2.19.2025 City Council - Committee on Public Works & Transportation

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City Council Committee on Public Works and Transportation will come to order.

Call the RO.

Councelor Leanuel here.

Councelor Hart. Chair Camara here. Council had notified the secretary that he could not attend today's meeting. Um he's unable to be here.

Pursuant to the open meeting law, any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit this meeting to any medium.

Attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or transmissions are being made whether perceived or unpersceived by those present and not deemed acknowledged and permissible.

Item number one, we have citizens input time. However, no one has signed up for citiz. Is that correct?

Item number two, going to read the minutes of the November 12th, 2025 public works and transportation meeting.

Motion to wave the reading and approve the minutes.

Motion to wave the reading and approve the minutes has been made by councelor Kendul. I second that motion. All in favor?

I.

I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Item number three is a resolution convey with representatives of department of community maintenance, division of traffic and parking, public safety chiefs and chief operating officer for public schools to discuss the snow removal protocols following the storm of January 25 and 26 of 2026. It was adopted February 10th, 2026. We'll hold discussion and possibly table or

whatever the committee's wishes may be.

At this time, will everyone who's involved want to come down, please?

I'm not going to call you down one by one. We'll just come down. If we need more chairs, we can pull some of the council's chairs.

I just grab a couple of council chairs.

There's another one here. We should be good.

Council Pico is going to join us in the meantime. Might as well put that down.

I know there's quite a few people.

Councelor K, myself have a few questions. Um, so when we do when you get a chance to speak, could everyone just introduce yourselves and what department you went and then just give us try to be brief and to the point as po as much as possible. There is a letter sent in from a constituent um, I'll read the letter now. He asked that it be read. This is from former city councelor Mike Moza um, dated February

19th, 2020 to the council committee on public and transportation. and I wish to express my sincere appreciation for your efforts in convening a public meeting to address and listen to the concerns regarding the inadequate management of the recent snowstorm in Fore River. As a resident of a steep deadend street, I experienced significant difficulties due to the street not being properly plowed

for several days. It's my understanding that many constituents face similar challenges throughout the city. I recognize the ongoing difficulties the city has encountered in hiring drivers as well as the impact of insurance premiums and the timely payments for drivers which may contribute to these issues. I respectfully encourage the committee to thoroughly examine the root cause and to develop rational concrete

solutions to ensure effective snow removal and safety accessibility for all residents. As a taxpayer, I experienced the winter storms. I expect winter storms are managed properly so that the needs of the community are met respectfully. Michael Elmyoza sent in by him. That is his sentiments and his thoughts.

Um, and that's it.

So, do we want to have someone you want to ask questions? You want to have an overall? You want to have everyone give a brief explanation? Why don't we Why don't we do this? Why don't we start with Mr. Pico and I know Mr. Pico says he has another commitment that he has to get to shortly. So he'd be here for about maybe an hour and 10 minutes or so possibly. Um state your name who you're

from and then if you could Mr. Pico just give us what your challenges were that you saw with that last storm. It was a significant storm. Um make no doubt about it. And then what the problems were um what you expect to do differently or what we can do differently as a community to maybe try to avoid that in the future. and and every snowstorm is different and for river is a very very difficult city to

plow with the number of hills dead ends uh when the weather was this snowstorm was a major snowstorm and it had a lot of ice effect as well which made it difficult to get back out there and and do a a pretty tough job. So with that, Mr. Pico, do you want to go ahead?

Sure. Ken Pico, chief operating officer of For Public Schools. Um, I think that this storm, like any major snowstorm, um, our main issue is trying to get back in school. You know, uh, with this this amount of snow was very difficult to predict how many days we were going to be out. Uh, part of part of our problem is even on good weather, uh, streets are narrow. Uh, we've got we run about 120

pieces of equipment. Um, as far as buses and getting buses around the city is a is a challenge when it's nice, never mind when uh we have, you know, 14 inches of snow uh becomes a real challenge. Other pieces is obviously getting to and from school. 50% of the of the students of the 11,000 students that are in forever public schools are walkers and 50% ride. So we we have that

challenge also trying to get kids safely across streets, crosswalks. Um so those are the the main challenges. We have eight employees um that do snow removal at at our um 18 schools. Um and we do use private contractors to do regular snow plowing um in order to even on let's say five six inches of snow just to get schools open in time depending on when a storm hits. We do use private contractors. So

