ATHABASCA – An Athabasca resident’s presentation about Athabasca County’s new plow policy making life difficult for seniors prompted a discussion at the Feb. 9 council meeting about doing an expanded public consultation.
David Maguire, who has lived in the county for 49 years, said his main reason for attending the Feb. 8 meeting was to bring council’s attention to the burden they were placing on ratepayers with Policy 3200 – Residential Driveway Snowplowing.
County councillors had voted 5-4 at their Sept. 28 meeting in favour of a revamped snowplowing policy, which now requires seniors to purchase flags at the county for $25 each in order to have their driveways plowed. (Non-seniors must pay $100.)
Each flag is good for one driveway plowing and must be staked out next to their property’s driveway or fence line so that the grader operator can see them.
Maguire said the $25 fee represents a considerable increase and contributes to the already high cost of living for seniors living on a fixed income.
“This is too much of an increase for an essential service,” he said. “Those most in need of the service are seniors. They might need to go the hospital or have an ambulance pick them up. Perhaps they need to go get medications.”
Maguire suggested that by his calculations, the county only stood to raise about $6,000 in general revenue via the new fee.
“It’s my opinion, and that of other seniors, that this money could be raised from other sources and not be punitive to the seniors that built this county to what it is today,” he said.
Maguire also suggested that requiring seniors to trudge through several hundred feet of snow to plant a flag could result in injury or a health-related incident like a heart attack, which in turn could result in legal action against the municipality.
He instead suggested that when seniors complete a waiver form allowing grader operators to enter their property, a PIN number is generated. Seniors could then get their driveways cleared by providing the PIN and their address to the county.
“A bill would be sent out at the end of the month just like you do for the water station customers,” he said.
On that note, Maguire indicated the increased water rates were also an issue, noting that his rate at the Colinton water station saw a 60 per cent increase in September and 20 per cent in January.
“In these difficult times, a small increase or no increase at all would be better than such a large increase at once,” he said, adding that the water rates should have stayed at $8 a cubic metre or at least adjusted in line with the cost of living index.
Council thanked Maguire for his presentation and later passed a motion accepting it for information and directing administration to respond to Maguire in writing, informing him that the county was currently undertaking a review of snowplow fees.
Once that was done, Division 5 Coun. Tracy Holland also put forward a motion directing administration to hold an open engagement on snowplow and water rates prior to those fees being finalized next year.
Holland said she wanted to do more public engagement because the snowplow policy (and water rates) had been “one of the hottest topics” council had ever dealt with in terms of feedback.
She said council should be more representative of what their ratepayers want instead of just “telling them what they want."
Eventually, however, Holland withdrew her motion after it became clear that multiple councillors preferred engaging with the public on the full scope of the county budget, not just one or two parts of it.
Reeve Brian Hall spoke in favour of waiting until the county completes its review of snowplow rates to do more public engagement.
He added that, on the subject of water rates and snowplowing, they would only be hearing from the “very motivated people” affected by these issues and not a large cross-section of the public.
