Some Kimberley residents are concerned about changes that the City is making to both roadways and sidewalks in the community.
The concerns revolve around safety, budget and a lack of information about the projects. Specifically, there was a letter sent to the City on August 14 with regards to Rossland Street, between 5th and 7th Avenues.
The letter states that City crews were doing sidewalk work along Rossland, but the resident later learned that the sidewalks are not being replaced, but that gravel is being put down instead.
At a regular City Council Meeting on August, 29, Council discussed the issue at length.
Councillor Bev Middlebrook started off by saying, “I understand that sidewalks are really important. They are almost a luxury nowadays, and I understand that when it’s a safety issue that there should be sidewalks on a busy street. However, when I read that [letter] I think [of] Marysville. It’s part of Kimberley and there are no sidewalks anywhere. In fact, when you think about it, there’s no sidewalk even to get to Marysville.”
Mayor Don McCormick says that roughly 70 per cent of Kimberley does not have sidewalks.
“It’s funny how times change and sidewalks become almost a luxury. However, on busy streets, yes I think it’s important,” said Middlebrook.
Sandra Roberts replied, “I live up the hill here; I don’t have sidewalks and I am actually not very excited about paying for the sidewalks. I feel as though if we don’t already have a policy for this that we should consider something along those lines. I think we really need to develop a policy that clarifies that position.”
Roberts explained that in the late 70’s the community took a vote as to wether they would prefer a curb, or sidewalks, and the vote determined that a curb was preferred in that specific area of town.
Councillor Albert Hoglund said, “these people are not only worried about the sidewalks, but they are also worried about the paving [they] actually paid for their sidewalks. They did the same thing you guys did [in the 70’s]; through the neighbourhood improvement program. So they paid for their sidewalks through taxes. Now all they are saying to the City is, ‘we had all this, you’re going to rip it up, we would like it replaced’.
“When we built the new subdivisions and the developers come in, one thing we require of them is curb to curb paving. We don’t tell them to put a strip down the middle. Look at the developments that have happened. Can you imagine Forest Crown if they did that, or the other new developments? These people had something for all those years, they paid for it, and they would like to have it back. I agree with them.
“I live on Townsite on 6th Avenue, we don’t have sidewalks, [and] we never did. We’re in the process of ripping the sidewalks up in Townsite because they are in horrible shape. The only part, probably, that would be used is going down 7th Avenue when the kids are going to school. I think when winter time comes it’s going to be a nightmare out there because 7th Avenue’s sidewalks are cleared and kids can walk on the sidewalks. Are we going to tell the people now, they don’t have sidewalks, and if we put gravel down they have to keep that gravel walkway clear? I don’t think so.
“What I would like to see this brought up at the Committee of the Whole Meeting. This is a very important issue to these people and to the City,” said Hoglund.
City Chief Administrative Officer Scott Sommerville explained that residents paid for curb to curb paving, not sidewalks, back in 1980 through the neighbourhood improvement program.
“I guess the piece that I wonder about is, is there anything in writing that says ‘after 30 years, after you pay that, it’s over?” asked Councillor Darryl Oakley.
Sommerville replied saying that there is a clause, in writing, explaining that there is an expected lifespan of 20 years.
“When it comes to these issues, we’re hugely strapped now for budget. To try to cover some of this paving costs a fortune. I think there are huge concerns about safety. The neighbourhood up there, some people are looking after their grand children. They want them to ride a bike down the sidewalks and all that kind of stuff, so it’s a really difficult situation,” said Oakley. “When I see things like that, how tight everything is; that is why I support the development of business, specifically light industrial. So that we can have more taxes coming into our community and we can be able to afford to replace things, at least the status quo.”
Middlebrook said, “You know we have two separate issues here, there are two different conversations happening. One is the sidewalks and one is the road paving, even though they are side by side they are two separate things. There are other communities that want their kids to ride their bikes down the sidewalks as well, so it has to be fair to the entire community.”
