Mayor Mike promised to ‘experiment’ with snowgates during the campaign, something that has been long overdue. A friend of mine had a conversation with Mike about it the other day and he said he will budget to experiment with them. Something Staggers fought for his entire term on the council. The biggest argument against them was that they do not work, which is not the case. Many communities use them not only for 40 inches of snow, but for leaf removal from the streets (Cour De Lene, Idaho). I’m glad to see Mike will be taking on this endeavor.
Other things discussed were tree trimming in the boulevard and expanding Drake Springs Pool (since the city scaled back the main pool before building it) and I want to clarify this. In the original plans shown of Drake Springs Pool, the main pool was much larger, not sure why it was scaled back, but I’m sure ‘sour grapes’ had something to do with it. Mike said he will absolutely not expand the pool (which sounds reasonable because, quite frankly, it is too late and he has been chomping at the bit to build an indoor pool which I’m sure will be in the 2011 budget). And he seems to be confused about tree trimming, he sounded like he was under the impression that property owners have to take care of adjacent city property (and this is true according to city charter) but it still isn’t right considering the city is legally liable for the property. But since the constitutionality of code enforcement is in question now, the city may have no choice but to take care of their own property. They have no legal standing to fine you if you don’t trim their trees.