that's always a challenge. Um this storm presented the hauling piece that you know we all know is very very expensive for the city. Um and um we were able to manage between um the resources that uh DCM, you know, sent our way and also the ones um that have worked for us over the years to get the parking lots cleaned out, to get the uh play areas, so to speak, cleaned so that

the students could show up and um and have a relatively normal um start. So there were two days off uh two days snow days um that um that we had and um again as as when things are really good getting around the city uh is tough on the buses um there was streets that we couldn't get up up and down. Uh, and again, DCM showed up uh to help us out on those corners, opening up the

corners, moving those big snow piles that were left in corners because we had no place else to put the snow uh on some of the streets uh in different areas of the city. The same areas, you know, that I had trouble with for the 10 years I was doing that job there. Um, there are some areas you just can't move in. uh and any kind of significant snow um you

just don't have a place to put the snow so it makes it very difficult. So I as on a whole um I thought we fared relatively well um again some of the matters out of our control and we tried to help wherever we could with crosswalks things like that but some of it is just outside of our you know jurisdiction as to how much we can help.

Um, I I don't I don't know if there's anything you can change other than physical pieces on the ground. Um, Mr.

uh Sutton, Commissioner Sutton, I should say, Commissioner Sutton um had uh showed me a list of pieces. So, basically, the last few years that I was here, we were well over 200 pieces of equipment on the road. And times were different then. the there was a lot of contractors that no longer either have equipment or are shifted over to state work. So those those particular pieces um are not, you know, within the city's

control always. Uh maybe there was a couple other factors in that piece, but I I believe that the only way to clean snow is having enough pieces to get things moving and being able to quickly turn into a hauling operation right after um so the businesses can um can open and do business.

Okay. Chief, you want to go I'd like to go through questions.

Okay, good.

So I think I've kind of divided my questions in kind of four phases. the pre-torrm planning that we did once we realized, hey, there's going to be a big storm, what our planning involved and our readiness around that. The second would be kind of during the storm uh challenges and things like that. Uh third would be once the snowflakes ended, you know, that storm response in that first week after and then, you

know, I'd like to close with kind of the moving forward, what do we do different for the next big storm, which will happen at some point. Um so I just want to start with um how many total pieces of snow removal equipment does the city have available across all departments and whoever speaks to that if you can just introduce yourself please.

Ala director of city operations.

councelor, we um we have se uh 14 uh in-house uh psalters that also um is a plow.

Um the week prior to that, we we actually um added four more um inserts.

So that brought us up to 14. We have 14 in-house small plows. That's a total of 28 pieces. with other departments such as parks and cemeteries. Our total pieces for in-house pieces were 36.

We brought in 44 pieces uh from privates and that totaled up to 80 pieces total.

Um and we have a list of what other I'd like to share that the counselors if you look Thank you.

share that here. If you look, we have um in 2016 we had 247 pieces and in 2026 we had a total of 58 which roughly is within that uh private area.

Um so a lot a lot of that was due to insurance issues from past um past mayors. So, uh, and luckily enough, we had Bill came up to me and, uh, and the mayor and basically said that let's re let's find a way to get rid of this insurance.

And we we talked to the corporation council and he okayed that. Um, it's it was a binder. It was a secondary insurance 1 million, right? I think correct.

I mean, that's a that's a contractor's insurance policy. Um, so the the corporation council allowed us to do that. within a matter of days, two or three days, we gained 20 pieces. Uh, so when did that policy begin? Do you know what year?

[clears throat] No, I'm saying when when did they put that policy?

Was it between 2017 and 2018?

I can't remember the date, but I remember the [clears throat] issue. It was they had plowed a bunch of ice into the uh glass storefronts on Pleasant Street and after that Jason Car and Jenna Andre implemented the policy.

Okay. uh just for the benefit of the public who doesn't have the information you shared with the um council kamar and I uh 2016 uh you said there were 247 private ps 2017 254 in fiscal year 2018 it drops to 155 so it drops by 99 pieces that's where I would expect probably that policy took effect fiscal 2019 was 140 2020 153 2021 was 127 2022 was 99 2023 66 24 64 2550 and

fiscal this year 2658. So obviously we're at you know a fifth close to it of where we were a decade ago which obviously makes a dramatic difference.

Um the insurance is brought up um when we think about the insurance we we got that waved by the corporation council.

