News Releases

Beginning at 7.00 a.m. on Sunday, May 11, 2014, Warman Road will be closed in both directions between 7th Avenue North and 33rd Street as crews repair the road that was dug up over winter.

A detour will be in place. The road is expected to re-open Sunday evening weather permitting and barring any unforeseen circumstances.

Drivers are reminded to allow extra time when travelling through the orange zone, watch for pedestrians and work crews, and for everyone’s safety, please obey all detours, signs and barriers.

Since the City of Saskatoon last week told residents about the new initiative to track our garbage collections by attaching barcode tags to black bins, people have come forward with a number of questions about the program.

We’d like to take some time to further explain the taxpayer savings we hope to achieve, how the tags will be used and why we believe they make sense for our community.

Each tag contains a barcode for our trucks to scan on collection day. The barcode links a resident’s garbage cart with their address and nothing more. The tags are similar to those used to confirm blue cart collection of recycling.

These little tags will make a big difference in how we provide residents with this essential service:

Better Service – Your assigned tag and barcode will confirm when your cart has been emptied, helping us avoid missed collections — estimated to cost Saskatoon taxpayers $155,000 a year as garbage trucks circle back to collect from locations where citizens may have a collection issue.  Confirming collection times and taking pictures of collection issues will help in the education process and reduce inefficiency. 

Cart Maintenance – We will be able to track and record carts that require repair or replacement, ensuring that your black garbage cart is always ready for use.

Cost Savings – Improved tracking of garbage carts is expected to save taxpayers many more thousands per year by reducing fuel and labour costs.  All together, these savings and eliminated missed collections are expected to save taxpayers about $200,000 a year.

While the Garbage Service Verification system will cost $1.2 million, this up-front cost will be paid back within 6 to 7 years from productivity and fuel savings and then continue to generate about $200,000 back to the City each year in savings after that. 

So, thanks to these tags and barcodes, we have a new tool to improve service, collect waste more efficiently and save money for both residents and the City.  

Commonly Asked Questions:

You say the tag keeps track of my garbage pick-ups. Does it record any other information?

No. The tag connects an individual cart to its assigned residence. That’s it.

Is the City doing this so it can it weigh my Garbage?

No.  The rationale for tagging bins is to provide benefits such as cost savings, service efficiencies, and enhanced customer service for individuals and taxpayers.  There is no Council direction to make this kind of change at this time or to weigh garbage from each home. 

Okay, so how do the barcodes work?

The technology is similar to the electronic swipe cards many people use to access offices or buildings.  On collection day, the truck’s barcode reader will scan the tag from the garbage cart and record that the collection has been successful. This information will be logged in our customer service database.

Barcodes will also help the City in tracking repairs and replacement of carts as necessary to improve customer service when things may go wrong with containers.

When will a tag get applied to my garbage cart?

Crews started applying tags to garbage collection carts on May 5, and are working on a neighbourhood by neighbourhood basis. Crews work during normal work hours and plan to work on the regularly scheduled garbage collection day when carts are out for collection.

Residents will receive letters a few days before their black carts are scheduled to have the tags applied. In order to get carts tagged, the City is asking residents to make sure theirs and neighbours’ black garbage carts are out until 5 p.m. on the scheduled collection day, giving our crews time to apply the new tag to the cart.

Please visit saskatoonrecycles.ca or call (306) 975-2486.

For more City of Saskatoon Public Service Announcements, News Releases, Traffic Detours and Service Alerts, visit www.saskatoon.ca or connect with the City of Saskatoon on Twitter and Facebook.

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City of Saskatoon (City) crews are working on reducing mosquito populations this spring through the annual mosquito control campaign. The mosquitoes currently being controlled are primarily nuisance mosquitoes. Mosquito control will continue throughout the summer and will also control Culex tarsalis, the mosquito that is the primary carrier for the West Nile virus in Saskatchewan.

Saskatoon residents can assist with reducing mosquito populations, including Culex tarsalis, by eliminating standing water on their property. Mosquito larvae can develop in any water, even small amounts that are allowed to stand for four days or more. To help control the mosquito population you can:
• Remove any standing water from your property;
• Ensure items in and around the property like pool covers, saucers under flower pots, children’s toys, pet bowls, and wading pools are regularly emptied or replaced with clean water;
• Clean eavestroughs regularly so water does not collect in them;
• Empty and clean bird baths twice weekly;
• Ensure openings in rain barrels are covered with mosquito screening; and
• Ensure your yard is free of debris, such as old tires that can hold rainwater.

