Odd how snow removal activity has been re-activated now that the contract between the City and it’s Unionized workforce has been settled. Nice try Mr Gaal; your attempt at trying to make it look like union action failed miserably now that your previous directives to operations have been made public. Shame Shame Shame on you and Beth James.

Odd how snow removal activity has been re-activated now that the contract between the City and it’s Unionized workforce has been settled. Nice try Mr Gaal; your attempt at trying to make it look like union action failed miserably now that your previous directives to operations have been made public. Shame Shame Shame on you and Beth James.

Blame the weather……rolls eyes!

I wonder when they knew that this one grader operator was going to be on vacation? There were no contingency plans for that???

So…if each snowfall was above the new mark, why was there no action on the streets? Waiting for it to all melt and run away??
Yep, that’s the way to get the job done alright.

Too bad this story wasn’t entitled: Snow report results in head’s removal.

good thing we increased the snow budget this yr so service would be better. oh wait more money mismanaged at city hall.

I have had dealings with Bill Gaal over the past two winters and from my experience, you cannot believe a word he says!!! He seems to have no interest in providing good service to the taxpayers of Prince George.

Back hoes, loaders and graders heading down the road with their blades up….what the hell. If your going somewhere then do your job getting there.

But X-it, lots of posters on here don’t like to see sparks coming off the blades !

One of the problems here is that contractors are tired with dealing with the city. Should interview past contractors they will tell you the real story. The few I talked to are just tired of dealing with the city, so they wont bid on the snow removal anymore. The city has pissed off alot of qualified contractors with qualified grader operators. Why wont Gaal just fess up that he messed up, I think people would rather hear that then excuses.

r_u_kidding = NAILED IT.

A few years back Mr. Gaal had Mr. Jones start letting contractors go after 1 or 2 shifts when they were still needed. The idea was to have our “own guys” clean it up, sounds good on the surface. The result was that the contact equipment was under utilized and they stated to look for other work. They found it in contract work to maintain roads out in the back roads of the expanding Oil, Gas & Mining and the forestry interests.

Time to pay the piper Mr. Gaal, this is on you. Find a solution.

The only time Ive heard people complain about sparks,, is when they are scrapping the same streets over, an over again,, While other streets have not been plowed even once. You seem to forget the part of the posts.

X-it, You have no idea what is required from the equipment. Dropping the blade is not the answer, removing the snow properly is not just that simple.

Bill Gaal HAS GOT TO GO!!! If beth james the new City Hired gun (who has NEVER managed a City before) can’t see how incredibly incompetent this man is then pwerhaps She needs to go as well. I know a chap that drivers a Grader for the city and he told me over the weekend that YES….They dont know where there going half the time, and he basically admitted that Bill Gaal has no idea where crews are or gives them any clear direction, lol he seemed as frustrated as the rest of us!

Bill Gaal trying a snow job on council.

I am sure the report will put no blame on management in a white washed CYA report.

“…has no idea where crews are…”

Give me a break! This is 2014! If trucking companies do equip their vehicles with GPS communication units which continuously report their locations to a central office so can this City!

The person(s) directing the snow clearing operations can keep track on a display where every piece of equipment is working!

How can anyone improve the efficiency while being in the dark about what’s going on?

I guess the expensive fancy new parking scheme has a much higher priority than getting the snow off the streets!

PG: “Give me a break! This is 2014! If trucking companies do equip their vehicles with GPS communication units which continuously report their locations to a central office so can this City! “

Not necessarily. CUPE might have an issue with GPS tracking of their employees activities.

Knowledge88/ CF-18/ CrysBaron… shouldn’t you be doing some work ?

Streets that have not been plowed once ? C’mon sayitaintso, not even once ? What does scrapping the street mean anyway ?

“Not necessarily. CUPE might have an issue with GPS tracking of their employees activities”

Are you for )*^)& real?

GPS is coming it has gone out to an RFP. The problem is management tends to use it as discipline if a guy takes 5 minutes longer for coffee. Instead of being more efficient. The city needs more equipment in the streets. So if the city purchases more, maybe you guys that constantly say they make to much money and are lazy can apply for the new position and see what its really like.