Uh, how many days before the storm was that waved?

Probably two to three days.

Yeah, two to three days. Okay. And there there was talk about [clears throat] doing something like that, but it just never materialized because we looked at it and said, well, there was there's an insurance binder.

So, if we remove that insurance, maybe there's a concern, something happens, someone's liable. So, corporation council did a a quick dive and and found out that we really don't need it. It's an additional I mean everyone's everyone has insurance working.

So how did we get the word out that we lifted that? Right. So as as we think about trying to attract trucks obviously that removal can be a big difference because we had you know 100 truck drop just in that first year of the policy.

So how do we get that word out because I know we saw things after the storm on the city Facebook page looking for drivers you know come you know plow for the city. the day that we actually did receive the authorization to remove it, we actually put out a flyer and we put in I mean we we put it on Facebook. We we did any any type of verbal communication. We talked to vendors. We

we had vendors that called us up after we we tried to do a dry call on some of these vendors. So it was just trying to expedite as fast as possible to get as many as [clears throat] we could.

Okay. I did get I've heard um from some people that one reason they don't want to apply for the city is is the payments and uh this has been an issue in the past for the city. Uh I pulled the data uh Miss Harveky provided to me uh 81% of the invoices that for plows uh for the big big snowstorm January 25th and 26th have been paid and if they haven't been

paid it's probably because they didn't submit that you know that quickly after the storm. So, uh, I I just want it out there for the record, um, that, uh, the city is making timely payments to people. That is an issue that was in the past and is no longer an issue. So, I think I just I've heard that continue.

Uh, as we've talked about not having as many trucks out there, people mentioned that to me and I said, I don't think that's true anymore. I do have the data on that that backs that up. So council just to add uh Bill Sutton an interim director of uh DCM just to add the snow vendors do not put in invoices.

Okay.

So the sector leaders which Mr. Hathaway is one of them. He'll fill out his form submit it and then Can you talk into the microphone please?

Just so we So Mr. Hathaway is a sector leader also.

He'll put in a a sector sheet with all the vendors on it. Okay.

And then we'll put it into the computer and get them paid.

Okay. Okay.

So, they don't have to submit anything.

That's good to know. Good clarification.

Thank you.

Um, so you've listed the total pieces that we had out there. Were there any that were down and not available because they were broken?

Yeah, there's uh they go down every could be every hour or could be not at all. We had a lot of situations where the ice dams were coming up into the windshields and freezing up the windshield wipers and stuff. We had to bring them in. I'm sorry.

Push it close to you. You got plenty of room now.

We had to we had to bring them back into the garage, let them warm up a little bit. We had situations where um the salt was kind of stuck in the m in the in the salter itself. So, you got to bring that in. You got to hose it down with a little water and it just loosens right up and then you send them back on the road.

Council, I I will say it's very typical, right? When you're in a snowstorm, you're going to get some pieces down automatically. um you bring them in.

That's why we have the mechanics all ready to go. We have the uh blades. We have everything ready to go just to make the repairs. So any type of snow, whether it's we're deicing, whether we're plowing, there's going to be some pieces that go down. It's just the expedition to expedite it to get back on the road.

Um, I've seen in other communities like some of those machines that have like a big chute that many city big cities particularly who don't want to just pile up the snow or particularly run out of places to put it. They will kind of have two trucks, a dump truck kind of tailing this vehicle that, you know, processes we'll call it, shoots it down into a dump truck. Um, I thought the city had

one of those type of shoot type trucks.

Did we have that active during the big storm working?

No. No, councel because it's it first of all it was broke. The chute was broke on it and even if it was it's not that large of a capacity where it's going to probably shoot into a lodge dump truck.

It's a it's our trackless machine.

Okay.

So we don't have one. He's talking [clears throat] about different a different animal.

Right. We don't own one. What he's talking about we do have something that has small capacity.

Yeah.

But not for what we have one.

Yeah.

Correct.

Correct. And we don't have any no melters of any kind either.

That's not that's not a common piece that that we use in this area. I mean other I'm sorry but Al now it's your turn to talk into the microphone. Can we give them guys another microphone so I can split it? It's just we do have a zoom out. Okay. So now you got two microphones.

It's not that difficult. Put one in front of one in front of you. Bill, we uh they're right there. We had our brand new brine system in uh installed maybe what a day before the storm, two days before the storm, right? So, what we did was right after the storm, I sent it out on a side street to test it and it started melting the snow. So, we do have

that in our tool belt now to melt snow.

