Lac La Biche County will now help seniors who live in rural subdivisions by grading/plowing snow from their driveway, provided they come into the county each year to sign up for the service and purchase a $25 flag for every 300 metres worth of driveway.
During their March 6 meeting, county councillors voted 6-1 to approve a revised Policy and Procedure P1-30-010, which spells out the conditions for seniors over the age of 65 and individuals with disabilities to request the county’s help in plowing/grading their driveway/private roadway.
Gary Mayhew, director of transportation services, said the county clears the driveways of seniors in rural areas but not necessarily rural subdivisions, so the new policy and procedure was being brought forward to accommodate those folks.
As noted, Mayhew said seniors will have to come into the office once a year to sign a document requesting the service and attesting they live at the affected property.
It will only be provided to seniors who live at the address where they need the service, whether they own the property or are just renting that out. Mayhew noted that requirement is to avoid providing service to those seniors who are renting out a rural property but who live elsewhere.
Seniors will also have to purchase a flag for $25 and place the flag next to their driveway/private roadway when they need it plowed or graded. The operator will later pick up the flag and assign an orange tab to the property, which will be attached to the sign corresponding to that address.
Mayhew said operators will pick up the flags because seniors were leaving them out all the time and they were getting beaten up.
Purchasing a flag and placing it grants snowplowing/grading service for up to 300 metres. If a driveway/private roadway is longer than 300 metres, then multiple flags will have to be purchased.
"So if your driveway is 900 metres, then you will have to purchase three flags,” Mayhew said.
Coun. Sterling Johnson, who voted against approving the policy/procedure, said having all these different conditions might end up frustrating seniors, and asked if there was any way of simplifying the procedure.
"I just see this as kind of all over the place,” he said.
In response, Mayhew stressed that seniors will only have to come into the office once a year and purchase flags.
Meanwhile, Coun. Lorin Tkachuk expressed concern with the idea that grader operators could be out all day clearing long driveways and leaving major roadways untouched.
"I obviously want to take care of the seniors, but I want to make sure that we protect the roadways that need to be cleared as a priority,” Tkachuk said.
Mayhew noted the procedure does state that snowplowing/grading of private driveways will only take place after snowplowing/grading for county roads, fire halls and community halls has been completed.
Council did make one change to the revised policy: changing the minimum requirement for driveways to be plowed/graded from 100 metres to 30 metres.
Mayhew himself noted that the 100-metre requirement was just an "artificial number” and hinted council may wish to reduce it to 30 metres.
"We just didn’t want to get into the expectation that this is just a normal driveway,” he said.
