{"id":18335,"date":"2017-09-13T16:23:29","date_gmt":"2017-09-13T20:23:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=18335"},"modified":"2017-09-13T16:23:29","modified_gmt":"2017-09-13T20:23:29","slug":"improved-snow-clearing-services-targeted-for-the-season-ahead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/improved-snow-clearing-services-targeted-for-the-season-ahead\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cImproved\u201d snow clearing services targeted for the season ahead"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

In the dying days of summer, few people want to think ahead to when the snow flies \u2013 but if you\u2019re worried that driving around on messy roads will be as big a challenge this winter than it was on the last, take a moment to read on.
\nAurora is set to ramp up resources on snow removal following an analysis of the shortfalls \u2013 and the numerous complaints associated with the service shortfalls \u2013 that ramped up over the previous season.
\n\u201cIt has been determined that there were two separate occasions during the mid and late winter period where there were some operational issues and circumstances that influenced the operational response to these significant storm events,\u201d said Jim Tree, Aurora\u2019s Acting Manager of Operations, in his report before Council members last week. \u201cAs a result, Council is aware that there was significant negative feedback from our residents concerned with the Town\u2019s performance in responding to and effectively managing this event and the associated forces in this regard.\u201d
\nMuch of this poor performance is chalked up to behind-the-scenes managerial changes and \u201crelated events\u201d that caused a hit on operations. Compounding the problem, three plows and sanders were out of commission at various points in the winter, as well as staffing shortfalls.
\n\u201cIt has been determined that despite the fact our winter maintenance staff resources are marginally lower than our neighbouring municipalities that, with some changes on how we deploy these staff, our current staff complement are generally capable of meeting the needs. It has been determined through our review of the operation and discussions with all operations staff that [crew leaders not being assigned to operate plows] is not conducive to an efficient operation and, as such, this practice has been discontinued. This will result in the addition of four staff back into the winter maintenance operation and an immediate gain in available operators.\u201d
\nChanges include assigning a 24\/7 road patrol to monitor road conditions and call out staff as required, whereas the current process has less experienced staff on the afternoon shift and no staff assigned to patrol Friday night through Sunday. Three additional parks department operators will be placed on standby for winter responses, and a further standby rotation.
\nThese changes were welcomed by Council members last week, who said they were pleased existing staff resources would be used to better address winter issues.
\n\u201cI was really pleased to see the use of Parks staff and rolling them into some of those maintenance functions, which I think will help us get out sooner and perhaps a longer day in those cases when they are needed,\u201d said Mayor Geoff Dawe.
\nCouncillor Michael Thompson said he too was pleased with the report \u201coverall\u201d but said he was \u201cconcerned\u201d the report focused so much on roads while Councillors fielded a number of residents\u2019 complaints over sidewalks.
\n\u201cI know it is being contracted out, but what can we do to ensure that the standards we have in place for the sidewalks are being met?\u201d he asked. \u201cThere were a number of complaints we received that the work was not meeting those standards in certain areas of Town when it came to clearing out the sidewalks. For myself, there were huge swaths of sidewalk where you could question whether they had actually been cleaned or not last year.\u201d
\nResponding to the question, Al Downey, Aurora\u2019s Director of Parks and Recreation, said staff were \u201cnot at all pleased\u201d with the performance of the sidewalk contractor last year and have worked \u201cvery hard\u201d in driving this message home to them.
\nThe contractor, he said, is fully aware that Aurora was \u201cnot happy with their performance\u201d and they must be better.
\n\u201cWith regards to sidewalk areas not being cleared, one of our concerns that this report has addressed is we don\u2019t have enough eyes out there to determine what has or what hasn\u2019t been done,\u201d said Mr. Downey. \u201cI thought Mr. Tree had done an excellent job in identifying that issue and addressing that issue so that we can now go out and not necessarily trust the computer programs that we have or the schedules that we have got, we actually need people out there to actually see that those areas have been cleared and they have been cleared satisfactorily.\u201d
\nFor Councillor Tom Mrakas, the proposed changes outlined in the report speaks to the efficiencies Council had been asking for when it comes to winter maintenance, particularly relying more on the eyes of the front-line workers who are actually out on the roads.
\n\u201cEven though we\u2019re not changing the numbers on the service levels I believe that this will allow us to provide a better service for our residents at the same price and I think that is what we always strive to do,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is going to get us to that point. I am looking forward to the season and seeing how we deal with the winter. I think we will do a better job and the residents will be [happier] with the service the Town provides.\u201d
\nIn the end, however, it is all about performance.
\nCouncillor Harold Kim said it was \u201cdisconcerting\u201d to read that there were four staff in Operations \u201cwho believe they are all crew leaders\u201d in one place.
\n\u201cYou look at each other and you\u2019re all guiding traffic and it is kind of disappointing,\u201d said Councillor Kim. \u201cI hope there is some accountability in the Centre with those staff members. It is always nice to have metrics in what operational efficiencies we have achieved.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir In the dying days of summer, few people want to think ahead to when the snow flies \u2013 but if you\u2019re worried that driving around on messy roads will be as big a challenge this winter than it was on the last, take a moment to read on. Aurora is set to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_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}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18335","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\/p3D2k4-4LJ","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-15 13:13:04","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\/18335","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=18335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18335\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}