Similar to others I just want to be informed where my property taxes are being spent because it’s not on things i believe those actually paying property taxes expect it to be spent on. Why is my property taxes being spent on initiatives that do not offer anything an average home owner requires such as maintaining easements, not dumping snow piles and expecting the already taxed property owner to further assist the government in its lack of planning or ability to provide value for money. I fail to see it.

The amount of ice and snow that ends up on my driveway is ridiculous. They dump everything from the street onto the driveway. I have to go to work, drop kids at school, I cannot wake up to a pile of ice that I cannot even break with a hammer. Toronto has 10x streets, 10x people, LESS property taxes and I NEVER had a problem, all sidewalks and roads are cleaned before morning hours. This city of pathetic. It has been 3 days after the storm and our entire street sidewalk is not cleaned yet. You raise our taxes and waste it on drug addicts and office clerks. Downtown is one large dump of narcos. No police in the city. No snow removal. No lakeshore maintenance. No walkable parks with paved roads. NOTHING. What are we paying for? For a bunch of paper shufflers in the office and their countless pointless meeting and your pensions? What a freaking disgrace this city is. Every year it is the same story. You don't know that snow falls in the winter? You don't have weather app to check when snow falls to prepare? Who is getting a kick back from hiring this contractor year after year that isn't capable of doing the work we are paying for?

My snowblower doesn't go through this type of ice/snow mix, so in order to remove it, I would have to shovel about 500-1,000 lbs of heavy snow/ice mix 3 days in a row. I am an able-bodied person, but if I continue to do this, I don't see myself able bodied for long. After the first day, my neck, back and wrists are really sore. This should be removed by a machine not a person. To say hire someone, well they get backed up on days like this, and you probably won't see them clear your driveway the same day. I don't understand why people are so against working smarter. If the technology is there, why not use it?

Obviously, this isn’t my first time commenting on this thread, and it is very concerning. I am still able to shovel, but my neck and back have become more and more injured as I age. Any amount of heavy lifting or lifting, even a moderate loads, leads me partially disabled for several days after. The end of the driveway with all of the built-up salt, sand, crud that is compacted into ice, making it nearly impossible to move without specialized equipment or assistance is ridiculous. Just being able to egress 11 needs to is important enough but emergency service is being able to access your space safely is equally as important if not more so. We need to find it in our cities budget to be able to clear after significant snowfall The end of drives. Especially when ice has become a factor making it incredibly heavy and nearly impossible to remove without significant time impact. I find myself trying to stay ahead of snowfall when we are in the thick of it shovelling three times in a day. But most of us don’t have even that as a luxury in our time. We need to do better and better is possible so let’s do it.

While the last two winters have been worse than most winters in the past few years, this amount of snow is nothing new to Barrie. Barrie is located in the snow belt. I've lived here my whole life and this is nothing new. I don't want to spend my tax dollars on funding additional snow removal. If it bothers you so much, take the money that you would've spent on the tax increase and buy yourself a decent used snow blower (I spent $350 on mine) or hire one of the many snow removal services in the area that will gladly clear your whole driveway and walkways every time it snows.

The only exception I'd consider would be for people who are physically disabled. In those scenarios perhaps the city could hire a snow removal company to help them out. But really, we should all be neighbourly and help those in our communities who can't manage the snow. Growing up my family often ended up shovelling / snow blowing multiple houses on our street. It's what being a community is all about.

If you are able bodied and are too lazy to deal with the snow, then perhaps you moved to the wrong city.

I think the city of barrie should be responsible of the snow/removal from the end of the driveway specially for the corner houses. We are getting too mych of snow.

It is uncalled for the amount of snow and hard compact ice/snow that is left at the bottom of driveways. There is no need for that with the machinery they have.

I have previously called the city in the past and complained about the ploughs and been told it’s not in our budget to offer any form of assistance and to seek private removal, this cannot continue to happen. We pay more taxes then the other areas which the local council are using as a source of their analysis to justify the reason for not providing assistance in correcting mistakes of a city contracted service to dodge their obligations. If garbage was thrown in the road by a malfunctioning garbage truck would the city request residents to clear up the waste absolutely not, why is this any difference. This is a hazard to residents health both from preventing egress in the event of emergencies to possibly causing a person a cardiac event or serious back injury removing the debris

This was my driveway this morning

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I doubt it is a budgetary concern, as our taxes go up every year and so does our population, so the city is collecting more in taxes each year. I think no one has actually looked into this being done.

The snowfall that has happened over the last few days has resulted in myself clearing the end of the driveway over three times why should I clean up what the government fails to do, we are reminded that we are not owners of the easement and the city can go ahead and dig up our lawns to service sidewalks, buried pipes whenever planning allows. It’s the fault of the city ploughs that cause undue stress and potential harm to residents by dropping obscene amounts of debris let’s not call it snow or ice at the foot of a driveway. In the event of a medical emergency a resident would be prevented from leaving their home because of the obstruction. You pay to have sidewalks cleared why can’t you request from the same team to clear specific homes which the plough has violated it’s clearly the corner homes it’s not extensive amount of time to incorporate this, perhaps the city should have better procurement specialists negotiate with contractors instead of just signing away tax dollars every year and passing this burden down to its residents and waiving the nuisance code as a way of underhand threatening residents that push the snow into the road where it came from and have the cheek to instruct that it be moved to the right hand of the driveway, here’s a thought how about instead of sitting in your warm offices spouting this nonsense you put our tax dollars to work

I am a senior and can no longer remove the window left at the bottom of my driveway when the plow goes by. I need help now and would really appreciate if the city could help me out. I would even be willing to pay if I could get this service. I just can't do it any more at my age.

Why is this an issue still in Barrie. This should have been more progressive than other districts

Yes please!

Im actually surprised i live in the south of barrie and the city came today to clean the snow and the windrow

This is a safety and accessibility issue – without windrow clearing, people in wheelchairs, with baby strollers, or mobility issues are faced with the choice of walking on an icy street, or not leaving the house until spring.

This is a critical service required for Barrie residents. The heavy slush and snow dumped on driveways is practically impossible to remove.

The city should invest in snow plows that have a wing to clear any street snow that is dumped on driveways when plowing the streets.
The city should lift snow from residents curbs when snow banks reach 1 meter in height. Barrie property taxes are higher than the rest of the GGH. Better fund management and prioritization is required.

With the high taxes we pay on our homes, there is no reason to not have this done for us. Let’s do better for our people Barrie!