Montreal Mayor Gets In Trouble For Clearing Icy Sidewalks In His Borough
No good deed goes unpunished.
That’s the lesson a Montreal borough mayor had to learn after trying to get all of the snow and ice covering his neighbourhood removed early, with the mayor reprimanded swiftly thereafter.
Mayor of Anjou Luis Miranda realized that, after Montreal got struck by a fairly severe ice storm last week, action would need to be taken.
Citizens can’t be expected to safely walk or drive on icy streets, so Miranda ordered a snow-clearing operation to begin.
One of Montreal’s fastest places to remove ice/snow: #Anjou. It’s reward: an email of reprimand from the central city saying borough wasn’t authorized to remove snow before the others. #polmtlpic.twitter.com/zQ7qoRZGk6
Miranda knew that human intervention would be the quickest way to ensure the safety of his constituents. Letting nature do the work of clearing the ice (which was the directive from City Hall) simply wasn’t a sound plan.
But going against orders from City Hall and calling for an early snow-removal operation (the Plante administration didn’t realize their own mistake and decide to do the same until Saturday) led to Miranda being reprimanded by the political higher-ups.
Miranda got a letter from City Hall which said, reports CJAD, that a borough mayor doesn’t have the power to call for a snow-removal operation before the centra administration does and that Anjou, alone, will have to pay for everything this time around.
Not that a choicely worded letter has made Miranda all that remorseful.
Miranda maintains he made the right call, as delaying the removal of all the ice in Anjou would have put citizens at risk. Miranda also said he won’t be ordered around by the folks at City Hall who he feels aren’t fit for the job, at least when it comes to snow/ice removal.
#Anjou Borough Mayor says snow removal Dept of #Montreal should be scraped. “Get rid of it”. Furious his local officials were told they weren’t authorized to remove snow/ice before others. #polmtlpic.twitter.com/EF9wfNVyyR