It's a brine machine, so it's not a specific snow melter, but we have been using that and um we just updated our brine uh system and Billy tried that out with talking to the consultant that we used and it's been working and it's been working very well. So, the brine is definitely a big piece that we're using heavily. Now, if I may ask, just a point of clarification, how big is it?

It's a it's it's an insert in a in a vehicle and it just sprays. It just it just back of a pickup truck, right?

Okay.

Well, them are the new ones we're going to order.

Okay.

So, we do have one that has the uh has the container on the back of it and that has about 900 gallons in it.

Okay. These are size of a pickup truck.

You know, this one's a a old converted sweeper.

Okay. So, size of a sweeper, right? All right. Thank you.

Council, you still have the floor.

When does the city begin securing private plow contractors for the winter season?

We'll start all year long. If somebody comes to us in the summer and they want to join up, we'll we'll sign them up.

I guess my question is more, do we have like a formal, you know, in the fall, let's say before the the winter season begins, put out, you know, requests for Yes, we start we start beating the drum right about winter season, right?

November 1st is our winter season. So, pretty much November 1st, we'll start calling vendors and say, "Hey, the apps are out. Come on in and get them." and you know, we'll get you inspected and get you on the road.

Okay. And then from the data you provided, we only had 27 signed up this year before the insurance requirement was lifted and now we have 58 vendors.

And we're a little bit over that, too.

Okay.

Um, do we feel there are any barriers to recruitment or availability of private plows? I know you mentioned a lot of them have gone to the state. Is it the rates the state's paying? like what are the what are the differences? What do we have to look at here in our city to attract them? Because there are other communities getting these private plows and I want to know what we can do

because I do believe that the number one issue we had was we didn't have enough trucks out there.

Um I mean I think Mr. Pico had mentioned you know there were days we had 200 probably I think I remember 250 well we got right here 254 at one point. So um obviously we are a fraction of that even with a couple more trucks today. We are not ready in my opinion from a just a sheer volume of truck perspective for a big storm if it comes this weekend, next

month or next year. And I want to try and figure out what's at the heart of attracting people. That's why I wanted to make sure we got the payments uh thing, you know, put to rest because we are paying timely. So what are the barriers?

So I I know the last few years we've uh reviewed all the the um the the rates that we've had. We've tried to match the state rates um every the last couple years. So, we have been swinging those rates to that point and a lot of times we'll swing the rates adjacent typical to the state and then they'll switch it right back. They'll up up their ante.

So, what's the state rate?

Uh, it it varies per piece. It varies.

Councelor, if I may add something to that.

Sure.

Uh, Glenn Hathway.

So, I run a sector. My biggest complaints are a the conditions of the roads. Um, you talk about breakdowns.

Uh, a guy can put x amount of dollars into his truck, go out, and in five minutes he's on his way home because he hits the first manhole cover. I've seen it happen. It happens on every storm in some way or another. Um, but most importantly is the rates. you need to constantly yearly up the rates or be manageable to the state with the rates uh in in order to keep the guys. The

second piece of that was that insurance policy that we have now uh given up that set a lot of drivers back in the sense that they couldn't afford to pay that policy, the premium on that policy and not get called out for a storm.

And if you're going to put those expenses into play, such as an insurance policy, then you're going to call the guys out during a snowstorm. If you're not going to call them out, they're not going to they can't afford it. They're going to go broke. So the with the insurance policy gone, that's a big plus uh to recruit more drivers. Now, you got to look at the pay schedule and see and

make sure that we're compatible to surrounding towns and so on. Um, and at the same time, uh, if you're going to do that, then you got to call the guys out when it snows.

And if and and we have a policy. I'm not speaking for DCL, okay? Speaking for me at at I believe it's 3 in before we stop plowing in the city, which is a good rate, a good number, and most guys understand [clears throat] that. But at the same time, if you get 4 in and you think you got it made, you need to call out plows because they got expenses that

they've put into the trucks. And I'm speaking on behalf of the drivers that you didn't invite to this meeting. Okay?

And I'm just You're asking the questions and I'm telling you why they're not coming. Okay? They're not coming because they can't keep up with the expenses if they're not going to get called out. So therefore, they don't put plow trucks together anymore. Bottom line.

