The Town of Prescott is looking for input on its Winter Maintenance operations.
Town council met earlier this week, where they heard a report on the current state of its efforts to keep streets and sidewalks clear of snow and ice.
A recommendation was made by council to release a public survey so that residents can provide feedback on what they feel the town is doing well, and also areas where it can improve.
Director of Operations Nathan Richard says the purpose of the report is to highlight the town’s snow clearing and removal policies and levels of service, which have been in place since 2015.
“It’s kind of front of mind if we get the survey out sooner rather than later,” Richard said. “If you do it in the middle of the summer, a lot of people will forget what their comments were. So, we’ll get the survey out, get those comments from the public and from council and see what we can do to improve our policy.”
Following the presentation, Councillor Gauri Shankar, who is also the chair of Public Works, commended the efforts of staff on keeping streets and sidewalks clear this year.
He says the next steps are getting that public input to see how services can be improved further.
“That’s what it’s all about, most of our snow has fallen in the last two weeks but you’d never know looking at downtown,” Shankar said. “I think it’s a good process but we will go to the public to get some input. Hopefully, it’s mostly positive and we will go from there.”
Mayor Brett Todd says they will see what the public has to say on the matter, but he feels confident that Winter Maintenance Operations in Prescott are among the best in the province.
He’s hopeful public feedback will reflect that.
“This is never something that’s going to be perfect because Canadian winters simply don’t allow it, no matter how good a plowing team you’ve got,” Mayor Todd said. “And we do see more and more people with various accessibility devices and staff has been fantastic on their responsiveness there.”
Prescott will look to have the survey available early next week, with results being brought back to council by the end of the month.