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A rare and treacherous snowstorm brought Smithville street condition frustrations. And the aggravation spilled into City Hall last week.

During the Jan. 5 Board of Aldermen meeting, some board members blasted the city’s snow removal plan while others nudged staff to look into improving its plan.

The blizzard-like conditions that began Christmas weekend — the worst storm in recent memory — left some neighborhood streets nearly undriveable for days.

“I don’t think the city should expect citizens to have four-wheelers to go to work. Maybe on the first day, but not on the fifth day,” alderman Mark Krokstrom said.

City workers follow the city’s snow removal policy, which outlines a priority system for clearing streets. Due to the severity of the storm, city workers had a tougher than usual time keeping even the top priority streets clear at times.

All four employees trained in snow removal drove the city’s four snow removal trucks for up to 11 hours at a time during the worst part of the storm.

Alderman Bob Foreman questioned why staff didn’t have more than four employees trained so that when the main four slept, others could take over.

He blamed the city’s top administrators for what he considered a lack of preparation.

“I’m concerned about the planning administratively for this event,” he said.

City administrator Gerry Vernon said that the combination of hours worked and holiday and weekend time led to the city spending 35 percent of its annual street department overtime budget. And paying another four workers would have hit the budget even harder, he said.

“We would have spent 70 percent of the budget on one storm, and I don’t think that would have been a good call so early in the year,” Vernon said.

Other board members suggested the city make plans, such as some type of snowstorm fund, in order to better handle the next big storm.

Mayor Carol Troutwine said the city needs to do a better job of educating the public on the city’s snow removal policy. She said she spoke with many residents who had unrealistic expectations of the city.

For example, she said some people thought the city should plow residential driveways; the city is not responsible for private property. Others didn’t understand why the plows weren’t hitting their streets, she said, yet, the workers were following the priority guidelines.

“We can’t just have them out there thinking we are going to be their caretaker when we are not their caretaker,” Troutwine said.

Alderman Carol Shaffer said she wanted to thank the four who drove the trucks.

“We should appreciate the workers,” Shaffer said.

City staff plans to work on improving the snow removal process.

what about my street?

The following is a list of priorities set by city of Smithville in its Snow and Ice Control Policy.

“Since it is not economically feasible to remove all snow accumulation from every street, a priority system will be implemented based on public need. The four priorities for snow control activities are:

Priority 1: All main roads considered to be the minimum network which must be kept open for emergency vehicles.

Priority 2: All remaining arterials, selected collectors, bus routes and streets around schools.

Priority 3: All other selected collectors completing the network covering major traffic volume streets and selected ‘hot spots’ such as intersections and hills.

Priority 4: All remaining streets such as residential and local streets.”

Source: city of Smithville

Smithville Editor Nancy Hull Rigdon can be reached at 532-4444 or nancyrigdon@npgco.

Comments (2)

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Winter Weather
written by A D Giarratana, January 13, 2010

Treacherous, Frustrations, Aggravation????? I know this is good news that people want to read, but not everyone hates the snow. How about a positive story with the next round we get!

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written by CHRISTINA, January 24, 2010

I think that our Mayor should also understand that lots of Smithville citizens could not leave home to get things they needed.Maybe a few people asked to get their drive ways cleared (probably the elderly)but that does not mean that we have unrealistic expectations or that we expect them to be our caretakers.I think that is rude and very inconsiderate to Smithville citizens being a life time resident myself I really do not appreciate her choice of words in the matter.What we do expect is for Smithville to have a better plan in place and budget for it accordingly.I really do not think that is asking for to much.I do understand that four men cannot clean every street in Smithville but we do pay taxes for a reason.I would like to see my money put to good use and better choice words from our Mayor.Thats my opinion...

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