Maybe its not the Strategy, but the Attitude.

So, I posted about the strategy on downtown snow removal and the snow emergency zone (SEZ) and my unhappiness with it. I’m largely not affected, but annoyed as hell. People probably don’t understand why, but its because of the attitude of staff about it and their unwillingness to do anything different. Here’s a few examples of that attitude, and why I get so annoyed.

Not surprisingly, I know a few alders pretty well and talk with some of them regularly. As a result of one conversation, I requested some email responses to my blog post, and here are a couple of the comments. Names have been removed to protect the innocent!

One alder forwarded the blog post along with these comments:

1. Update the Winter Portal to include clear information about parking options during a declared emergency. I couldn’t find it there. It would be helpful to include information about both the PU and Parks parking options. I have added xxxxxx and xxxxxxx to this conversation to assist with this point.

2. Distribute our public education card again in the SEZ. I know that the PEOs have done this again some prior winters. I can’t recall if it was, as Brenda suggests, when citations were issued or on separate evenings. Another idea along these lines is to include the appropriate City website in the “remarks” section of issued SEZ citations. xxxx, what do you think of these ideas? What is currently printed in the “remarks” section?

Well, the typical responses, that I had heard for years, ensued.

I fail to recall no snow emergency when we received five inches of snow. Perhaps it was in reference to the back to back storms of a year or so ago when we did not plow residential on the first two days because more snow was coming on the third. As for not giving warnings, this is just pure bunk. We have texts, e-mails, and media alerts.

The bottom line is that most of the people who park on the street find it cheaper to risk tickets than pay for off street parking. They choose to not move their cars due to the inconvenience of having to park several blocks from their house or using a City ramp which is basically free during snow emergencies and, if they do have to pay, they pay only a few dollars as compared to $60 ticket.

But, I am not telling you something you don’t already know.

The snowstorm was this year where there was 5 inches of snow and no snow emergency – that is part of the inconsistency, but they apparently don’t even know it. From January 13th of this year:

Snow Plowing Updates
by Chris Kelley, Interim Streets Superintendent
posted January 13, 2012 5:11 AM
As I am writing this today, we have received around 5.2″ of snowfall from the long lasting light snow that fell from Thursday morning and continued all day on Thursday and into Friday morning.

The salt routes are being salted again this morning. The snow did come to a stop around 1:00 am. We hope to have all the salt routes resalted by the morning rush hour but there will definitely be some slippery conditions on them during the morning drive.

We are also currently in the process of plowing all residential streets in the City. We started that process during the overnight hours and the process will continue throughout the day until all streets, cul de sacs and alleys are plowed. We will have approximately 175 pieces of equipment out performing the combination of plowing the residential streets and salting the main arterials and salt routes. It may take a little longer to plow all the residential streets as we have to take 30 of our plow trucks away from plowing the residential streets to salt our main arterials. We hope to have all the residential streets plowed by 10:00 am or soon after.

There has not been a Snow Emergency declaration and we are not expecting to declare one for this storm. However, we ask that if possible, park your vehicles off the street at least until the plows come through so the plows can be more efficient and your cars don’t get plowed in.

That jog your memory at all?

Here’s another comment from the same staff person:

Nothing we do will change the fact that the vast majority of people who park on the street in the SEZ have no intention to move their cars. They willingly risk tickets because it is cheaper than paying for off street parking.

This past year we undertook a significant expense to post signs on every block in the downtown warning that the streets were subject to winter parking regulations, something we do not do anywhere else where people are ticketed regularly from 11/15-3/15. It has made no difference.

I predict that anything we can do in the future will make no difference. We notify, we warn, and we sign and still people whine.

Again, part of the issue with the signs is that they failed to call the snow emergency the first time this winter when there was 5 inches of snow – so people probably just ignored the signs since they didn’t do anything when it snowed enough to shovel the first time this year.

From another staff person:

We leafleted the entire SEZ twice this season with distributing over 2,000 postcards. We can add them again to the next snow emergency but I am sure we will get the same complaint from Brenda again about not warning people who have already been warned twice this season.

Now, I park my car on the street every night, and I only got one postcard – and it was last November I think. But, what I meant about a “warning” is that the first snow storm of the year, they should NOT give tickets, but things that look like tickets and inform people about the snow emergency rules. You know, like when the cops pull you over for not wearing your seatbelt and they give you a warning instead of a ticket. That is what I mean by a “warning”.

Anyways, still annoyed, and its cuz of this attitude.

Ironically, the Saturday night of my post, I went to the Crystal Corner Bar to see Rob play with two other bands. It was a good night, after splitting the door with the other bands and tipping the bartenders, the 6 members of Electric Spanking each got . . . you guessed it . . . $60. Unfortunately, according to at least one person, there were three parking jeeps in the area and they were rushing to give out tickets at 1:00 to the bar patrons on Willy St and 2 band members and one girlfriend got . . . you guessed it . . . $60 tickets. So essentially half the band money from the night went to parking tickets. One band member saw the signs, but doesn’t live downtown and thought they parked on the correct side of the street. The girlfriend doesn’t live downtown and I’m not sure, but probably didn’t expect it – the third persons should have known better (lives downtown) but spaced it.

Reminds me of the night I was at the Cardinal Bar and had parked my car in a cleared out parking space. I was drinking so walked home. Came back in the morning and got a $60 ticket and was kinda surprised because it was a parking meter and for some reason I never thought about the snow emergency zone applying to commercial areas/parking meters since they clear out those areas so much faster and better and the whole side of the street was cleared. I might have even assumed I was on the correct side of the street. Well, duh. Makes sense that I got a ticket in retrospect, but I’ve been to so many meetings about this and it never came up and I didn’t think about it.

So, there you go, this downtown Snow Emergency Zone is anti-business (for the band members and the bars) and encourages drunk driving. But, its a cash cow for the city, so I guess it’s ok.