After acknowledging the city of Merritt could have done better after a major snowstorm days before Christmas – where 44 cm of snow fell in a 14 hour period followed by another 12 cm later in the week – snow removal will be at the council table today.
CAO Sean Smith says there are two possible outcomes, noting Merritt could either ramp up the in-house snow clearing program, or bring in contractors when city staff cannot keep up.
“In this situation where you have that much snow, being able to have plans for how you are going to address the more exceptions is what we really need to hone in on. I think we’re fairly well-prepared for what we typically experience, but these more exceptional situations, I think we need to make sure that our plans are nailed down.”
He admits that the second option is a more likely scenario for Merritt, but it will be up to council to decide.
“It doesn’t make sense to ramp up to be able to provide the highest possibly level of service during these more extreme snowfalls because you are going to be underutilizing equipment,” Smith added. “So for us I think a lot of it is building relationships up with contractors.”
At its highest point, the average snowfall depth in Merritt is 5cm, unlike other similarly sized communities like Trail with an average snow depth of 31cm and a budget of $550,000 and Revelstoke with an average depth of 59cm and a budget of $1.4-million.
“These communities all see much more snowfall, and unlike Merritt (and Kamloops) snow has a tendency to stick around and they have much larger snow clearing budgets,” said Smith, who added that that doesn’t mean there is something to learn from the more ‘winter communities’ in the province.
Both options will likely mean an increase to Merritt’s snow removal budget, which has already been increased each year from the $72,000 in 2017 to $106,589 last year.
“You don’t always need to approach snow clearing as you would in the same way as you would in a more winter community that lots of residents were comparing us to,” said Smith.
“You know why aren’t we moving the snow to the middle and removing it? You know, why aren’t we removing the windows. They’re good questions, and we understand that residents want certain levels of service.”
City staff will present options to council which will be considered in greater detail at the January 29th Committee of the Whole budget meeting.
