snow removal

Vern ‘The Velvet Hammer’ Brown settles it; We have plenty of money for snowgates!

l3wis August 21, 2011 10Comments

No surprises here;

City officials are asking the Sioux Falls City Council for about $3 million more next year for snow removal and to accommodate higher fuel prices because money allotted for snow removal and street maintenance this year is running out.

And according to Vern, that is no big deal;

If the street department goes over budget, Brown said the money probably would come from the city’s reserves. “We’ve got healthy reserves to take care of those kinds of issues,” he said.

Thank You Vern for settling the debate. We have plenty of money not only to plow our streets, but to plow them properly by using snowgates. So the next time I hear you piss and moan about the expense of snow gates, I will just pull up this quote.

Snowgates get a high approval rating despite not being tested in a majority of SF neighborhoods

l3wis August 1, 2011 21Comments

Pretty amazing considering most residents have not experienced them in use;

More Sioux Falls residents are in favor of the city equipping its snowplows with snowgates than against it, but a high percentage also are undecided on the issue, according to a new poll.

By a margin of 39 percent to 33 percent, with 28 percent undecided, participants in an Argus Leader/KELO-TV poll this month said the city should use snowgates that prevent plows from heaping snow berms across driveways.

The 28 percent does not surprise me, like I said, most people have not seen them in use. But what I think is amazing is that 39 percent want them. I think the jury is out, and it is pretty clear. One more year of (FAIR) testing (USING PROPER EQUIPMENT AND NOT AN INFERIOR PRODUCT) and we are good to go. If the city council and mayor don’t implement this city wide by next year at this time, expect to see a ballot question on the November 2012 election about snowgates. We are getting them one way or another kids. We won’t let no stinking politicians or crabby newspaper publishers get in our way. Will we?

Inspired by Angry Guy’s hilarious comment on the AL forum today

l3wis June 28, 2011 21Comments

AngryGuy

8:11 AM on June 28, 2011

Maybe we could drop a cool million studying the impact of snow gates on each neighborhood in Sioux Falls. Plow It Downtown!

Snow gate test used inferior product

l3wis June 27, 2011 5Comments

You can watch the presentation here. You can view the PDF document: snow-gates (sorry if it is low resolution, they are not making it available on the city website yet, not sure why, so I created this from screenshots). UPDATE: 7/5/11: CLEAR DOCUMENT. Where’s the transparency Mike?

I will share some highlights of the test, and will say that Galynn Huber and Mayor Huether spoke very positive for the most part about them, so did several city councilors, that was refreshing.

Quick notes:

• Using snow gates vs. traditional plowing will cost an extra 33%. Which is ironic when you think about all the double-digit water increases, this is actually a pretty good value 🙂

• It will cost the city a half-million every 5 years to install

• It narrows the streets more (normal narrowing is 2.5 feet compared to 7 feet with snow gates)

• They tested IRONEX’s product vs. HENKE. Both the best in the biz, except, HENKE are better because they lift upright instead of winging out. Upright is more effective because they don’t take out mailboxes, etc. HENKE are more expensive though. They are recommending we use HENKE next year, and may test them. This detail is a bit fishy, for a couple of reasons. As I understand it (and please correct me if I am wrong) city ordinance requires them to use low bid, Ironex was low bid, BUT, the mayor can override this. I think Munson did it on several occasions. So why didn’t Huether override the Ironex decision . . .

• We had an above average snowfall this year, coupled with using an inferior product, they admitted that the 33% number could go down quite a bit with less snow and better product.

I was glad to see Huber admit that he was surprised by how well they worked. Let’s hope they are here to stay.

To Snowgate or NOT to Snowgate, that is the question.

l3wis May 30, 2011 10Comments

Mayor Huether doesn’t want to ‘Pull the Trigger’ yet.

Citywide use of snowgates is unlikely next winter. Officials are in the process of putting together next year’s budget, and it doesn’t appear that more snowgates will be included. Regardless, Mayor Mike Huether said he wants to test the devices again next winter.

“In business, we would test things multiple times before we would pull the trigger,” he said.

In other words They work really well and we need to test (sabotage) them one more year before killing them;

Snowgate proponent Theresa Stehly said she’s happy the issue’s going to be discussed, but she questions the city’s need to continue studying the issue. Simply put, they’re popular with residents.

“I’ve heard rumors that they’re going to keep them going until they can nail the coffin shut,” she said.

C’mon Big ‘T’ can we be a little more positive like the mayor:

Even so, Huether said he knows there’s popular support for the devices. That’s why it’s important to get an accurate cost-benefit analysis.

“It’s one of those balancing things,” he said. “You’re trying to balance the needs of the city, the wants of the public, and trying to balance that with the other parts of government. And that’s what we’re going to try and do.”

Blah, Blah . . . Blah, Blah, Blah (we need money for an events center) Blah, Blah, Blah.