Politicians at city hall, including Mayor Denis Coderre, say the cleanup from the topsy-turvy storm last week was a mess – and they want to know what went wrong.
Montrealers have been dealing with the after-effects of a topsy-turvy storm last week that dumped snow and then freezing rain on the city. The deep freeze transformed sidewalks into dangerous, icy paths for days.
As many as 3,000 people called the city's 311 line to complain.
“If something happened, because of the amount of complaints, I want to know what happened,” said Mayor Denis Coderre, who said he is tired of all the finger pointing and has asking the city comptroller to take a close inspection at what caused the delays.
The mayor notes that Mother Nature threw the city a curveball.
“It went from 2 degrees Celsius to -17, of course you’ll have a situation,” he said.
The ice left boroughs scrambling to spread gravel because salt doesn't work in extreme cold.
That delayed snow pickup in several of Montreal's 19 boroughs.
Opposition group Projet Montreal said Coderre is passing the buck.
“It's somebody else,” said Projet Montreal city councillor Guillaume Lavoie. “It's the civil servants, it's the boroughs, it's God, it's Mother Nature, but never you.”
Lavoie said it's Coderre who cut funding to the boroughs for snow cleanup.
The unions blame the boroughs for not calling in enough workers as a way to save money.
Many blue collar workers called in sick on Jan. 4, aggravating the issue.
“We called in 46 standby workers but only 24 showed up,” said Southwest Borough Mayor Benoit Dorais.
Mayor Coderre expects results of the comptroller’s report by next Wednesday.
City hall is also setting up a best practices committee to look at changing winter weather and how to deal with it – something the mayor said should come naturally.
“This is a winter city,” he said. “You will have ice, you will have snow. Get used to it.”