For more information on the City’s mosquito control program, please visit www.saskatoon.ca (under “M” for Mosquito Control).

For more City of Saskatoon Public Service Announcements, News Releases, Traffic Detours and Service Alerts, visit www.saskatoon.ca or connect with the City of Saskatoon on Twitter and Facebook.

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For Release: Friday, May 9, 2014

On Friday, May 9, 2014 the City of Saskatoon joined Canadians across the country to honour the end of Canada’s military commitment in Afghanistan.

Earlier this year, as the last of Canada’s troops made their way home, Prime Minister Stephen Harper declared May 9, 2014 a National Day of Honour and on May 5, 2014 City Council resolved that the City would join municipalities across Canada in observing a concurrent moment of silence. 

His Worship Mayor Donald Atchison spoke at a commemorative ceremony held at 11:25 a.m. on Friday, May 9, 2014.

“Members of our community served proudly in the Afghan mission and today we honour their service, their courage and their sacrifice,” says Saskatoon Mayor Donald Atchison. “It is also a day to honour the families of those who gave their lives in the service of their country.” 

Ceremony attendees witnessed the lowering of the flag in Civic Square and participated in two minutes of silence to reflect upon the commitments made by members of our community who served in Afghanistan, as well as those who put their lives at risk each day to help keep Saskatoon safe. 

For more City of Saskatoon Public Service Announcements, News Releases, Traffic Detours and Service Alerts, visit www.saskatoon.ca or connect with the City of Saskatoon on Twitter and Facebook.

The City has started mailing the new format 2014 Property Tax Notices for 87,000 properties in Saskatoon. Property owners should expect their tax notices to arrive over the next coming weeks. If you have not received your tax notice by May 31, 2014, please call 306-975-2400. Your 2014 Property Taxes are due June 30, 2014. 

This year, you will find your Property Tax Notice has a new shorter format that is less complicated and easier to read. The new property tax notice with fewer pages is more efficient, using two thirds less paper giving cost savings for both paper usage and postage. 

With your 2014 Property Tax Notice you will also receive a brochure insert, ‘How to Read Your New Property Tax Notice’ – the brochure explains the information you will find on your notice, and offers helpful advice and contact information should you have any tax related questions.  Both your tax notice and the brochure insert will arrive in a clearly highlighted, bottom flap envelope that also provides for more efficient processing.  

Property owners are encouraged to visit saskatoon.ca, to use the Property Assessment & Tax Tool found on the homepage of our website. This helpful and easy to use tool allows the user to look up a Saskatoon property by address to see assessment information, related market area information, 2014 property tax information, and details on how the City distributes the current year’s municipal portion of property taxes to civic services.

The City of Saskatoon is committed to the Corporate Strategic Goal of Continuous Improvement, and to placing fair, accurate, and equitable values on Saskatoon residential and commercial properties. 

Visit saskatoon.ca and click on ‘P’ for Property Tax for additional information. Or contact a Customer Service Representative at 306-975-2400; we are pleased to answer any tax related questions you may have. 

For more City of Saskatoon Public Service Announcements, News Releases, Traffic Detours, and Service Alerts, visit www.saskatoon.ca or connect with the City of Saskatoon on Twitter and Facebook.

 Members of the public are invited to attend a commemorative event as the City of Saskatoon joins municipalities from across the country to reflect and honour the commitment made by the men and women who served in Canada’s military in Afghanistan.

Earlier this year, as the last of Canada’s troops made their way home from Afghanistan, Prime Minister Stephen Harper declared May 9, 2014 a National Day of Honour and on May 5, 2014 City Council resolved that the City would join municipalities across Canada in observing a concurrent moment of silence.

His Worship Mayor Don Atchison will be speaking at 11:25 a.m. on Friday, May 9 in the Civic Square which is located at the south side of City Hall.  The ceremony will include a lowering of the flag and two minutes of silence. 

Starting at 9:00 a.m. on Wednesday, May 7, 2014, Saskatoon’s Emergency Measures Organization (EMO) tested the entire database of the NotifyNOW system. Data collected during the test indicated that by 11:25 a.m. more than 14,000 people confirmed they had received the message by either replying to the text message or email, or by pressing 1 on their phone.

The Saskatoon EMO appreciates everyone’s participation and feedback on the test including media assistance in getting the word out that a test would be happening. EMO received many positive phone calls following the test, including ones from people stating they were expecting a phone call.

