By James Peters

City of Kamloops manager to make case for more snow-clearing staff

May 29, 2018 | 4:19 PM

KAMLOOPS — The man in charge of snow-clearing for the City of Kamloops says it’s about time council considers hiring more staff to accommodate a growing city.

Streets and Environmental Services Manager Glen Farrow recently returned from the North American Snow Conference in Indianapolis.

Farrow says he learned Kamloops doesn’t take second place to any city when it comes to the latest techniques and technology.

“15 to 20 years ago, we were on the cutting edge with a lot of these problems, with calcium chloride and the amount of liquid we were using back then,” said Farrow. “Out east, they’re still addicted to salt, really. They’re just moving away from salt into these liquids that we’ve been using for years.”

Even so, the cacophony over snow-clearing during last winter’s extraordinary snow events grew to a dull roar.

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Farrow says social media amplified that uproar.

“If I hear and see the complaints that I get directly from talking to someone over the phone, or a direct email to myself, I find that’s quite reasonable once we explain what our service levels are,” said Farrow. “So much of this is about education and creating an increased awareness of what we do.”

In a workshop next month, Farrow plans to lay out the Kamloops snow-clearing regime, and make the case that one additional staff person per shift is necessary.

“Showing a lot of the history, rolling up our sleeves. What does the budget look like the last 10 years? What do our FTE counts look like the last 10 years? Are we still meeting our service levels? When we don’t, where are those challenges? What type of equipment are we looking at now?” said Farrow.

“Are we at that point now where we do need additional staff, additional equipment? I think we are. I think we are at that point with the amount of growth and development we’ve seen in this community. You look at Batchelor Heights, Juniper, Aberdeen. These are all growing areas in the hills.”

With 2018 being an election year, councillors could choose to champion increased snow-clearing staff as a platform plank, or give it the thumbs-down in the name of saving tax dollars.

Whatever the case, working against Mother Nature is always a fickle game. 

“There is no silver bullet. It’s so unpredictable,” said Farrow. “A lot of the weather we see, if we knew exactly how long the snow is going to come down for, exactly what the humidity would be, the temperature of the road – if we knew all of those things and could predict for the next week or month forward, it would be much, much easier.”