People of all ages with strong backs and a sense of community are wanted to help out fellow Okotoks residents this winter.
The Okotoks Family Resource Centre is looking for volunteers to help through the Town’s Adopt a Sidewalk program.
“Currently we have a couple of our volunteers who are doing double-duty and now that it seems like winter is here to stay we expect we will have a few more applicants coming in,” said Sherri Mullen, specialist with the Family Resource Centre.
She said ideally it would have enough people on the volunteer list to have back-up in case someone was ever away or ill and could not take care of their assigned sidewalks.
Snow shovellers can be any age, she said.
“We have some hockey teams that are taking on properties as a team,” said Mullen. “We have adults, we have parents volunteering with their children as a family.”
She said as long as one individual – an adult – can be screened by the Town of Okotoks volunteer services, the family can sign up together.
The program does its best to match people up with those in their own neighbourhoods, but she said sometimes it’s not possible. If people are unable to drive to a different neighbourhood they can be put on a sub list until something comes up closer to home, she said.
“We’ve been pretty good this year at being able to match close to or right in neighbourhoods,” said Mullen.”
Clients of the program must be over 80, or if younger there must be a medical condition that prevents them from clearing their own snow, she said.
The Family Resource Centre also uses low income guidelines to determine whether the individual could pay for snow removal service.
There also cannot be anyone else in the home who could do the job, she said.
“If they have adult children living in the home but are over 80, if those adult children can do it we would not be finding them a snow angel,” said Mullen.
At this time there are 14 clients on the list to receive help, but Mullen said she expects that number to be closer to 20 once winter really gets underway.
It’s a fairly average number for the program, which is manageable, she said.
“It’s what we’ve been able to keep up with, with the number of volunteers as well,” said Mullen.
The program is important to ensure sidewalks are cleared within the Town’s one-day limit after a snowfall.
Municipal enforcement manager Peter Stapley said under the traffic safety bylaw, any homeowner with a sidewalk adjacent to their property must clear their snow and ice within 24 hours of accumulation.
Enforcement of the issue is complaint-driven, he said, but officers always try to lead with education.
“We always start with education, but with the long winter seasons we have, quite often we see repeat offenders and those become an issue,” said Stapley. “Enforcement does become the avenue we have to go down sometimes, we have to go down the route of enforcement for repeat offenders.”
The fine for first, second and third offences is $250, he said. At that point, if someone still refuses to clear snow from their sidewalk then a court appearance would be mandated.
“I’ve never seen that happen,” said Stapley.
He said Okotoks residents are usually compliant, and when there are calls typically a visit to the home is enough to get the snow cleared.
The biggest issue in town tends to be after chinooks more than after snowfall, he said. When snow has been melting all day and freezing at night, it causes safety issues on sidewalks and often residents forget to clear the pavement of water or slush before it freezes over.
“We see more calls during that time,” said Stapley. “People don’t think of going out to shovel the snow because it wasn’t a fresh snowfall, but we have a fresh accumulation of ice from the melt and thaw.”