“When an emergency happens, we need to know the system works and works well. The best way to prepare for an emergency is to do a test like this, identify possible kinks in the system and then solve them,” says Ray Unrau, Director of Emergency Planning. “We got lots of good feedback from residents and we can’t thank everyone enough for their participation.”

On Wednesday morning we were able to test the system in a non-emergency situation to make sure that the infrastructure was in place to distribute a large number of notifications. In this area as well, the test was successful and SaskTel infrastructure was able to handle the volume of calls generated by the system.

This was our first ever test of the NotifyNOW system and as expected there were a number of lessons to be learned. Some of those lessons are about the call display for telephone calls needs to be a trusted and distinctive name or number and that we need to continue our outreach to ensure  entered contact information is correct. As always, emergency preparedness education will continue throughout the City, and will incorporation information about NotifyNOW.

The Saskatoon EMO would like to remind residents to consider whether they received the notification in the best possible way. For instance, if you are often gone from home for long periods of time, receiving emergency notification on your landline may not be the most effective way for the City of Saskatoon to reach you during an emergency. By signing up, residents can customize how they receive messages to ensure that they are notified as soon as possible. Residents can sign-up by going to saskatoon.ca, clicking on the NotifyNOW logo and completing the sign up process. NotifyNOW allows you to enter up to 10 methods of contact and up to 10 addresses that you would like to receive emergency notifications about, for example your child’s school or elderly parents home. For step by step information about how to sign up please go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qak-iNP8J_8&feature=youtu.be

For more City of Saskatoon Public Service Announcements, News Releases, Traffic Detours and Service Alerts, visit saskatoon.ca or connect with the City of Saskatoon on Twitter and Facebook.

City urges residents to avoid ticket and towing

City-wide residential street sweeping begins Monday in Holiday Park and is expected to continue for the next six weeks. City and contract crews will be working seven days per week to quickly move through the neighbourhoods each day. 

Approximately $605,000 of additional funding is dedicated from the road levy this year for sweeping programs including the spring sweep blitz and the accelerated residential area sweeping. This allows for additional equipment, contractor resources and maintenance support so that neighborhoods and major roadways can be cleaned quicker, and commercial and business areas will be cleaned more frequently.

Parking Enforcement
In order for sweepers to effectively clean the streets from curb to curb, parking enforcement and tow truck relocating will be used for the entire program.  New Yellow No Parking signs and relocation towing were piloted during a smaller scale fall sweep and will be rolled out city-wide to prevent people from parking on scheduled streets.

The new yellow No Parking sandwich board signs and matching yellow paper signs will be posted at the entrance to scheduled neighbourhoods and along streets at least 36 hours in advance of the sweeping.  Vehicles that remain on the street at 7:00 a.m. will be ticketed $100 under the new Street Maintenance parking bylaw and will be relocated to a nearby street or neighbourhood. If your vehicle is relocated, you can find the new location using the Find My Vehicle! application.

Neighbourhoods with grid streets will be swept in two phases - three days apart – to make parking available for vehicles that need to move.

School Zones
For the safety of students and the convenience of parking for school visitors, school zones will be swept outside the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m.  Sweeping will occur up to two days in advance of or following, the neighbourhood’s scheduled date.  School zone boundaries are marked with a 30 km/hour speed limit signs. Watch for no parking signs along these streets when sweeping is scheduled.

If poor weather delays sweeping, the neighbourhood will move to the end of the schedule and new No Parking signs will be posted in advance to notify residents.

A schedule, Frequently Asked Questions and map of neighbourhoods is available at Saskatoon.ca under the Building Better Roads icon.  Drivers are reminded to be patient and to drive carefully when they encounter slow moving street-sweeping vehicles.  You may also contact the 24-hour Street Sweeping Hotline at 306-975-2476 or streetsweep@saskatoon.ca

 Members of the public are invited to attend a commemorative event as the City of Saskatoon joins municipalities from across the country to reflect and honour the commitment made by the men and women who served in Canada’s military in Afghanistan.

Earlier this year, as the last of Canada’s troops made their way home from Afghanistan, Prime Minister Stephen Harper declared May 9, 2014 a National Day of Honour and on May 5, 2014 City Council resolved that the City would join municipalities across Canada in observing a concurrent moment of silence.

His Worship Mayor Don Atchison will be speaking at 11:25 a.m. on Friday, May 9 in the Civic Square which is located at the south side of City Hall.  The ceremony will include a lowering of the flag and two minutes of silence.