ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — The City of St. John’s snowclearing costs for the January blizzard have been well publicized — roughly $7 million.
Perhaps less known are the costs to residents who hired private contractors to help clean up the mess.
During the regular Monday council meeting, Coun. Wally Collins shone a light on one such figure.
He said about 150 seniors living on Gisborne Place, off Ruby Line, paid $12,000 to a private contractor to have their street plowed because they had waited four to five days for the city plows to come through, and they were getting nervous.
Collins said the private contractor showed up a couple of times to plow their driveways, but he couldn’t get on the street, so they hired him to clear it.
“When you’re … up in age, and you’re four or five days and don’t see a plow — especially up in the woods up there — you know, you tend to get a bit nervous,” he said.
Collins made a motion to give the residents $3,000 toward the bill, but only Coun. Debbie Hanlon agreed — the rest of council voted against the motion. Coun. Dave Lane was absent for the vote.
Lynnann Winsor, deputy city manager of public works, said when snowclearing staff got to Gisborne Place it was mostly plowed. She said during that same time there were still many streets without one cut through with a plow.
“It did take us many days — I believe a week — to get one cut on every street in the city. So, I guess it isn’t that we forgot Gisborne Place, we just hadn’t reached there yet,” she said.
Winsor said the city was still in a state of emergency at that time.
“There was still a lot of other streets in the same predicament that they were in, but we just asked for people’s patience, just to hang on until we did get there.”
Coun. Jamie Korab said he understood where the residents and Collins were coming from with the request, but the state of emergency lasted eight days.
“I get there could be doctor’s appointments, or emergencies, but we weren’t allowed to leave our house for eight days. So, residents take it upon theirself to clear the street — I can’t support it at this time. I just think it opens us up to another storm, plows not by, and people getting contractors to do work and then try to flip us part of the bill.”
Juanita Mercer covers municipal politics in St. John's.
