The pieces seemed to be falling into place for a proposal by the Riverview Community Association to paint their neighbourhood curbs to identify fire hydrant no parking zones.

Then the door got slammed shut hard and fast and an association board member was left baffled by the about-face.

Still, Mayor Jeff Genung says the idea of painting the curbs isn't quite dead yet but having volunteers complete the project won't work.

"On the surface, it looks like that would be the best thing to do, it would be cheap and whatever, but then the town has a certain standard to have things done, it needs to be uniform from community to community, the type of paint and then the liability of if it was  done wrong, or if it wasn't done, who's on the hook for it? It opens up a big can of worms. When you start talking about government these things all seem to come to the surface."

Genung says the administration is examining the possibility.

"I don't think they generally do residential, but that's what they're looking into for us. What it would cost if we were to do it, what are the current practices and do we need to change that."

Jennifer Foy, a board member of the Riverview Community Association (RCA), thought by receiving the support of the fire chief the idea of the RCA completing the painting was all but assured. A phone call to the town's Roads manager Wally Hume, though, resulted in a flat 'no' and when it was discussed again at a community associations meeting with town officials and some town councillors, there was initially a similarly negative response.

A few community association representatives had expressed interest in seeing curbs painting yellow to identify no parking zones during the meeting with town officials, says Town Councillor Alex Reed, who attended the meeting, and he was disappointed with the manner in which this grassroots initiative was summarily shot down.

"I thought the way it was handled was unfortunate and, secondly, I thought council might want to revisit this," says Reed.

He's not completely convinced by the reasons presented to discount the idea and believes people are quite capable of doing it with guidance from the fire department.

"I don't buy that. I think you could get away with it. If Riverview wants to paint the curbs and if other community associations want to capture the vision, then let them do it."

"I'm going to talk over with Marni (Fedeyko), Patrick (Wilson), and Morgan (Nagel) who were at the meeting and I think have some sympathy for what went down and why and then decide if we're going to pursue it. For me, it's not a hill to die on, but I think it's worth pursuing further."

At the May 14 council meeting, he brought attention to the need for better control around fire hydrants during the annual report of the town bylaw enforcement. He believes they need to step up their enforcement.

"If the town's not going to support these community associations doing this on their own, then we better step up our bylaw enforcement on people who park in front of fire hydrants."

There has been a little buzz on social media recently when a motorist was fined for parking too close to a fire hydrant. He wasn't parked in front of the hydrant but was deemed to be too close. That in part helped spark the discussion on painting the curbs to leave no question.

Foy says there's still paint flaking off from where curbs were previously painted around hydrants and she thought it would be a great community project and says it is an issue in Riverview. She said it may not necessarily deter everyone from parking in front of hydrants but it might help serve as a reminder.

She was told the town doesn't have the money or manpower to paint the curbs and there were liability issues at stake for the association to undertake. She said the association was willing to cover the cost, provide the manpower and flag person, work under the supervision of fire services and sign liability waivers, but the answer was still no.

"I found it very frustrating."

The frustration continued when she spoke on the topic after two other community association representatives had brought up the question at the meeting with the town.

"A couple of the town representatives there just said 'No, there's no way. We can't have people from the various communities running around painting things."

If the town does change its position, Foy says it's certainly something they would bring back to their community members to see if they'd like to help. She believes there's about 10 hydrants in their community.

"I can envision maybe a two-hour total project. This is not going to be a long days and days project."

Fire Chief David Humphrey says they mark curbs in high traffic areas, particularly commercial districts.

"We do not paint all the fire hydrant locations within the community just simply by sheer volume, the hours of labour and material it would take to do that, but high traffic areas or places where there are problems are painted."

He reminds motorists you can't park in a five-metre span from the centre of a fire hydrant. You also cannot park in front of a sprinkler connection on the side of a building, at a fire station or in a fire lane, commonly found at supermarkets.

"The part that I don't understand is when you park in front of a fire hydrant on your street, you've done a disservice to yourself and you've done a disservice to all of your neighbours because that fire hydrant serves your whole street."

They will move the vehicle if necessary and you may not like the result.

"We've had to take exceptional steps sometimes to get to the front of the fire hydrant so that we can get water and water flow for it, because our hydrants are spaced specifically where we need them So if there's a vehicle in front of that we will take those steps necessary to get water off of that hydrant and it may leave some marks on your vehicle when we're done."

In addition, there should be no encumbrances within three metres of a fire hydrant, including fences and greenery. 

"Don't bury fire hydrants with flowers and bushes to disguise it so that nobody can see it at front of your property. That makes our job very very difficult."

Fire officials make note of any of these during their annual fire hydrant testing and pass along that information to the town bylaw department to sort out with residents.