The matter of the mayor’s car allowance was an issue at a recent Moose Jaw City Council budget meeting.
The mayor receives $100 a month car allowance. The city manager gets $500 a month.
Mayor Fraser Tolmie asked for $500 a month explaining to his council how much he uses his vehicle on city business and for travel to encourage economic development.
Apparently, his argument wasn’t convincing. His motion was defeated with one councillor claiming $500 was just too much.
By making the motion to raise his own car allowance, the mayor made the request seem self-serving and easy to block. Had the mayor been able to convince another member of council to make the motion, the self-serving perceptions wouldn’t have existed.
Why council denied the mayor’s request is a mystery. Several trips to Regina and back would use his $100 monthly allowance. But then, Moose Jaw council is historically notorious for silly nitpicking decisions.
Another $4,800 a year won’t break the city.
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When this council was elected a little over two years ago, new councillors promised to overhaul the forever controversial snow clearance policy.
In the dying months of 2018, a new policy was adopted. So, you ask: what has changed?
To be fair, the new policy hasn’t been enacted to my knowledge; the reason being that snowfall amounts haven’t been large enough to trigger the new actions.
This winter has seen the city receive from half an inch to two inches of snow at once, never the amount needed.
The consequence: driving on many Moose Jaw streets resembles skating on an ice rink. Perhaps we should promote a provincial or interprovincial driving on ice road-eo.
Moose Jaw driver experience would give our residents an advantage in this ice road-eo.
Winter travellers to other cities notice bare pavement even though the snow pack is nearly as high as the parking meters in Winnipeg, Minot and Bismarck, N.D.
How can they keep the pavement bare with more snow than Moose Jaw? Maybe we need to send the mayor on a fact-finding mission — with expenses paid.
The central snow clearance issue in Moose Jaw has always been policies not addressing the numerous small amounts of snowfall. The policy rightly assumes drivers will have no difficulty driving in these small amounts.
Driving becomes difficult and dangerous when an accumulation of small snowfalls builds up and becomes icy.
The driving experience is then of the skating rink variety. City crews usually take a blade to the ruts and accumulation of snowfall.
What happened this winter has occurred in some others. The blading of many streets left them with smoother, icier surface. The city may as well have used discarded rusty razor blades to clear the streets.
This type of snow clearance job might cause the road grader blades to last longer but does little for driver apprehension.
Ron Walter can be reached at ronjoy@sasktel.net
The views expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Moose Jaw Today, the Moose Jaw Express, its management, or its subsidiaries.