So one of the things that that uh Mr.

Haway is talking about uh the prior storms that we've had little small one to three inches. We will we will de ice we will start brining. We will try to use the [clears throat] salt as much as we can without without having to draw the blades. And we've been doing a lot of that work inhouse. Uh one that we were were able to do that number two uh it was a major savings by us doing that.

So we utilized our staff and Mr.

Hathaway is 100% right. vendors are out there, they need to be called, but we have to make that judgment whether we need it or we don't need it. By by salting and by maintaining that um those 1 to three inches, there was a major savings that would that we had every single snowstorm. And we had probably about four four backtoback little one to three inch storms prior to this larger

one. So, um that was the history that we've had this year.

So, vendors needing to be called. Do we think we could be in a situation where we're calling too late that other communities have already secured them or no?

I don't think I don't think that was the issue. I think it's repetitiveness to make sure that we do get them called.

The last few years since I've been here, we haven't called many many vendors out.

We reallyed snowed in 5 years. Yeah.

So people with plot trucks weren't getting rid of them, maintaining them, paying insurance.

So now you have a major snowtorm snowstorm. This is going to happen.

Absolutely. That's why you only had 56 trucks for the last few years because you don't need this truck. I got a snowblower home. I think I used it four times in the last six years, right? And that's that's that's residential right?

You're exactly right, councelor.

Say we haven't had snow in the past several years. The a lot of the guys give it up with the insurance policy requirement and they haven't put the trucks back on the road.

I know.

Uh we've had no snow.

Hasn't snowed. Then you get a big snow like this and no one's prepared for it.

Hypothetically, what do you think might happen if we paid slightly above the state rate for a particular storm? Do you think what number do you think we could get ourselves [clears throat] to?

So, we have we talked about some type of a uh a bonus or some type of a sign on type bonus. We talked about u going above the state. So, there's been a lot of communication about that and up upping the last couple years uh those rates. I don't know if we really thought it was a major issue at that point. So, uh, and I really don't think it could be the, uh, the rates. I mean,

if we go above at the state rate, I think we will get a we'll get enough people, but it's just it's it's hard to hard to, uh, forecast at this point.

But to answer his question, hypothetically, if you pay people more money, you're going to get more people showing up.

Without a doubt. Without a doubt.

Yeah. The more you want to pay them, the more people going to show up and the more you're going to get people involved. Yeah. Absolutely.

Counselor, if I may, Glenn Hathaway. So again, I used to plow, okay? And I plowed for both the state and the city.

You're talking oranges and apples, okay? There is no lumps. There is no bumps on the highways. There is no obstacles on the highways.

Okay? So anybody that's plowing for the state is going to stay at the state level. Okay? As long as the pay is there. Getting somebody to come from the state to four river to plow, it's because he got fired from the state.

He's not coming here because he he wants to. He's coming here because he enjoys plowing for river. Uh the streets are the highways and everything else, the offramps night and day. So nobody's going to buy a brand new $150,000 truck, put a plow on it, and come to Four River. They're going to stay on the highways. And you can change the rates.

You need to be compatible. Yes. But other than that, they're not going to come to for river because of the obstacles, cars, traffic, so on and so forth. And our roads, narrow streets, be honest about ice, parking bands, not everybody moves.

Okay. What forecast are I think we've covered the operational criteria of three inches. So, what forecast guide pre-torm decisions? I did see that we when I was going through the financials, uh I think we pay a vendor for financial for weather forecast precision precision weather. Yeah.

And we uh Bill and I will always look at multiple um we'll look at the ACU weather, we'll look at weather channel, we'll look at the precision, we'll just value and see what what what they have differently. Um there's been times where we um went to sleep and we knew that the snow was going to be at 5 in the afternoon and guess what? At 7:00 in the morning we're bombarded. So it

it's the weather. The weather changes and if the meteorologists, the professionals can't get it right, we um we're just following their lead and we're we're making various different type of decisions. We're looking at the the humidity out there. We're looking at the road temperatures. We're looking at multiple things that we, you know, we're looking at the radars. So, we're we're

we're talking at night. We go to go to work and we'll talk at during the day and and then we're, you know, texting each other and calling each other and saying, "Hey, did you see this shifted?

This shifted." So, we're constantly looking at the weather a week a week in advance.

Um, and then every day after and every night.

Okay.

