{"id":32784,"date":"2023-03-16T14:52:12","date_gmt":"2023-03-16T18:52:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=32784"},"modified":"2023-03-16T14:52:13","modified_gmt":"2023-03-16T18:52:13","slug":"snow-contract-to-be-reviewed-following-sidewalk-clearing-complaints","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/snow-contract-to-be-reviewed-following-sidewalk-clearing-complaints\/","title":{"rendered":"Snow contract to be reviewed following sidewalk clearing complaints"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Town Hall is set to review existing contracts with snow plowing services after the slow removal of sidewalk snow following a wintery blast between March 3 and 4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Residents\u2019 concerns \u2013 and those of local lawmakers \u2013 were raised at last week\u2019s General Committee meeting, where Ward 1 Councillor Ron Weese said that although Council members get regular updates from staff, a review of \u201cservice standards\u201d may be warranted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are disappointed in the performance of the contractor ourselves,\u201d said Al Downey, Aurora\u2019s Director of Operations, at the March 7 meeting. \u201cThere is a review process ongoing on all contracts, not only this contract but every contractor, and we put performance reviews as part of that process and actions can be taken depending on the severity of those issues. There are also penalties within the contract that we have been imposing and have imposed not only this storm but previous storms, so we continue to monitor the contractor\u2019s performance and assess appropriate penalties for not meeting certain obligations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As of last week\u2019s meeting, sidewalks still had not been completely cleared, meaning that the significant weather event declared on March 3 stretched into last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe will be working with our contractor and through our procurement division with regards to what we feel are appropriate steps forward in ensuring that we don\u2019t have a repeat performance,\u201d said Downey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Councillor Weese raised concerns about sidewalk clearing, he said primary and secondary roads were \u201cdone very well and very quickly and it just seems like the residual problems that occurred in various spots throughout the communities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m glad to hear that you\u2019re going through that review and I will be happy to hear what the results are, and the residents would be happy as well,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ward 2 Councillor Rachel Gilliland said that while there were issues, staff responded quickly to Council members when they received complaints from residents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A suggestion she put forward was giving priority to clearing sidewalks in school zones \u2013 those that \u201creally are connected or close to proximity to schools.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf we are in this situation again with the sidewalks that by the schools and the streets that would feed into it directly, that should be first priority,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Downey said that was indeed something that could be looked at in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Compounding the issue, the Director added, is a shortage of equipment on the part of the contractor. Aurora has seven sidewalk routes for the contractor, he said, with seven machines ready to tackle the snow, but when the storm in question hit six of the seven apparatus were \u201cdown.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey only have one machine that is part of the contract, and it has a GPS on it, so one of our complications is we have no idea where they are or where they have been,\u201d said Downey. \u201cWe are sending staff out on an ongoing basis through the community just to find out where our issues are. We\u2019re happy to send staff out and have a look at some of those school routes, but I can\u2019t sit here right now and tell you they are done or they are not done because I haven\u2019t got sufficient information through our GPS in order to do that because they haven\u2019t got those machines up and running in Aurora right now. They have alternative devices removing snow.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Town Hall is set to review existing contracts with snow plowing services after the slow removal of sidewalk snow following a wintery blast between March 3 and 4. Residents\u2019 concerns \u2013 and those of local lawmakers \u2013 were raised at last week\u2019s General Committee meeting, where Ward 1 Councillor Ron Weese said that although Council […]<\/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-32784","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\/p3D2k4-8wM","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-05 18:05:12","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\/32784","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=32784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32784\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}