R U Kidding is correct from what I have heard of city dealings with subcontractors . So if you piss off the subs , and don’t know where you are getting operators from , why not let someone run the show that does have a clue .Enough lame excuses that we don’t care to hear . Just get the job done.

R U Kidding, is correct. Contractors would rather have their equipment sit, than work for a crappy contractor(City).

subontractor has to deal with employees with family and other commitments, and they need to treat them with a reasonable level of respect. You don’t call up a employee, at 6 pm and say they are working all night. The city has to plan their work, and turn around and give these subcontractor a chance to get their employees on a schedule, should give them at least 16 hr warning or more. So they can get employees ready to put in a shift.

It’s not much to ask for. A lack of preplanning on your part, does not constitute a problem on the subcontractors part.

The weather report is reasonably accurate enough to predict when we are going to get slammed with a snow fall. Its not a big surprise, if it is a big surprise to the city, perhaps they need to get better staff that can read get on the TWN website.

This also goes to YRB, giggling on the sidelines.

I heard that the city had a YXS grader hired to help. Sounds pretty desperate.

This sounds like job justification , nothing more….

Seems the City is out of control when it comes to removing snow.

Perhaps they have too many priorities, and not enough common sense.

Some areas have been plowed 4 times this year, while others only once, and some none . So how is that possible.

Between doing the arterials, bus routes, schools, off street parking, recreation facilities such as CN Centre, Swimming Pools, Civic Centre, Library, City Staff parking, Downtown Streets, etc; when will they get around to the suburbs, especially those in outlying areas like the Hart Hiway, Pine view, etc;

Furthermore a couple of hours each day is spent coming from and going to the City yard.

Seems we have a major management problem here. Do we have people with the skill set to solve this problem?? Somehow I doubt it.

City spending on snow.
Expenditures Salary @ Wages (Including benefits) $2,291,169.00

Non-Salary Expenses $2,640,467.00

So we have $5 Million dollars to spend over a five month period to remove snow, and we cant seem to get the job done. Money does not seem to be the problem.

So that leaves Management/Labour.

JB:”Not necessarily. CUPE might have an issue with GPS tracking of their employees activities.”

Not necessarily. GPS would NOT be tracking their activities! It would only be tracking the location of the equipment, at all times, even if it was parked if that would be required.

Dragonmaster:”Are you for )*^)& real?”

No, only the automatically taken opposite position to everything anybody says is.

Bill Gaal and Mayor Green, as well as Neil Godbout (Editorial in The Citizen) have all stated that the P.G. tax payers expectations have changed, that they expect the roads to all be cleared in a few hours. My expectation of road clearing hasn’t changed in my 36 years in P.G. I would like to see neighbourhood streets cleared within 4 days of a snowfall, not hours. That was past service, but that is not the case any longer, streets in my neighbourhood,as well as other areas I travel through, are taking 7 days or even much longer before they see a loader or grader. I live on a school bus route, and still my service has declined in the last few years. I’m glad I have a 4×4 pick up, because otherwise I would have been stuck at a few intersections within my neighbourhood, even several days after these large snowfalls.

That’s my expectation, and it’s sure not instant clearing! I am offended that City Leaders and managers say we expect all our roads be cleared within hours of a large snowfall.

Bill Gaal has repeatedly said that it takes five or six days to get all the snow cleared up. So if that’s the case why hasn’t it been cleared up? Five or six days was gone a l o n g time ago. We have at least six inches of ice at Cherry and Westwood and for a good part of Cherry. They’ve scraped a little bit but that’s what’s left with a lot of holes right to the pavement.

I’m not sure who’s responsible for the miworth road. It’s in bad shape with ruts that throw the smaller vehicles around. My mom just lost control on that road. She was doing 40km/hr and said it just tossed her car around like a Ping pong ball

As far as I know there were 3 accidents on a 1km stretch this morning. Right in front of the gravel pit. I think it’s run by acme. Not to sure if there trucks made those ruts worse or not

“Bill Gaal and Mayor Green, as well as Neil Godbout (Editorial in The Citizen) have all stated that the P.G. tax payers expectations have changed, that they expect the roads to all be cleared in a few hours. “

Would like to know where they got that idea from? I call an act of deception.

