Sault Blog

In 2012, SSM PUC removed a broken section or piece of sidewalk in front of my house on Queen Street near the Sault Ste. Marie Golf and Country Club to bury an electrical conduit. After the conduit burial installation was completed, the sidewalk was never properly repaired; an asphalt patch served as a temporary repair, thus becoming a permanent trip hazard. Walking around my neighbourhood, it became apparent that many sidewalk concrete sections are at the end of their life cycle and are trip hazards.

On the morning of Thursday, July 23rd, I noticed someone was lying on my front lawn apparently in distress. I went to investigate what was happening, and a lady standing next to the prostrate woman told me, “My friend tripped on the sidewalk, fell, and hurt herself.”

I asked, “Is there anything that I can do?” I was asked to provide some water, which I did.

The distressed woman’s husband arrived, but they determined that an ambulance must be called because she was too injured to move by herself and that she felt her injuries and lack of balance would not allow her to get up by herself.

Before the arrival of the Hospital Ambulance, a City Works Truck stopped, where a Senior City Maintenance Employee exited and inquired what happened. This City Maintenance Employee was not capable of providing any assistance to the injured party; however, I am assuming that this person went back to the maintenance depot to get an orange cone and orange spray paint to mark the trip hazard.

The Hospital Ambulance took approximately 40 minutes to arrive because the injured elderly woman lying on my lawn was put in the queue. She was quickly assessed, put on the stretcher, and taken to the hospital.

I can tell you for a fact that this elderly woman really hurt herself, because I cleaned up the bloody tissue papers that were left at the scene.

I know full well the effects of what a fall does to a senior citizen—my father, whom we reluctantly put in a Thunder Bay nursing home, kept falling. Within a year of him being there, his last fall resulted in a broken ankle that sent him to palliative care and death.

I have witnessed others, not so elderly, fall at work or at home and break bones; especially nasty is the broken hip bone, which requires many surgeries to “bring back to good”. The older you are, the harder it is to recover from a fall. Falls generally reduce the quality of life for a senior or expedite their death.

It was unfortunately, this elderly woman needed to trip and fall on a very well pedestrianized sidewalk in front of my house. It is also a commonly used bus stop. So the question comes down to why this section of sidewalk was not properly repaired or maintained for 15 years.

A reactive, not proactive City Administration and Maintenance culture. Our City of Sault’s Administration and work culture is reactive in nature. As an example, City housing property standards are only enforced if a citizen complains about a property standard violation. Some houses have been vacant, derelict, blighted, and boarded up for 44 years, and the City Administration will not take it upon themselves to address the blatantly obvious property standard violation. This has resulted in an acceptance of a culture of blight downtown, leaving American tourists shocked at the condition of the downtown.

This reactive work policy’s acceptance of a culture of blight has extended to our City’s roads and streets, with almost all major arterial corridors having pothole patches that run the full extent of the road. The adjacent curbs bashed by yearly snowplows have destroyed their functionality, and the vast majority of sidewalks in the City require extensive repair or replacement. Sidewalk maintenance, including general cleaning, has been extensively curtailed; sidewalks with winter sand are not cleaned, and weeds around poles and pavers are everywhere in the City.

The “we need more tax base” policies of subsequent City Administrations have created a much larger City as our population and job/tax base shrinks. A larger, less dense City with less money for maintenance and repair to deal with the “old neighbourhoods” leads to infrastructure neglect.

Sault Senior City Administration Staff divesting core responsibilities for delusional ideas. Over the last ten years, our City’s Administration spent a tremendous amount of time and money on what I deem delusional ideas. First, we spent five years and $17m on the Downtown Plaza and Mill Market, with these facilities duplicating existing venues or; should have been divested to the private sector. No sooner have these useless facilities been created than a $100m Waterfront Development Plan is laid out by City Administration, showcasing a swimming pool in the St. Mary’s River. Now the Mayor and City Council will commit $15m to kick-start the development of a Sault Port that absolutely not a single private-sector business has come to City Council to ask for, resulting in a massive $250 minimum corporate welfare project.

Our City’s Chief Administrative Officer and some City Council members have on several occasions advanced the idea that our City Landfill should be privatized to “save the taxpayer money”. Again, this is an example of our City Administration leaders divesting their “core duties and responsibilities” of our Municipality. If the Sault Landfill is privatized, be prepared to have another line-item expense of Landfill fees on your PUC bill, as they do in Edmonton, Alberta.

This elderly lady, fellow citizen, did not have to trip and fall if City Administration applied the same effort to core duties and responsibilities of our City’s infrastructure rather than squandering time and money on delusional ideas and projects.

Mark Menean, www.saultblog.com