Let's talk about the parking ban. This parking ban went into effect I think 6 pm Saturday before the storm. Correct.

Yes.

Correct. Yeah.

Okay. If you can just state your name, please.

Stephanie McCarthy, director of traffic and parking.

Okay.

So, how many parking ban citations were issued for that specific storm? 2464.

And how many cars were towed?

137.

Okay.

So, the parking ban citation quantity is higher than New Bedford a little bit, but significantly under where they tow. They towed almost 500 cars. I think it was 466.

And so I think to the point uh the one of the biggest things I've heard from residents is the you know we have we put the parking ban in so they we leave a whole side of the street and we didn't plow to the curb which I understand during conditions made it difficult to do that but then in once those flakes stopped um I think that people have an expectation that we're going to get to

that curb so that when we do lift the ban that they'll be able to park on that side of the street and people weren't able to do that um New Bedford did lift their parking ban notably earlier. I think it was Monday evening after the storm versus uh we lifted I believe it was on the Saturday. Um so the questions I have specifically, did we tow enough vehicles to help the drivers out there

be able to clean up the streets the way we needed to?

So we didn't start to vehicles until January 25th at 8 a.m.

25th was a Sunday.

Correct.

We wanted to give residents the opportunity to move the vehicles prior to towing. And that that's the plan. The plan that's why we put the parking ban in place so early. Um we want to get those cars moved so the plows can essentially plow to the curb.

Okay.

Do we with the storm starting? You know, I forget when the first snowflake start.

I feel like it was in the early afternoon or maybe a few snowflakes in the morning. If we don't plan on towing till 8 am, um I know when you take away a whole side of parking for people, it's very difficult for them to find a spot.

Absolutely.

Um I mean, could should we have looked at something like, you know, by 6:00 a.m. or 7 a.m. or do we think that's just not practical? I know we started ticketing right said evening. I know some people saying that, but um I think people find it very difficult to park.

Um when I mean I think you know I've heard a lot of concerns about you know when we wave um zoning things uh that you know allow apartments to be built, houses to be built, bringing two or three cars onto a street you know when and you're taking out curb you're reducing the number of parking spots. So, I think um do we still think 6 p.m. the night before based on how the storm played out was

the right time to place the parking ban? Absolutely.

Absolutely. We So, enforcement needs to begin prior to the snow hitting. And with the city being so large to get the police officers to every street in the city, depending on how many police officers we have working the parking ban can be difficult. Okay.

of the 137 cars that we towed, was that throughout the city? I've heard um I don't have anything valid, but um I've heard it came from central area or same street or a portion of that.

So, it was it was throughout the city when we were contacted by the sector leaders of the more difficult areas.

Okay. Was there any particular street or avenue in particular that stood out was having the most or no?

No. I think um JT deputy chief of police, uh I work with uh Miss MacArthur pretty frequently. We had a storm prior to this big storm that we had to debrief and kind of learn from some mistakes that we may have made in the previous storm, which wasn't as impa impactful as this one. That's why we took the stance we did with the notice on the 22nd of January. We kind of um in our humor on

our page said, "The parking van's coming to town." um and kind of gave people the notice and then we put in the firm time that it was going to begin. Uh we had over 40 police officers that were working handing out those citations. So where they weren't just, you know, a lot of people were complaining that, hey, they're just ticketing. No, these officers were going down some of the

streets and talking on the loudspeaker, hitting their siren to kind of let people know, hey, we're in the neighborhood. We're going to sweep back through and gave some people some time to move around. We understood the weekend was filled with sporting events that were on. people were going to hunker down for the storm. So, there was a lot of jockeying for space out there that was occurring. I know that the city

lots were filled very, very quickly once we announced that that uh ban was going to be put in place. Um, but as far as the strategy, we looked at some of the problem areas we've had from storm to storm and that was the places that we hit enforcement pretty quickly. As far as towing, uh, we had the tow companies on notice on Friday to staff up. So, our effectiveness has been better than it's

been, but to the point we made earlier, this is a storm that we haven't had in probably five or six years, maybe more than that. So, kind of getting into the procedural uh practice here or system in place of what we're doing. So, I know you're comparing to to New Bedford towing over 500 cars. I'm not sure of their procedure, but I know there were physical streets in New Bedford and

speaking to my public safety partners there that were completely impassible.

