Ortonville- Frustration with snow piled on sidewalks and curbs has caused several business owners to sign a petition seeking a solution to the problem.
The petition, circulated by Robin Mansfield, owner of Glass With Class bead store, requests that the village council change the Department of Public Works plowing procedure by tilting snow blades to the outside angle of the curb, so snow goes in the middle of the street and is then plowed away, instead of filling sidewalks with snow after each pass. The petition, signed by at least eight village business owners as of Tuesday, also requests the DPW plow all the way to the curb instead of two feet away, so that parked cars are not in the middle of the street.
‘It’s just a mess,? said Mansfield, whose mother fell on the sidewalk while trying to get over a pile of snow. ‘I shovel two or three times a day. It’s aggravating… Ten businesses just want a change. Do something different. We can’t get people in the stores because the snow is piled up.?
Village Council President Ken Quisenberry had not seen the petition, but said unusual weather patterns this year have made snow plowing more difficult.
‘We do our best to accomplish our goal of keeping the streets and sidewalks clear,? he said. ‘We have ‘x? amount of snow and it has to go somewhere. Our first priority is the roads, the second is the sidewalks. When it piles up, we haul it away, but that is third. It would be great if we could do it all in 10 minutes and when the businesses open, it looks like July, but that’s not the case.?
The village certainly didn’t look like July in the days before Christmas. Snow banks estimated to be two feet high on the curbs forced customers and employees of businesses in the village to walk down the street to get around them and onto sidewalks. The piled snow also forced drivers to park with their vehicles partially in lanes of traffic.
An unusually warm day in the 60s on Dec. 27 melted the snow, but subsequent snowfalls and plowing of the streets with the current method caused the curbs to fill again with snow. This week, with a break in the weather, DPW employees spent two days removing the snow from the curbs.
‘It’s getting old,? said Ed Thompson, owner of Thompson’s Hardware. ‘If they pushed it down to two or three parking spots on each street and came back later and scooped it up, they’d be time and money ahead, instead of plowing it all on the sidewalks. They’ve spent two days removing it when they could have done it with less effort.?
Village Manager Ed Coy said the village has had a number of compliments on keeping the roads and streets clean, and while they’ve also had some complaints of snow removal from the curbs, there have been no more complaints than in past years.
‘There wasn’t time to remove the snow from the curbs? it was too much, too fast,? he said. ‘The first week in December we plowed everyday. It’s a problem and we have limited equipment and number of people. It’s a hazard for people driving down the street if there is snow on the road. We move it to the side and remove it when we can.?
The DPW was reduced from three full-time employees to two just about one year ago, but Coy said the two-man crew is working well and the streets are being plowed the same amount as they were with three men and the village has saved a third of the cost by reducing the staff. However, with more than two months of winter left, he said the village has used up 60 percent of the DPW overtime budget ($7,399 in overtime wages to date) for the fiscal year, which ends June 30.
‘It’s a matter of the frequency of snow events,? said Coy. ‘Our two employees have stepped up to the plate and are working harder and faster to get the work done.?
Thompson, who has owned his business for 17 years, says the village never used to have the problem of snow on the curbs. He believes the DPW employees need to come in earlier, have a snow management plan for light or heavy snow and take a lesson from other municipalities.
Goodrich Village Councilmember and Street Administrator Pete Morey said Goodrich has received no complaints from business owners in their downtown district this season, even with the extraordinary amounts of snow.
‘In our area, we plow along the curbs and take up a couple parking spaces with snow until we can move it, then we bring in a truck and haul it away,? Morey said. ‘We clean the street and then take a tractor and clean the parking spaces by pushing it in a pile the same day. We’ve been able to keep up, but we have three people. You probably can’t do that with two people, unless you have a lot of overtime… We have three fulltime people and we pretty much need ’em. We have overtime, but you do what you have to do and live with it.?