Letter carrier blasts City of Kamloops over snow clearing

Jan 25, 2018 | 10:33 AM

KAMLOOPS — Longtime letter carrier and city council candidate Bill Sarai is taking the City of Kamloops to task for failing to clear residential streets quickly enough.

He says the city is not fulfilling its mandate of sanding or plowing residential streets within 36 hours of the cessation of a snow storm.

“It’s not that I’m not pleased with the snow clearing abilities. City staff in my opinion, they’re awesome people, they take pride in their work,” he tells CFJC Today. “What I’m not pleased with is when we’re told — and I’ve been out there five days a week every winter for a long time — we see that the streets are not getting done in that 36 hour window.”

Sarai says he’s spoken to 100 letter carriers that deliver mail to every city block in Kamloops and says “there are streets that have not been touched as of today.”

“That’s when we get upset. When the residents of those streets are housebound for that many days. If they don’t drive, they need to get to the bus stop, the snow thaws out and then it freezes you get that frozen slush. Then the city comes by and plows the road and adds on another problem of your windrows in front of driveways. Those are difficult to shovel, even for me.”

To that end he was very disappointed Kamloops council voted down a motion brought forward by Councillor Donovan Cavers this week to take a closer look at the city’s snow clearing practices in light of hundreds of complaints this year.

“We as taxpayers and as workers on the street have a problem with that. We need a review to see where the gaps are, why are these streets getting missed, why is it getting worse every year? You’d think city council would want to know why there are more and more complaints every year.”

Sarai says problem areas cover the whole city, but says bad areas include Parkcrest Avenue in Brocklehurst, Freshfield Road, West Battle Street, Van Horne Drive and many more.

He also takes exception to Councillor Tina Lange’s comments at a council meeting this week that the complaints come from the usual suspects every year.

“Tina Lange says the goundhogs come out every year, same complaints, same people. It’s not the same people and it’s not the same complaints. It’s disrespectful to our citizens that you would imply it’s the same people every year.”