Yes, I know, Edmonton is a big city and it’s a big job. Tell me something I didn’t know. What I do know is that I grew up in a place that got a hell of a lot more snow than Edmonton and it was dealt with just fine. Obviously when you get hit with a big dump of snow, the roads will suck for a while.

How the City of Prince George, B.C. deals with the roads now, I don’t know, but I know they actually did a pretty good job when I was growing up. They’d have graders and loaders out clearing main roads and residential streets and make pretty quick work of them. The graders even had drop gates to clear the front of your driveway so you didn’t have a three foot tall mountain of ice to clear.

Before I moved to Edmonton I had been here in the winter before, including during April 2005 when it snowed about a foot in one day. What a gong show! It seems better now, but marginally.

Now we have a house here and pay taxes here. So, we have a right to complain. Period. If the city isn’t doing a good job of spending the tax dollars of Edmonton residents and is proposing to raise taxes by eight to 10 per cent, we have a right to complain. Period. It would also help if we suggested ways of improving how they go about spending our money.

In that vein, I will throw a few suggestions out there and make a few observations.

In this sprawling city (whose fault is that?) there are a lot of streets to clear and the major routes should be the priority. I do find it puzzling that when I was sitting in a restaurant at 137 Ave and 97 St. on Friday night I saw nine snow plows in a row heading north on 97 Ave. Spread out a bit guys.

I was out driving the next day on 137 Ave and it was a mess, and that was down towards 66 St. They can’t even cut the snow back to the curb. I would think three plows should be able to clear the entire two lanes to the curb. Done.

And get the windrows as close to the curb as possible. I know it can be tough. God knows driving in Edmonton can be brutal when you’ve got people chit-chatting on the old cell phone, even in snow. I saw that yesterday too. Seriously.

I do wonder about how efficiently those resources are allocated out on the streets when this kind of dump of snow happens. I understand they won’t get to my street for a while, if ever, but at least do the major routes properly! They really aren’t.

I was also puzzled last year when I watched out my window after a snowfall, as at least three or four graders cleared snow on my street one day. I swear they must have made three or four passes each, and it’s a two lane street.

WTF? I’ve never driven a grader, but I’m convinced I could clear my damn street in fewer passes. I might even move a few neighbours’ cars off the street in the process. (Snow route anyone?)

End of season snow clearing

I have talked about the city’s end of season snow clearing a few times, perhaps even ranted. I’m prone to that, but I’m justified. (Usually)

Why, particularly on a residential street, do I need the snow cleared from the side of the roads at the end of the season? I took a bunch of pictures of the City of Edmonton snow clearing efforts in the early spring of 2009. There were:

• Three graders
• One large snow blower
• One flag person
• Someone in a City of Edmonton pickup following the snow blower
• A fleet of semi-trailer trucks hauling away the snow

I understand the city likes to recycle the gravel it spreads on the roads. Recycling is a shrewd and lofty goal. Sand and gravel are expensive, and recycling it makes sense. Here’s an idea though: let the snow melt. Novel, I know, but you’re going to send the street sweepers around anyway.

One sweeper with a couple of trucks (smaller and cheaper ones, I might add) to haul the gravel away is far more efficient than a whole fleet of people hauling away snow that will melt.

I would love to see the accounting analysis on this. Considering all the machines processing and hauling away that snow, I just can’t see them hauling enough loads of gravel per hour to make the activity pay.

How much does the city pay per load of sand? What’s the total cost per hour to do this snow clearing to recover the sand?

So, why not let it melt and let the sweepers pick it up? Yes, there will be more loads of sand, but it will be concentrated. You’ll need fewer, smaller trucks and they’ll only be hauling sand, not larger, more expensive trucks hauling a fraction of the amount of sand. That should save some money in the budget.

Street sweeping obsession

I have also noticed that Edmonton seems to have a bit of a street sweeping obsession. It’s not a bad thing that we like clean streets here, but I think there are limits. I swear I saw a sweeper on my street at least three times this summer, well after the spring sand and gravel had been picked up and well before my street had been repaved.

I would watch as they drove by, sweeping up virtually nothing! I was a little puzzled at that. Why not only sweep areas that actually need it? Don’t just sweep for the sake of sweeping. More money saved in the city budget.

Police directing traffic

As if the preceding cases weren’t insane enough, I have repeatedly seen Edmonton city police out directing traffic. At first, I thought there was an accident. Drug bust? Murder? Umm, parade? Nope.

Construction! Yes, our police, who apparently cost around $100,000 per officer, are out directing traffic through construction areas. Are you kidding me? I don’t care if they’re part of traffic services. They should be out stopping the speeders, red light runners, drunk drivers, texting drivers and others who make this city such a danger to drive in.

Instead the City of Edmonton installs green light cameras, like that’s going to solve the problem. It’s certainly going to chip away at the $20 million extra the Edmonton Police Service was hoping to get this year.

Why do they need $20 million more this year? I guess the City of Edmonton is going to be doing a hell of a lot more construction next year!

Why not get the EPS out stopping drivers causing problems and not directing traffic? Are we to believe there are no flagging companies who would like to bid on a city contract to control traffic in Edmonton construction zones? Are there not enough unemployed people in this city to fill the inevitable positions that would come out of this?

I know flag people don’t each cost $100,000 per year. More money saved in the budget and hopefully some dangerous drivers off the road.

