By Jill Sperling

DECISION 2018: Snow Clearing

Oct 17, 2018 | 3:53 PM

KAMLOOPS — Kamloops residents will go to the polls on Saturday, Oct. 20, choosing who will represent them as mayor and council. 

Two candidates are vying for the position of mayor, incumbent Ken Christian and William Turnbull. 

Whoever is elected will have to address a number of issues, including snow-clearing, a topic of much discussion and debate among the citizens of Kamloops. 

In this third installment of our mayor’s series we take a closer look at winter road maintenance in Kamloops. 

It’s not winter in Kamloops without the snow. 

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“The one thing that I can say for sure is that it’s going to snow this winter, and I can also say that there’s going to be complaints about the quality of snow removal,” said incumbent mayoral candidate Ken Christian. 

A spike in snow clearing complaints last winter plus the rapid growth of the city had the civic operations department asking for an increase to its annual snow clearing budget from $1.6 million to $2 million. 

Christian says he would be willing to look at an increase to the budget if the unusually heavy snowfalls continue. 

“We need to take a careful look at that if I’m re-elected along with the new council and just see how we can balance the issues related to tax increases and that desire for bare and black roads,” Christian said. 

Christian believes part of the snow clearing issue comes down to high expectations. 

“I think a lot of the complaints are based on high expectations from people who have driven in the Lower Mainland where they don’t have to deal with this and so I think there’s a bit of a reality check that needs to happen,” he said. 

“But, there is also the reality that we have asked our staff to provide the same service levels with the same amount of equipment, the same amount of person power, while at the same time we’ve been increasing the number of lane kilometres that they have to plow and service.”

Christian says it’s essential that main arterial roads are kept open during the winter in order to operate transit services for those residents who choose not to drive on the most snowy days. 

He adds it’s also important that the city is employing best practices for snow clearing. 

“Using mag-sulfate instead of salt, looking at our traction materials and when we put it down, our network of temperature monitoring and that kind of thing.”

Although he’s willing to look into how to improve winter road maintenance, Christian says Kamloops resident have a responsibility to slow down and drive to conditions. 

We reached out to Christian’s challenger, William Turnbull, to discuss his viewpoint on a range of election issues. He declined to participate in this series.