A visitor to Moose Jaw is concerned that the city’s unplowed streets make it difficult to navigate the community, especially when freezing rain adds to the white-knuckle driving.
Elaine lives on a farm near Spring Valley — located 62 kilometres southeast of Moose Jaw — and conducts most of her business here several times a week. She was here on Jan. 5 for several medical appointments and to visit her 99-year-old mother and — similar to other motorists — faced icy roads while travelling to places.
However, her problem was that the freezing rain made those roads worse wherever the snow hadn’t been cleared. While driving down Fourth Avenue Northwest after leaving her mother’s retirement home, for example, she had to drive on the ice-covered snow ridges that had built up on the street. She almost collided with an oncoming vehicle but managed to move to the side in time.
The manager at the retirement home told Elaine that that street had not been plowed once this winter. This has made it difficult for the home’s bus to enter and leave the property.
Snow cleared too slowly
“I called the mayor’s office. I called the engineering department. I’m still waiting for a call from (department manager) Darrin Stephanson,” said Elaine, who asked that her last name not be used. “What I told the engineering people is that the first two snowfalls of the season were before Christmas and they were less than 10 inches … . But to me, that’s where the mistake was made. They didn’t clear the streets down to the pavement as much as possible.”
In an email to the Moose Jaw Express, city hall confirmed that Elaine left a message for the mayor — who is away and returns on Jan. 11 — but never spoke directly with his assistant. City hall also confirmed that she spoke to a clerk in the engineering department.
“This is what I feel is the failure, is Moose Jaw hasn’t spent much money on snow-clearing the last few years,” said Elaine, who noted that she mostly leaves messages at city hall since she doesn’t want to bother department secretaries since they aren’t managers. “It seems to me that the people there (at city hall) think they’re living at the coast or somewhere, that they really hope and think that we’re not going to have normal winters in Saskatchewan.”
Go shop in Regina
Elaine declined to name the woman with whom she spoke in the engineering department since the employee was not a manager and did not make policy decisions. However, she claimed that several years ago when Glen Hagel was mayor, a male employee in the engineering department told her that “if I don’t like the streets in Moose Jaw, I should go to Regina to shop.”
Eliaine made this claim to former mayors Hagel and Deb Higgins and told current Mayor Fraser Tolmie this during his first term.
“If I could boycott the City of Moose Jaw, I would, but I can’t,” she said, while acknowledging that she calls city hall “maybe too often,” with Tolmie telling her during his first term that he had spoken with her three times.
There is no truth that the female engineering department employee told Elaine during this phone call to “go to Regina to shop,” city hall said. The clerk provided Elaine with the number to the streets and roads supervisor, who listened to the concerns and explained that the city follows its winter maintenance policy.
City follows snow-clearing policy
“As per the policy, residential roads are now plowed unless ruts exceed four inches in height, and we have not received any complaints about rutting exceeding those limits this winter,” city hall said. “All roads in the city do receive sanding when necessary, and our crews applied multiple layers of sand (Jan. 5 and 6), visiting our priority roads in accordance with the policy.”
The attitude at city hall needs to change, especially since many employees and managers believe nothing is wrong and the community should remain as it is, Elaine said. She thought this attitude was “bush league” and shouldn’t be accepted.
“I want the people on that council and the people in the (public) works department to give me acceptable streets to drive on and sidewalks to walk on,” she added. “I understand you had that (freezing rain) … but what I’m saying is the problem of the rain was compounded many times over by that build-up of packed-down iced snow that’s inches deep on a lot of the streets.”
The City of Moose Jaw budgeted $927,807 for snow clearing in 2020 and had spent roughly $350,000 by Nov. 30, city hall said. The final figures for last year won’t be available until late January or early February. Meanwhile, $1.03 million has been budgeted for snow removal in 2021.