Citizen auditor: Alain Saffel volunteers

Maybe our city needs to start ripping apart a few departments at a time and make sure they’re doing things properly. I have cited only a few examples here that just don’t make sense. Maybe an outsider perspective is needed? I’d be happy to help out. I’ll be a citizen auditor. I’m sure there are plenty of people in the city who would also like that opportunity.

For those who are telling people to leave the city if they can’t handle a bit of winter, you’re missing the point. It’s about efficient allocation of resources, and there are legitimate questions about how the City of Edmonton allocates its resources. I would prefer that the City does not waste a single tax dollar, especially when they want to raise taxes again. Every citizen in this city has the right to hold our city councillors and the accompanying bureaucracy accountable for its actions.

I’m sure we can find plenty of money to save in these tough times, with a sharp pencil, creativity and a critical eye. Can I just ask for one teensie weensie little favour please?  Could we spend some of those savings on taking care of the sewer smell that seems to be so pervasive in this city?

Isn’t it the law in Alberta that you can’t run a deficit? Not that there’s anything wrong with that (if you really have to). I guess they’re pulling a page from the Stephen Harper playbook and ignoring their own laws. Easy come, easy go, I guess.

Alberta increases taxes

Really, the Alberta Conservatives increased taxes? That one caught me off guard. It’s reminiscent of NDP governments all over Canada isn’t it? I can’t wait to hear the spin on this one.

I haven’t got all the details, but I’d heard on CBC (damn taxpayer supported informative radio) that apparently the education portion of property taxes will be going up, as well as liquor and cigarette taxes.

I can live with increases in taxes on cigarettes and alcohol, particularly cigarettes because I don’t suffer from that addiction. What’s 10 cents a bottle extra for beer in the lowest tax jurisdiction in Canada? Hmm. I guess we’ll have to recalculate that one before we can crow about it anymore.

If I heard correctly, the property tax increase will increase your Edmonton property tax bill by 8.6 per cent, on average. I hope I didn’t hear that correctly. The education portion, maybe, but the whole bill? I guess Edmonton Mayor Stephen Mandel could be indignant on one hand and laughing to himself on the other.

There are a variety of other spending cuts, but nothing too serious yet. The language in the newspaper and web stories about it indicate that major cuts may be coming.

Criticism of Alberta government

I think it’s more than fair to criticize the Alberta government for this budget. Stepping back a couple years we find Ralph ‘The man without a plan’ Klein and our current premier, Ed Stelmach, saying he wasn’t going to touch the brake on the economy. It’s like an episode of Dukes of Hazzard where we’re barreling towards the ‘bridge out’ sign.

The criticism I’ve heard, and I think it’s warranted, is that the government is too reliant on resource revenues as a proportion of its budget; 20 per cent I heard. So, when the oil hits the fan, so to speak, the government has a big problem.

Another criticism that is warranted is that because of the lack of a plan and any willingness to rein in the formerly overheated Alberta economy, we’re now in the position where there is a major structural deficit. In other words, there’s no optional spending that is easily cut.

I’m not sure our current government really understands inflation, because that’s the undercurrent here. The overheated economy put serious upward pressure on real estate prices, rent and prices on nearly everything. People moved to the province in droves because of all the high paying jobs, exacerbating those price pressures.

The result was that the government needed to pay more for nurses, doctors, teachers and virtually every other civil servant. They needed more of them too. Apparently now we have the best paid civil servants in Canada, which is great, but now what?

Remember this for next time: keeping a rein on the economy isn’t always a bad thing. Boom and bust cycles can be moderated. We don’t have to go from people lighting cigars with $100 bills to people jumping out of windows (not that it happened much, but you get the point). Maybe they can light cigars with $5 bills and just yell out the window? That’s more Canadian anyway.

Seriously though, it makes sense to have steady economic growth rather than an outrageous boom and all the economic and social problems that go along with it. It also makes sense to manage your resource extraction for the longer term. Alberta’s conventional oil and gas is disappearing, and more rapidly than I think most people realize. I don’t think that people know that conventional oil production consistently declined in Alberta for the last 10 years, even through the boom.

Diversifying Alberta’s economy

I think this budget really points out the need to diversify Alberta’s economy. It is too reliant on the energy sector and when the energy sector goes bust, so goes the rest of the economy in Alberta. The Alberta government has made some attempts to support the tech sector but more needs to be done. Hey, if Ireland can do it, surely we can!

The government here could start by investing more in post-secondary education, but that is another blog post.

Diversification will be one of the keys to Alberta’s economic success in the future. Moderating growth so we don’t see ridiculous boom-bust cycles will be another. Can the entire province’s economy rely on the oilsands? I’m thinking it can’t. Time will tell.

Alberta health transfers

And, in a story that is tremendously ironic, Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach is going to be “pressing the federal government very hard” for more health funding for Alberta. Apparently Alberta’s being short-changed under the new health funding formula, so we should be getting $733 million more.

Of course the irony is that only a year ago the whole country apparently was eyeing Alberta’s surpluses and wondering how to siphon them off, or so the thinking goes in Alberta. Stelmach bristled at the thought that Ottawa would try to get its hands on Alberta money. National energy program again and all that. Blah blah blah. It’s a broken record. So now Stelmach wants to go to Ottawa with his po’boy cap in hand? That really is funny.