West-end residents say city unfairly fined them for violating parking ban

Drivers in Rio Terrace say the city is handing out tickets before the parking ban began in their neighbourhood.

Two residents of a west Edmonton neighbourhood say tickets for violating a parking ban they received on the weekend are unwarranted.

Greg Brodeur and Sandra Haltiner told CTV News Edmonton on Sunday that they found parking tickets on their vehicles’ windshields and the roads in their Rio Terrace neighbourhood unplowed.

Both said they had signed up for text notifications so they could move their cars before plows came to clear their area’s streets.

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Brodeur said the city gave a 72-hour warning to move vehicles but was then notified work would not start in their area until Friday.

“It doesn’t make sense that you would get a ticket for when the plows aren’t around, even for a week,” Brodeur said, adding at least seven of his neighbours also found tickets on their vehicles.

Rio Terrace is located on the north edge of the river valley, just south of Whitemud Drive.

City crews resumed clearing residential roads of snow on Saturday night. Originally, it paused the Phase 2 clearing efforts over the weekend but late Friday night announced the work would continue starting Saturday at 7 p.m.

The city said snow-clearing work in neighbourhoods that had been previously scheduled for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week will go ahead as planned, while efforts in those that had not yet been scheduled saw clearing begin on Saturday and Sunday.

That meant residents in some areas did not receive the usual 24-hour advance notice to remove their cars from the road.

Crews place temporary yellow signs at entrances to neighbourhoods to indicate that they’re working to clear snow in them.

Haltiner says she believes it’s unfair that she and others are being penalized, considering the city made late changes to its residential snow-clearing plan.

“We’ve done everything that we can to be caught up on the notifications and to be aware of the dates when things are arbitrarily changed,” she said. “We don’t have an opportunity to get educated on it using the systems that the city has put in place.”

Both Haltiner and Brodeur say they plan to challenge the tickets.

The city says bylaw enforcement officers put no-parking signs in the neighbourhood when enforcement began Saturday night.