As of Sunday the city has spent more money shaving ruts than it would have cost to clear all residential streets once this winter, with no end in sight.
Since Monday, graders and sanders have worked around the clock to clear residential roadways at a cost of $80,000 to $100,000 a day, according to Mike Gutek, general manager of infrastructure for the City of Saskatoon.
“I think it’s painfully unfair to look back in hindsight and say ‘I told you so.'” It’s not fair for anyone on council to say that because we tried hard to come up with a budget we all thought we could live with,” said Atchison.
Fitness fans can celebrate as the City of Saskatoon is rolling out a four-month program of free fitness classes at Kiwanis Park.
“It seems small but this is really good news for Saskatoon,” said Ward 9 councillor Tiffany Paulsen.
Fire them all.
That why the first thing my brother did when he moved to Lloydminister was buy a 4×4.
Free classes run Tuesdays & Thursdays @ Noon
Oh, so this is for people w/o real jobs.
Saskatoon City is amazingly disfunctional. No planning, no interdepartment communication (I experienced it first hand as president of our CA a few years ago when I was asked to review city plans for College Drive), and a council that refuses to take responsibility. Our councillor responded to an email about street clearing with platitudes, and when I suggested he stop blowing smoke up my sphincter all communication stopped.
They’re weasels and cowards. Size 12 egos in size four souls. And the Mayor needs to be publicly and definitively humiliated to wipe that smug grin off his fat face.
It could be that people who naturally gravitate to government jobs are mostly idiots. Privatization is more than a cost cutting measure.
The stage is set, lets just give up on any type of snow removal. We have lived through this winter and it is obvious that we don’t need our streets cleaned. Sell all the equipment, lay off a bunch of staff and let the snow fall where it may.
Saskatchewan as a whole is probably the worst jurisdiction for snow clearing. They wait until the storm is over, and it usually costs a lot more to clear the rust out than to just do the job properly in the first place. Meanwhile there’s been hundreds of accidents. Talk about doing things the most expensive way possible.
To top it all off, Saskatchewan has one of the highest fuel tax rates in North America.
shaving Ruts….that makes more sense.
Note to self, make appointment for optometrist.
What I detest about this topic is the assumption by many on the left that the ONLY solution is to raise property taxes to ensure that roads are cleared of snow. How about city staff look at what is provided by the city and what is actually NEEDED – the city NEEDS to provide fire, police, garbage, sewer, water, infrastructure and some bylaw – the rest is all stuff that people can provide themselves.
When I was growing up in the 60s our family moved to a new subdevelopment in Edmonton where there were no recreation facilitates (heck the roads were hardly built) so the moms and dads undertook to build the ice rink and the the dads made sure it was maintained – the mom’s arranged the schedule and made sure that there was hot chocolate and someone on duty to ensure that no one stayed out too long on a January night and got frostbite. These were busy people, but they did it because it was their community and neighbours. The city took it over a few years later, but really it never was maintained well after that and the ice schedule became very lopsided in favour of hockey because they could pay some big bucks for it. THAT is what is needed more, NOT more taxes.
No need for free fitness classes—give them snow shovels!!
I live in a super rich Alberta county with a total embarrassment of oilfield assessment. Most of the roads are private, maintained by oil companies. The useless idiots still can’t snowplow the few roads they own. It’s all friggin empire building with offices full of drones and waiting a week after the snow to see a snowplow.
city employee..is a missuse of the word EMPLOYEE…nuff said
I find it deplorable that what these councillors assume that the taxes taken in are monies that can be used for whatever they want. Taxation is supposed to be there to give public services for the ratepayer and other members of the public. Road maintenance should be a fundemental service that should be expected from any municipal government. The truth is the City of Saskatoon has never taken snow clearing seriously and now they are running into all sorts of problems. The City of Winnipeg puts $20,000,000 into thier snow clearing budget.
Free fitness classes? Does that mean I can just put on my running shoes and go outside and run on city streets and in parks for no fees?
