{"id":16492,"date":"2017-02-09T13:57:36","date_gmt":"2017-02-09T18:57:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=16492"},"modified":"2017-02-09T13:57:36","modified_gmt":"2017-02-09T18:57:36","slug":"wait-for-snow-plows-was-an-operational-decision-says-cao","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wait-for-snow-plows-was-an-operational-decision-says-cao\/","title":{"rendered":"Wait for snow plows was an \u201coperational decision,\u201d says CAO"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you were left wondering where the snow plows were as you were trying to get down your street in December, it was an \u201coperational decision\u201d at Town Hall, according to CAO Doug Nadorozny.
\nAs current Aurora policies stand, 8 centimetres of snow have to be on the ground before snow plows are deployed. The last significant snow event, however, clocked about seven centimetres of snow.
\n\u201cWe made a decision to wait until the next day to plow, and that snow sat all day Saturday on the ground,\u201d Mr. Nadorozny told Council last week. \u201cIt was removed on Sunday.\u201d
\nBut, as Aurora had called a \u201csnow event\u201d in relation to its on-street winter parking policy, where all drivers need to remove their cars from area streets when Town Hall sets the alarm, an \u201cexpectation\u201d had been set that streets would be plowed.
\n\u201cThe expectation had been set through the calling of a snow event that the roads would be good by Saturday afternoon and we weren\u2019t even trying to do that at that point,\u201d he said. \u201cWe made an operational decision not to do that. It is trying to find that sweet spot in something as unpredictable as weather.\u201d
\nResponding to a motion calling for the 8 centimetre threshold to be dropped down to 5, a level last maintained in 2013 and 2014, Mr. Nadorozny said a thorough analysis would need to be made in terms of risks. Aurora could find itself in a place where, in a severe snow event, it would simply not be able to keep up.
\n\u201cOur drivers are only allowed to log so many hours before we have to give them a rest period,\u201d he explained. \u201cThere are also so many hours they are allowed to work in any given week. In the old days, 15 years ago, snow plow operators would operate for 20 hours, sleep for four, and be back on the road and go. In today\u2019s law that is just not acceptable and we would be in big trouble with the Ministry of Labour and Ministry of Transportation if we tried to do that.\u201d
\nWhen levels hit 7 centimetres in December, there was a further storm of 22 centimetres in the forecast. With the staff and equipment Aurora had on hand, there was worry within the department about running out of staff hours, he said. It was then the \u201coperational decision\u201d was made to wait for more snow.
\n\u201cThat is what caused the frustration,\u201d he concluded. \u201cWe debriefed over the situation, we spent a fair amount of time on it, and one of the considerations we did give was to \u2013 even if it wasn\u2019t a full change in the service level \u2013 we contemplated whether there was a need to have some additional staff to head off that kind of circumstance again and, in the end, it really didn\u2019t make any sense without a more thorough review. The thought was the likelihood of getting the exact same situation again with 7 centimetres on the ground and 22 coming, figuring out the hours at the end of the week, we\u2019re willing to take the chance we don\u2019t get the exact same scenario again and, if we do, we adjust it a little bit differently.
\n\u201cIt is not to put off the discussion around service levels, but just to say that if the same thing happened I think we would handle it a little bit differently. The concern is [with five or six centimetres] we\u2019re in great shape. We will get out and get all the plowing done and everything will be fine. The real problem will emerge in the first five when there is 21 coming. That is when we have to figure out how to deal with the hours we need to maintain that service level throughout the snow event. If we say we have a five centimetre standard, we have to put in place the resources to make sure we can achieve a five centimetre standard and that is the part that needs more work.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you were left wondering where the snow plows were as you were trying to get down your street in December, it was an \u201coperational decision\u201d at Town Hall, according to CAO Doug Nadorozny.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-4i0","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-14 13:32:25","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16492\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}