And a month to go…
I guess the PAC is more important than snow removal…

Do like some places on the prairies, and use the skidoo to get around in the winter. Heck they do it in Wells, BC all the time, and Dog sleds are legal too!

How many people live in Wells! Four ?

They can start saving money by not plowing bare streets! Of the 3 times they plowed my street last year they did it twice when it wasn’t needed. All you seen coming off of the grader blade was sparks!

I agree with you on that one NoWay! Yet when I phoned in and complained, City staff assured me it was necessary, as was plowing my little used back alley. Am so tired of how some of these things are managed by the City! Common sense and practical solutions don’t seem to exist with most of them!

When new subdivisions are being added the budget amount for snow removal must be increased accordingly.

How much extra is it going to cost to keep newly opened Boundary Road in drivable condition?

new subdivisions are high density & pay high taxes I would think this would be a benifit.

Here are the figures as estimated from the graph:

The numbers represent from left to right – year, cost, budget, variance

2004$4,700,000$4,150,000-$550,000
2005$3,900,000$4,250,000$350,000
2006$5,300,000$4,250,000-$1,050,000
2007$4,400,000$4,250,000-$150,000
2008$5,500,000$4,250,000-$1,250,000
2009$6,250,000$5,000,000-$1,250,000
2010$3,450,000$5,000,000$1,550,000
2011$6,750,000$5,050,000-$1,700,000
2012$5,300,000$5,050,000-$250,000
2013$5,550,000$5,050,000-$500,000

total$51,100,000$46,300,000-$4,800,000

Several things show up

1. If we had were living in Lotusland, we could have built a police station and paid for our portion of a PAC with the snow removal tax.

2. City Administration structured the snow budget in such a way that over 10 years it is underfunded by 10%. They provided enough money in only 2 of 10 years. WHY?

3. We are missing the total snow fall for each year, plus a subjective factor for the type of weather conditions (freeze thaw cycles) which affect removal and sanding costs.

4. a couple of dependent variables such as amount of snowfall, hourly rates for contractors and pay rates for city staff would provide some idea of why costs are escalating.

whoops … forgot to include fuel cost escalation under #4 ….

BTW, those kind of graphs are terrible. They do not give an immediate overview of the relative costs. When looking at the graph without looking at the vertical axis costs it looks like 2011 was about 8 times as expensive as 2010 when, in fact, it was more like two times as expensive.

That survey is not going to be valid because posters on here were not interviewed. ;-)

Sweet, more taxes. What was the purpose of the core review again, to give them excuses to raise taxes?

Hey, I have an idea, why not raise my taxes by about 60 bucks this year so you can buy some land out of town, hang on to it for 15 years and do a few improvements which will cost me another 4 or 5 bucks a year and then sell it to save me 60 bucks on my taxes in 2030?

If the city scrapped plans to create a snow clearing utility they could save the 350k in set up costs which seems like a lot of money for all I&P does nothing more than sew another pocket on the public purse.

The fact that they are over budget explains why they have not done a snow removal so far this year.

If employee’s are not plowing snow, perhaps someone could tell us what the hell they are doing.

One presumes they are on the payroll.???

I have it on good authority that they are literally driving around doing nothing.

If they are driving around doing nothing then that is a supervision issue. If they have a no lay off clause in their contract fine but if there are no normal duties in slower times such as cleaning around fire hydrants then the supervisor should have a list of tasks that he could assign to keep these workers gainfully employed.

If the supervisor is just sending them out with nothing to do so they are not just hanging around the works yard and making him look bad then he should be held to task by his supervisor or the department head.

gus if you are wondering who to blame don’t look at administration. the staff have repeatedly told council over the last couple of years that the snow reserve was empty and some money should be put aside but no, the mayor and council ignore that advice, gambled with mother nature and lost.

it is now obvious why the mayor was so eager to cut back snow services a few meetings back as she must have know this was coming.

I was sure I heard an ad on the radio during the last election where she said she would never ever support cutting services for snow removal. Ha so much for that promise.

She and the rest of council act like they went to the NDP school of budgeting where you ignore reality and the advice from staff and just hope you get lucky.

Not a bad idea Uturn.

I always thought it was cool that snowmobiles used to have their own routes in Prince Albert SK until 2005. They even had their own parking stalls.

explains why the roads up there are so bad…they don’t have the money, so don’t do it at all…

Once upon a time my SO wrote a letter to the editor making a suggestion that the city has it’s plow trucks drive around a few days before the snow falls to just “put the hours on”. We didn’t get our street plowed for almost three weeks. Bitch about snow removal, but don’t let them know where you live.

You would think we deserve an answer to a simple question. mytwobits asked why they plow when it’s not necessary but was simply told it was necessary. What dumb person at city hall said that? Shouldn’t someone step up to the plate and give an honest answer. Or do they just mean that it’s necessary that the truck and driver are just out there looking busy.

Plow trucks don’t plow your residential streets. Graders do. But the next time you see one of these ‘plows’ plowing when you feel it’s not necessary; why not stop the driver and ask? I’m pretty sure you’d get an honest answer from the operator. My guess is the people posting are only asking or complaining here on this site and not actually calling city hall. And if you are getting the run around from city hall, then definitely ask the operator. You might be surprised by their answer, and ya might actually learn something!!

Plowing, clearing, blowing, grading whatever you want to call snow removal Hello?. The City does it when they don’t need to…. when the street was bare, no snow or ice. Bare as the middle of July. Anyone with a brain can see that is a waste of money. What I might learn if I asked the operator “I only do what I’m told”.

With the rise in the snow level until the ploes hit the streets proves that mayor and council have no regards to the safety of the citizens of Prince George.

They don’t care that it’s puts us all in harms way as long as they save money to spend on their precious PAC. In the summer they want us to drive over thousands of potholes, again with safety of the citizens tossed out the window.

To pay for the PAC maybe triple the taxes they get from any business involved in vehicle repair as they are making out like bandits with damage to vehicles.

Green go away NOW and take ALL of council with you. A monkey with a dart could make better decisions.