Snow. You’d think it might be a priority issue. You’d think.
Last December, Alders Rummel, Rhodes-Conway and myself sent out a press release with some ideas about fixing some of the snow problems. Chief among them were good notification to people who live in the Snow Emergency Zone (SEZ). We had a meeting last December. It was several hours and there were about 15 staff people and alders there and we talked about many ideas. Just talked.
I wanted to introduce two minor ordinance to clarify some rules. I was asked to hold off until we had more meetings and discussed things further. I agreed. And waited, and waited and waited. We had one more meeting in January, to discuss a very narrow list of issues. That meeting went well. Meanwhile, the Mayor’s office introduced an ordinance – which I thought we agreed we’d hold off and work together. The proposal is a bit unclear to me, but it allows additional towing (which we are already doing), and doubles the fines for downtown residents. It also expands the street sweeping parking restrictions to year round instead of May – Nov. This proposal got referred again last night at the Board of Estimates, where I was led to believe we were going to discuss the proposal. At the meeting we were told we would discuss it further on the 29th.
The meeting on the 29th was where we were going discuss how to better notify the public when they have to move their cars. Since it doesn’t seem to be very consistent when we declare a snow emergency and the way they notify the public relies heavily on people watching the evening news or listening to the radio.
Well, turns out, there’s a major flaw in that plan. The staff person who is in charge of the public notification can’t be there. So, the meeting will likely be rescheduled.
You think we can get it together and figure this out before next year?