Proof once again the sad situation in politics and business these days, the sharp knives stay in the private sector because they know how to survive, or at least did, and the dull knives go into politics for the easy money, perks and pensions, unfortunatly for the sharp knives, the dull knives make dopey policy the sharp knives have to deal with, thus bringing business to a halt and in the process bringing the decline in revenue for the dull knives to piss away. Long story short, idiot politicians need to get out of the way of producers before there are no more producers, the collective IQ of this and many other councils across the country matches their pant sizes.
“shaving ruts” for those who don’t know is cutting down the extremely hard packed snow. Usually it happens when warm weather brings in a bunch of snow that’s sloppy, but isn’t warm enough to melt. Cold weather follows and freezes this stuff solid, it’s extremely hard to remove. A little bit of removal and sand at the tail end of the storm would go a very long way.
Calgary policy in the ’80s was, “wait for a chinook”.
Now they use “liquid salt”.
Progress…….
Thank you, Allan S, for the definition.
AND I can’t believe the cost of housing in that City……….WOW, I could never afford to buy a house there anymore. Sure glad we moved to the Okanagan. Believe it or not the home prices are cheaper than Saskatoon and our taxes on a 2700 sq ft 1 yr old home is around $1600 I believe…….why??? no snow removal I guess?? just kidding, I just don’t know but it makes more sense than $5000 to $6000 property tax.
BUT I do like Saskatoon, way better than Regina that is for sure
Calgary wouldn’t know what snow was even if it landed on their heads and they drive like it too.
It`s nice to know Vancouver might not have the worst mayor and council.
Re: Saskatoon City Council. These are the boneheads that rejected spending $600,000 for snow removal, yet had no problem finding $10 million for a parking garage at a new art gallery that the majority of citizens (80%) didn’t want or felt was needed.
We need a mayor and city council that will accept and perform their most basic duty of serving the citizens first, and stop building monuments to themselves with other people’s money.
And one councillor has the gall to say she needs a raise – btw, they did increase their own ‘communications’ budget.
“snow storage facilities”
They pick it up, move it and then -store- it? Really? Too cold for salt to work? In April? Dang! That’s some serious deep freeze action. Or some councilor has a brother in the trucking business…
By the way, how hard is it to send a grader down the street and cut the snow off the road? They do it down my gravel road after every snow and in summer too. Otherwise the road goes to washboard. Haldimand ain’t the richest county in all the world, but they do seem to be able to get the grader down the road fairly regularly.
“the Mayor needs to be publicly and definitively humiliated to wipe that smug grin off his fat face.”
Let’s not go too hard on old Atch. After all, he has only one vote just like each of the other councillors. He must have a difficult time just stomaching being in the same room with the left-leaning assortment of whackadoodles who make up council.
Whenever the mayor gets under your skin, just remember who finished second in the last civic election and, but for the grace of God and a sensible electorate, might very well have unseated Atchison. A few rutted streets would have been the least of our problems.
What, no Chinook snow removal system? Oh yeah, the Legislature is in Regina.
Oddly enough, I put together a powerpoint presentation titled ‘Mission Creep’ for our local Council members – questioning the ever expanding and self-serving ‘mandate’ that included a line-item they called ‘social justice’. I questioned why the number of civic employees was increasing far in excess of population growth and why each earned so much more than their counterparts in the private sector.
For my time and trouble I was attached as a neo-luddite, someone who wants our fine public servants to work for minimum wage, while demanding they participate in a ‘race to the bottom’. I also got the tired old trope of “if you want good people….”
Our esteemed Councillors have just completed installation of 17 charging stations (typical cost: $20K per), despite the fact that only 11 electric vehicles have been registered in the City in the last 4 months. And I’m betting most of those were purchased by some department or other of self-same administration.
I’m thinking of starting a newspaper in the Fraser Valley and calling it “The Mission Creep”.
Try as they might, no city can top Winnipeg. Our property taxes average at $7500 and we have the god awful museum of mass atrocities going up that no one wants and it is closing in on a half billion in start up costs.Throw in the shady dealings of slick Sam and the Shindico Kids and the city is positively screwed.