“I wouldn’t mind having a discussion about this at the Committee of the Whole Meeting,” said Councillor Kent Goodwin. “I think that could be to a policy, or some kind of written criteria, that explains things to people so it’s a little more transparent. It seemed to me that the decisions about wether or not to go curb to curb with paving or to put sidewalks in depends on the street, depends on the traffic, depends on the grade etc. I suspect our operations department already has those criteria in mind but I haven’t seen them [the criteria] and maybe the public hasn’t seen them. So getting all of that [information] together and putting in a policy would probably be useful.”
McCormick said, “the purpose of that meeting on Wednesday night was not to provide solutions or answers, it was to listen and that’s exactly what we did. The purpose was always to take that and come back and have a full discussion with all of Council at a Committee of the Whole. So that, indeed, will be coming up. Hopefully the other part of that will be a policy.
“The reality is that with respect to the project on the 100 block, replacing those sidewalks and doing the full curb to curb is going to be an additional $200,000 on top of the initial budget. So money does come into play here and it comes into play with respect to the policies. Going forward, wether we like some of them or not, they need to be inside an envelope of affordability. If we started getting into these types of replacements through the entire City, our taxes would go through the roof. As elected officials the easiest thing for us to do is to raise the taxes to pay for that. $200,000 is approximately a two per cent increase for all of the City, so it’s pretty substantial. That needs to be part of the consideration as well. As a council we task staff with ways to make the money go further, to be more efficient with the way they are doing things and also to find new money so that we can make things happen without raising taxes. That’s a pretty heavy balancing act that we ask staff to do.”
“The other things is that over time things change, too,” said McCormick. “Even with respect to new developments in town. The developers are coming back and saying why do we need 11 metre wide paved roads? And it’s a good question. I think what’s going to end up happening as we go through and try to deal with some of this; the roads are going to get more narrow. And oh, by the way, narrow roads slow traffic down. One of the big issues we have up on Norton and the 200 block is excessive speeds. There’s an entire dynamic going on here, most of which as elected officials, we don’t have a lot of experience with; we rely on staff to come back and have this conversation at the Committee of the Whole Meeting.”
Councillor Goodwin added, “Houston [Texas] is demonstrating what having too much [of this] material does to water runoff and, in fact, letting the water percolate into the ground through gravel surfaces is actually one of the better options as far as drainage goes. Again that’s a case by case issue and you couldn’t do it on a hill or it would all run away.”
“I agree, Mr. Mayor, with your rationale when it comes to how we’re going to get the best bang for our buck for taxpayers,” Oakley said. “I must say, with all do respect to all of council, a lot of what’s going on right now when it comes to lack of funds for certain pieces of infrastructure is no particular person’s fault. It’s a bit of history. We had a chance to maneuver money that was slated for Marysville Arena. Another example is all the money that we continue to put into the Conference Centre. That money is infrastructure. We have a beautiful aquatic centre and it costs a lot of money to run that. It’s really difficult to come up with the money to put into issues like this. We took a vote and we have a new garbage truck coming; we have to buy garbage cans. So there’s a bunch of money there. What happens is when these things go to vote, it’s a democratic process. Marysville Arena for example, we voted to re-build that arena. So be it, that is the process. So really, when something like this happens, the process we are involved with isn’t perfect but we are doing our best. That’s what happens and now we are spread thin.”
Middlebrook also explained that Council listens to the public, takes the majority of their concerns and best interests into consideration when Council votes.
“They guide us making those decisions, plus the information from the [City] staff,” she said.
Sommerville ended the discussion by saying, “it was clear back in November when we passed the Capitol Plan, there was a sheet for this, with regards to roadwork. I guess the Capitol Plan wasn’t as popular in various neighbourhoods as it maybe could have been. So we [the City] need to do a better job of translating, to the public, what the plan is when we budget in the fall.
“Staff need to read through the capitol plan and do a presentation to various neighbourhoods. Then early in the process they can have their input and Council can hear back because it makes sense to us. We’re reducing infrastructure and taking out a sidewalk on one side of the street but it’s very upsetting to that neighbourhood. So when you try and balance our five strategic priorities, one thing we really fell down on was communication. Now we have the chance to communicate why we made these choices and why we are $200,000 short on meeting this neighbourhood’s expectations. It’s not to say it couldn’t be done later but it’s a real budget question.”
McCormick says that this issue will be brought up at a Committee of the Whole meeting some time in the near future.