So I I don't think there were many streets in Forever on main thorough affairs that were completely impassible.

But I think at a certain point in the storm from a public safety aspect, I know at noon time on Sunday, the police department made the the effort uh to go to just emergency calls only because we have to worry about the safety of the first responders uh because we don't want to create more problems. But also our tactic then goes to just the main thoroughfares because that's the emergency routes to get to the hospitals

to have the firefighters get to the major areas the EMS to get to the major areas. So there is some fluidity to the strategy. But as far as back to the question you asked, the towing operations were throughout the city, but I think some people impacted in the thickly settled areas because we knew those were going to be problems. So we needed to get the cars out of there.

Where do we tow the cars? Is it just to the lots of whoever the towing? So I think because we gave the tow company such a a a big a big notice ahead of time they were able to identify annex lots that they keep them to uh we do have a policy in fact at the police department if we ever reached uh you know of epic proportions we would then

close Britain Park and that would be a secured area where we would man and tow all the cars there uh essentially putting the entire burden on the city to manage the inventory of all the vehicles the security of those vehicles. I think over the the years these tow companies have expanded their capacity and that's really what they're in it for is the revenue associated with uh the tow cost.

So that was the strategy we took.

Okay. Thank you.

Um so what was the deployment timeline from the first crews um of trucks that we had out there to kind of full operations because right in the beginning of the storm you get the you know you're just getting the flies right. So maybe you have the Sanders or the Salters out there. So at what point do we ramp up to the full operations?

Good.

All right. So that also depends on, you know, how much snow's coming down and, you know, so then we'll call in the sector leaders. The sector leaders actually went out with traffic and help traffic out with their problem areas. So they were already in house. So by that time when it started snowing good, we had them call out their pieces. Our pieces were already in. So, and with the

salt shortage too, it wasn't too easy to salt everything because we didn't have much salt. So, I kept that mainly for weight and post storm. Normally, we'll go by a street, we'll plow the street, and we'll salt it from behind. And we didn't really have that opportunity with the salt shortage. We only had like 300 ton on hand.

When did we start running low on this the salt?

We were running low before the storm. I ordered salt maybe a week before the storm and yesterday the order was complete.

So, so a week before the storm, yesterday completed the uh what I order, thousand ton, 20200.

Yeah, 1,200. Then I ordered another 1,200 yesterday and that was complete today. So, we're full. We're completely full.

Just out of curiosity, is that typical ordering one week before you know a storm's coming, a significant storm, or is that late behind or is it early? No, it's it's plenty plenty of time. Yeah.

It's just they had a salt shortage, so they didn't really [clears throat] have any to give us the supplier.

Yeah.

Okay.

Then it would come sporadic after the storm. Hey, we can give you an extra hundred or an extra Where are they coming from?

Middle Street. Saltine Warrior on Middle Street.

Yeah. Down at the bottom of Middle Street where Duro Pioneer used to be.

Okay.

Um, next question. Uh, I'll shift it to public safety. Um, from a police, fire, EMS perspective, were there known access concerns going into the storm, particularly narrow or densely parked streets? And then in particular, um, do you still have any today?

Chief Mons from EMS. When we had our uh premeating, um the parking van and the towing was partially because of EMS and fire because the cars that parked too close to the corners, we have difficulty making the corner. And um what happens is you can't get down that street to get to um houses. So it was preemptive that it was a great planning and we didn't run into any of that in this storm. So,

I have to give everybody kudos for that.

We didn't end up with any streets that we couldn't make the corner. We did have one street that we had our truck was concerned about getting stuck. It had been plowed, but not plowed where they felt comfortable. And I called um DCM and they came and did us did a pass that we could make sure um the fire department, I have to give them um say thank you to them. They put up a truck

so that we had extra shovelers and lifters. Um the police department as always is, you know, comes and helps. We put we uh beefed up our rescues and put extra manpower on the rescues. We shut down those transfer trucks that we have because we weren't going to go outside of the city in that weather. So, we were so we took those guys and we we dispersed them onto our rescues and we

had three men trucks so that we were able to lift and shovel patients out because pulling a stretcher in 22 inches of snow is a feat. Um, but as far as logistically trying to make the corners, which we have had in past storms, which is a big problem for both fire and EMS, and their trucks are a little bit bigger, so they might have a little more impact, but we can't make that swing. So

people don't realize in a snowstorm, oh, I can I can squeeze my car in here, but the problem is we can't make the corner to get down down those streets.