I am sure hoping that a LOT of people show up at City Council meeting tonight….COME ON PEOPLE LETS GO!!!!!!

In snow clearing you can not give your operators 16 hour notice, but the operators know that they are on stand by when when it calls for snow.

Bill Gaal started the rules:
– no snow clearing while it is still snowing
– if it stops snowing on Friday afternoon no crew is to go out until Monday shift

Instead of asking Bill Gaal for a report on the City snow clearing, the council should be asking the large private contractors what they do.

I’d like to see council move a request for an internal operations review. Then we may have some answers. On the surface it seems efficiencies are being missed when it comes to snow clearing in this town. The question citizens want answered is: why can we not do a better job snow clearing?

For example, one street in the green zone was cleared Dec 23 and again Jan 17. No sanding has been done. A couple of streets over, in same zone, the crews cleared two days after each major snowfall. Doesn’t seem to be any logic to how crews are dispatched.

So yes, citizens are frustrated that their tax dollars aren’t being spent wisely.The evidence? – the chaotic dispatch of snow clearing crews and equipment.

I saw a city official state on TV that the people demand all the streets in the city cleared down to the bare pavement within 24 hours of a snowfall. I have never met even one person in this town who unrealistically insisted on something like that!

Somebody is making this stuff up instead of connecting with the people, listening to them and solving a problem which is becoming more obvious with every winter season.

I heard an interview recently with someone from the City saying that they got 600 phone calls within 2 days of the last snowfall from people wondering where the snowplows were.

There are certainly a lot of people in this town with some unrealistic expectations, but I don’t think they represent the majority.

You have to wonder who wrote the speech Bill Gaal is making to Council Monday night.
Neil Godbout was mentioned here. He was also promoting the close of the Nechako Library. Prior to going to the PG Citizen, he was employed by the PG Public Library. I am beginning to wonder about his ethics and priorities. Leave the Nechako Library alone!!!

So according to Gaal and Green, there is nothing wrong with the way clearing the snow has been done, it is the taxpayers who simply expect too much. Any part that cant be blamed on the taxpayer’s expectations can be blamed on the weather?
I don’t expect to have our street cleaned within 4 or 5 days of a major snowfall, but 16 days seems a little long. Even now, the main routes still need work- 5th Ave is still not 2 lanes wide.
So the city claims to have received 600 phone calls over a 24 hr period? I call BS. That would be almost 40 calls per hour!
Time to quit blaming others. If as much time was spent scheduling the crews as is spent blaming others, there would not be a problem.

Ours were just plowed on Saturday and the last time was late in december. They did not spend any additional time clearing mainly because they really just took off the major ruts and left 6″ of ice. Bill Gaal needs to come up with some real answers.

Expecting the streets to be cleared in 48hrs is NOT an unreasonable expecation. Unforeseen treacherous storms could cause delays up to a week, sure, but we did not receive that kind of weather unlike the folks in Eastern Canada. This was a typical winter here so far.

Oh, did I say cleared? There’s still a good four inch ice layer here but at least it’s flatter. I learned since moving to PG not to expect to see pavement – ever. :/

In your poll about snow removal, I wish you had put in the option of changing the management.

I believe that that is what will make the difference.

Posted by: JohnnyBelt on January 20 2014 3:26 PM
I heard an interview recently with someone from the City saying that they got 600 phone calls within 2 days of the last snowfall from people wondering where the snowplows were.
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“So the city claims to have received 600 phone calls over a 24 hr period? I call BS. That would be almost 40 calls per hour!”
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Actually, I believe the call volume claimed to be accurate. Why does one call to find out when or where the plows are? Simple. Their street hasn’t been done or they need to get safely somewhere or they want to know if the crews are even out because they haven’t seen any.

Calling city hall to enquire seems like a rational thing for a concerned citizen to do.

That guy in the city pick up truck who follows the graders and loaders, how much does he make an hour? Management or union guy? How do I get his job? Is he there to make sure the road guys don’t goof off? Can’t trust city workers to work under no supervision? If there is an accident is he the city’s mouthpiece? Quality control? Nice work if you can get it.