town operations crews and they came within an hour and cleaned up the parking lot.
"That was so fantastic that they would do that. They responded in such a short period of time, and so it made Monday a much better day at the ski hill for patrons,” said Barclay.
“I realize adding more service could potentially cost more money,” she added. “But I would like to take a look at it to see if it fits and make sense, making sure on weekends if there is snow on Friday can we get things cleaned up enough where they are more acceptable for people to get out and enjoy the weekend.”
Barclay said her intent is not to implement increased service for this year’s budget but to have a staff report in time for the 2020-21 budget.
“Is there a way of delivering a little more service to the community, whether that is through an external provider that may be on call or scheduling people a little bit different?’’’ said Barclay. “That is something that administration may need to look at in operations to see whether it makes sense.”
Mayor Jim Romane also praised the town’s “excellent” snow removal service and cautioned against moving aggressively towards increased service levels.
“We will see if they can do some manipulative scheduling to pick up some hours on the weekend, but right now we are not prepared to touch the budget,” said Romane.
“They’ve (operations staff) gotten very efficient and I don’t want to interrupt that. As long as they can continue on their system I am not prepared to upset the whole schedule just for that.”
