Archive for January, 2010
Committee RoundUp – Executive Committee
Jan 26th
The Executive Committee (which is comprised of all of City Council) meet yesterday to discuss a few items of interest.
Item 1) Interim Report on Residential Carehomes
For those that have followed City Council for the past couple of years you’ll know that Residential Carehomes, the type of residents dwelling in them, and the number of Carehomes in each neighbourhood has been a contentious issue. Most notably is the stance taken by Councillors Heidt and Neault (Ward 3 and Ward 4) that an uneven number of Carehomes are located in their West-end neighbourhoods – specifically at-risk youth Carehomes.
To help shed some light and factual information on the debate, City Administration has undertaken a review of all Residential Carehomes within the City, which includes a proper accounting of where they are located and interviews with residents who surround the homes.
A report was submitted to Executive Committee yesterday outlining the process summarized above and the timeline for completion. Additionally, information was provided detailing the number of Type I (< 5 residents) and Type II (> 5 residents) and the total number of spaces provided by neighbourhood (see Table 1). Absent from the neighbourhood breakdown was the type of Carehome (senior, youth, assisted living, etc…). More >
Snowy Saskatoon and Snow Removal
Jan 25th
This morning bus service was curtailed again due to the poor conditions of the roads. Infact, the only buses on the street were the remaining older models that have a much higher ground clearance than the newer (and majority of) the Saskatoon Transit fleet. However, even these older buses were getting stuck.
It’s an interesting conundrum we face as a winter city – we have made a deliberate move (well bus manufacturers in general have, you could say were just along for the ride) towards lower riding, accessible buses, yet when transit is most needed by citizens (bad weather) those very buses are unable to be used due to the weather. That isn’t an argument against our transit service but something that was churning through my head on the way to the University this morning.
I spent a bit of time yesterday talking with friends who have spent many winters in other City’s across Canada, almost to a person they were bemoaning how ill-prepared and slow the response has been to the approximately 20-25cm of snow Saskatoon has received since Saturday night. A good example was this comment made regarding Ottawa’s response to snow storms:
two 40cm storms in a week my last More >
Counter Point – SP Editorial on 4 year Election terms
Jan 22nd
The Star Phoenix has a decent editorial on the question of moving towards 4 year terms from the current 3 years in Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities. While I think there are many strong arguments both for and against such a move, it is this portion of their comments that I want to examine a bit closer (bold my emphasis):
[...]
The move to four-year terms means that, over a 12-year period, there’ll be three elections instead of four, a saving of 25 per cent to property taxpayers in the cost of conducting the votes. Mayor Pat Fiacco of Regina notes the saving would be a minimum of $500,000. And that’s not counting the money and energy expended by civic candidates every three years, which can be onerous in large city wards.
[...]
On the first point, the cost to the city to run an election. This is the same argument that Mayor Atchison made in Saskatoon Council Chambers on Monday evening and I’m just not buying the justification. It’s akin to arguing that we shouldn’t have held all of those Federal elections and by-elections over the past 6 years because it would save taxpayers money. Elections are the key to our democratic system and there are costs More >
Committee RoundUp – Administration and Finance
Jan 21st
The Administration & Finance (A&F) will be meeting next week to discuss a wide-range of topics that will set the agenda for the next Council Meeting on February 8, 2010.
Here are some of the highlights:
A&F (Jan 25, 2010):
1) Landfill Fees:
Administration is proposing that the City increase landfill entrance and tipping fees over the next 3 years. The following tables outline the proposed fee increase structure (Table 1) and compare Saskatoon to our immediate neighbours (Table 2)
Table 1
Table 2
2) Organic Composting Facility
Administration provides an update (for information only) on the on-going process pertaining to the construction of a composting facility. During the 2010 Capital Budget deliberations $7.5 million was set aside to construct this facility. In late 2009 City Admin put out a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) to get an idea of what companies might be interested in building the facility. A tendering of a Request for Proposals (RFP) to build the facility is expected in Spring of this year, with construction commencing at the end of the year, pending approval by City Council.
Organic waste accounts for approximately 40% of residential garbage. As outlined in the Waste and Recycling Plan adopted unanimously by City Council in November 2007, curbside organic composting More >
Saskatoon, collisions, and reasons they are down
Jan 29th
Posted by Sean Shaw in Commentary
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Today in the Star Phoenix a front page article entitled “Collision rate down in January” details the decrease in traffic collisions between January 2009 and the current month. In 2009 there were 533 reported incidents to the 359 this month (so far). There were 311 in 2006.
The police go on to attribute this substantial decrease to both the ban on cellphone use and the recent addition of 8 traffic police.
While I am sure that these factors did have a mitigating effect on traffic collisions, I think it is overly simplistic and extremely optimistic to suggest they are the main cause for the decrease in traffic collisions.
A far more likely explanation would be the improved road conditions between the majority of last January and this January.
If you remember back to last December (2008) and January (2009), we were in the grips of a long deep-freeze coupled with a good amount of snow. By early January most side streets were rutted and the compacted snow polished to an icy finish by the weeks of -30C weather. Even some of the major streets were in pretty bad shape. Given the extremely low temperatures the City was unable to run its graders and was reduced More >