Tara Kearsey
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Oct 13/00) - Snow removal was the hot topic at last night's mayoral forum -- the last time all four candidates were grilled publicly before Monday's election.

The final election forum, organized by the Northern Territories Federation of Labour, the Council for Disabled Persons, the Status of Women Council and the Literacy Council, was attended by about 20 interested citizens.

The candidates answered five previously distributed questions and were then grilled by the public on issues ranging from snow clearing, campaign spending, seeking public consultation on issues that come before council and many others.

Frank Cserepy challenged incumbent Dave Lovell, asking if he would "persist in sending out snow clearing crews to residential areas at 3:00 a.m. on a work night where the machinery ... when backing up goes 'beep, beep, beep, beep' followed by the scraping of the blade on the road, digging up the road and making ruts in the pavement. Will you persist in doing that or will you change the system?"

Although the question was directly asked of Lovell, it was agreed earlier in the evening that all candidates would answer each and every question.

Cheryl Best said she had previously received phone calls from aggravated citizens at 3 a.m. asking the same question.

After that, she questioned city officials as to why snow clearing occurred at such an early hour and was given an eight-page briefing outlining all the reasons for it.

She admitted she could not recall those reasons, but said there must be a better way of doing it.

"Snow removal, in the middle of the night, can be done in the downtown core where all the businesses are, where there is no traffic, no parking and the roads are clear.

"During the day, in all of our outlying areas, everybody has come into town, moved their cars and the roads are clear out in the residential areas, so I think I'd like to take a look at how we're doing that and see if we can solve it," she said.

Then Lovell stepped up to the plate. He said snow clearing procedures have been studied to death.

"Everyone wants the streets cleaned and no one wants to pay for it.

"The cheapest way of doing it is when you do it in the middle of the night -- the street lights are set for it, you don't need as many trucks and it gets done. It's just a very simple matter of cost and effectiveness," he said, adding it can be done during the day, but the cost would have to be absorbed by the ratepayers.

He said he would insist snow clearing procedures stay the same unless he had a demand for a tax increase.

Bob Brooks disagreed with Lovell.

He said he had also received early morning complaints about snow clearing and has never agreed with the existing policy.

"My belief is you do the downtown at night, you do the residential areas during the day, period."

Brooks said after a heavy snowfall, he would agree with snow removal taking place all throughout the day and night, but it should not occur on a regular basis.

"I have always pushed for downtown at night and residential during the day and I still have not seen any argument to sway me from that opinion," he said.

Gord Van Tighem said he has lived in four major cities and in all of those cities the downtown core was always cleared before residential areas.

"I think here it needs to be looked at and we also need to look at the availability of services when the snowfall does not agree with the scheduling of staff," he said.

Would you, as mayor, lobby the GNWT to implement guidelines to publicize dollar amounts spent on campaigns (after elections), setting limits on contributions and setting overall limits on spending?

Dave Lovell:

City has already lobbied the Federation of Canadian Municipalities on that issue. Said he limits contributions to $100, but campaign is mostly self-financed.

Bob Brooks:

We have lobbied the GNWT already. Hopefully they will implement a policy when it is realized this is an important issue to the public.

Gord Van Tighem:

At a recent Rotary Club luncheon he revealed the source(s) of financing for his campaign. Anyone who would like to know more can contact him.

Cheryl Best:

Total amount of campaign contributions is less than $900, total campaign expenditures so far is $12,000.