Parks and Reputation

It’s 7:30 a.m. and you’re running early. This never happens, so you decide to drop off the overdue library books before whisking your children off to school. Once that’s done, it’s the highway or the subway to work. By 8:30 you’ve already been in contact with several facets of the public sector. Thankfully, the highway maintenance crews have already tended to the potholes, the subway ran without a hitch and the library’s icy steps had been salted. But what happens when the people in charge of these necessary services aren’t so diligent?

Exposures

Several exposures threaten the public sector, from schools to roads, and parks to libraries. Most of these exposures fall under one of two categories: property and casualty.

Property

Physical damage to property can cost a municipality millions of dollars each year. Swings need to be fixed, potholes repaired, trees trimmed, alongside a bevy of other “housekeeping” duties. These tasks are especially important during the transition from winter to summer — even in years that experience milder-than-normal winter weather like the one we had in Ontario. Keeping on top of these tasks is costly but necessary. The alternative could result in expensive litigation due to negligence.

Casualty

For example, a Whitby woman went for a morning walk in June 2005. At one point, she caught her foot on a crack in the sidewalk, tripped and fell. She suffered a broken elbow and a number of facial scrapes. The crack was due to uneven slabs of concrete: one was about an inch higher than the other. As a result, the town had the concrete shaved and evened out, but not before the woman filed suit against the municipality for her damages. Although the courts found her partially at fault, the woman was still awarded a handsome sum.

A similar situation occurred in February 2002. A Kingston man was on an early morning walk when he slipped on a patch of ice and landed on his back. He suffered a broken ankle; as a result, he had to walk with the aid of a crutch or cane for the subsequent four months. Again, the municipality was found to be only partially responsible, and yet the man was rewarded for his loss.

Today’s citizens are aware of the compensation awarded for injuries sustained on properties managed by the public sector. An increasingly greater emphasis on litigation exists now than in the past. This trend shows no signs of slowing down.

A city’s reputation lasts a lifetime

Aside from the cost of managing property and casualty exposures, the reputation of a municipality may also be harmed. Given the increasing influence of social media, it is becoming easier for citizens to produce, access and spread information widely and quickly.

The May 2000 tragedy related to Walkerton, Ontario’s contaminated water supply is one example of a municipality’s reputation being irreparably harmed. Twelve years later, the township is still known for its most famous incident, in which a dangerous strain of E. coli bacteria was found to have contaminated the local water. Local officials denied contamination at first, leading to more people becoming affected. Seven people died, and half of the municipality’s 5,000 people reportedly fell ill as a result.

New Standards

The Government of Ontario has recently done its part to update the province’s safety regulations. For example, in February 2010, Ontario made amendments to its minimum maintenance standards (MMS) for municipalities, primarily for the upkeep of the roads, snow accumulation, icy roads and missing signage. Under Section 16 in the updated MMS, amendments include inspection requirements that, had they been conducted in 2002, might have saved the City of Kingston a lawsuit. Sidewalks must be inspected once a year for discontinuities. If a discontinuity exceeds 2 cm, action must be taken to treat it (including taking reasonable measures to protect citizens, repairs and alerting sidewalk users).

The following two additions to the MMS are also worthy of note:

• Section 10: 10(0.1) The minimum standard outlining the frequency of inspecting all luminaries is now once per year. This is to check to see that they are functioning.

• Section 11: 11(0.1) The minimum standard outlining the frequency of inspecting signs of a type listed in subsection (2) — stop, yield, speed limit or school zone signs, for example — is once per year. This is to make sure they meet the retro-reflectivity requirements of the Ontario Traffic Manual.

A number of detailed and customized risk management services exist that outline systematic processes to help manage these kinds of risks. These include slip, trip and fall seminars, online training and webinars, fire protection and liability assessments by specialists, sprinkler plan reviews, short risk articles and much more. As long as there is an articulated, systematic plan in place, the public sector can efficiently manage its risk. In doing so, the public sector will continue to protect and fulfill its responsibility to its citizens.