Huntsville Director of Infrastructure and Protective Services, Tarmo Uukkivi, told Huntsville’s General Committee on September 27 that changes are in the works for this coming winter related to how the municipality conducts winter maintenance on area roads.
“We’ve had a number of concerns raised, particularly about winter operations and the quality and that the quality and quantity of control operations has been sliding a little bit over the past two to three years when we’re looking at kind of the trending within the complaint system or the service request system,” said Uukkivi, who also announced that Manager of Parks & Cemeteries, Colleen MacDonald, is now the Manager of Roads Operations for the Town.
New plowing routes will run Monday through Friday/24 hours per day, ensuring snow plowing and clearing operations happen on a more regular basis, greater inventory control and data collection related to sanding and salting, and better GPS technology for tracking plows (data that may also become available to the public) are among some of the changes planned.
Deputy Mayor Dan Armour asked about plans for weekend coverage. Uukkivi said a weekend crew would be on-call or on standby. “There will always be a dedicated crew, should there be a requirement for snow clearing on weekends we would bring in that crew for that period of time,” said Ukkivvi. “If it’s a storm similar to what we experienced over the Holiday season last year, it’s all hands on deck. All of this goes out and we figure out how to best to do it as quickly and safely as possible. If it’s a routine plowing operation, on weekends we have one full crew on standby that would then spend one or two days doing the entire route map.”
Armour asked how the plan was being received by the operators. “I will say that right now we are working with the union through a regular process to address some concerns that have been raised by operators related to the schedule in particular,” said Uukkivi, adding that how the routes get rolled out will heavily be reliant on the Manager of Roads Operations.
Armour said he’s glad to see there will be a crew working around the clock. “Hopefully we see a huge improvement in snow off the roads this winter,” he said.
Huntsville Mayor Nancy Alcock wanted to know how much feedback had been garnered from operators on the new plan. Huntsville CAO Denise Corry said it’s a difficult fine line “to dry to balance how much we engage and how much we don’t engage. So, our preface is obviously to engage our teams and find out what works and what they can support and how they think they can help assist moving the operations forward in a positive way. But the fine line is there does become a tipping point where we as your senior leadership team and management need to make some decisions that are in the best interest of the community and that doesn’t always get supported by our teams…”
Corry said when the roads maintenance operations were changed a few years ago “it was very much supported, that’s when we had the two shifts, we had two people on at night and I’m sure all of us can remember last winter, that didn’t work. So we have really put a lot of consideration into this about, you know, how can we balance what is good and supportive of our team versus what the community needs. So the decision was made on that basis that we do need to provide an improved level of service, certainly over last year… we just couldn’t keep up, so I do feel very confident with what’s being proposed by the Director and will be supported by the Manager.”
She said senior management will work with the operators to try to accommodate them as best as possible, “but our community needs three shifts right now. So we’ll do it for the year, we’ll be back at the end of the season to tell you how it went. I will tell you we do have some staff that are not happy with the change but we will work diligently with them to try to make this a very smooth transition,” said Corry.
Councillor Corey Clark said as Chaffey Ward councillor he received a lot of complaints last winter. He said while the Christmas storm last year was a concern, “I definitely received complaints well into the winter after Christmas,” he said, adding that 24-hour coverage is a good idea. He said if significant snowfall occurs on a Friday night, he hopes the roads will be cleared in the same way as they would be during the week.
You can find the staff report, HERE.
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Winter snow plowing is 7 DAYS A WEEK, 24 HOURS A DAY.
Everyone requires access to our local hospital,
as well as Police, Ambulance and Fire services to the residence. Never mind playing games!
KEEP THE ROADS PLOWED! 24/7!
You can find money for a fancy outhouse. You can find additional funding for snow plowing!
I agree with Murray!
And, please! take care of the side streets. There are so many that are on a hill and people can’t get up them.
And, because they are side streets with fewer houses, they are usually the last to be plowed.
A constant concern is the build up of snow at intersections in town. It is difficult to see any oncoming traffic and one has to slowly creep out into the street in able to see. It sort of calls for a silent prayer before one does so.