And just to be clear, I think, M.

McCarth, right, is the rule. And I think I've heard so much about why is it 20 feet? I think that's a a good explanation.

And if and also in in in uh in defense of the parking ban and I know that I'll probably get shot in the parking lot, but uh we can't get down the narrow streets if there's cars on both sides on a good day half the time. So when you add 20 inches of snow and if you slip the back end of the truck slips a little bit, you're going to hit a park car. You can't get

down some of the side streets like Division, those streets that are up off of Broadway. you um William Street, you can't get down those side streets with parking. Hope Street, you can't get down those streets on a good day with parking on both sides. So, when you add the snow, it becomes a real logistical error uh logistical problem. So, you just want to make sure that you can get to people

in a timely manner safely. And um I think as far as public safety goes, we worked really well together. We managed to get everybody out of the house without any any problems. It was really good. the meeting that we had before where we discussed the parking ban and and it wasn't an easy decision I don't think from that meeting to decide whether we were going to tow or not but in previous storms we haven't towed and

that's where we ran into an issue where we can't make the corner to get down the street so then we have to hike up the street to get patients out which we've had to do in the past.

Good job. The other thing I'll add too is obviously all three departments worked together uh seamlessly through it all. I know people were very [clears throat] upset about the parking ban being prolonged and staying in effect, but it was our feeling that we wanted to keep it in effect because we were still doing hauling and cleanup efforts and if we lifted it then it was going to be Armageddon with people

parking everywhere. So, our thought process was to work through the hauling efforts to try to loosen up some areas and then eventually gradually go into um lifting it. From a police perspective, enforcement wise, we were more empathetic in the days after. We weren't ticketing as heavily. And we had specific overtime being hired so that officers would go around identifying issues where we were getting phone calls

for complaints. Pitman Street comes to mind because we had people parking on both sides of the street there. Public safety issued. was a fire engine, an EMS truck or a police car couldn't even get down there. Um, so we were kind of loosely enforcing and doing more discretionary action then and not necessarily towing or tagging, but trying to locate people and have them move. And in the wake of that, we had

that tragic incident [clears throat] on Barn Street. Uh, we had to get down a very narrow dead-end area where there was snow on both sides of the road and obviously we had an emergency to respond there and we were able to navigate through there. Not ideal, but we're able to do it. Um, but with that said, we obviously had concerns for the citizens, but we also had to make sure that we

weren't going to create gridlock for us not to be able to get to certain areas as well.

Mr. I'd really like to spend a little bit of time just understanding um why we didn't get to curb to curb uh well from we'll say middle of street to curb that one side that the parking ban did um affect because I think that's been the number one uh complaint still remains today even as you go through many streets. Um, you know, there's there's a lot of snow still out there. Even on,

you know, I was just down Bedford Street and, you know, right in front of Graham's Hot Dogs, you know, there's snow pile still there and I'm sure it's affecting their business. I'm sure it's affecting many other businesses out there. I've seen uh businesses hire private, you know, people to remove snow and take it away. So, I think just if you can help us understand the challenges encountered and particularly

why we didn't get to the curb like we have in past storms, I think that's the big thing, right? particularly to the point of the last few years have been mild and and when it's done a certain way, people come to expect that and when they didn't get that in the storm and if you can help understand why.

Sure.

Yeah.

Unfortunately, I need to um Any other questions for council?

I have one question.

But if I could the the fallacy of curb to curb um it it doesn't exist. And the reason for that is if you think about 20 inches of snow, 15 inches of snow.

You're pushing it to the sides. There's already 15 inches of snow on the side.

We would have not one single sidewalk to walk on in any neighborhood if you actually hit curbs in a storm this big.

It's not possible to do. You haul it away, but you can't move it away because there's no place to put it. So on a street, for instance, like Highland Avenue, you wouldn't have you wouldn't have sidewalks to walk on. On the side streets, the tight side streets, it would be up against people's houses. So curb to curb doesn't exist in any storm I would say above 10 inches of snow

because you can't you can't get rid of the snow unless you remove the snow unless you need a national guard to Exactly. I mean removing the snow is is totally a different thing. So I just I need to add that because I keep hearing it over and over again whether it's on media or whether it's just conversation from someone who was there. I can tell you that you can't move that kind of

snow and make it curb to curb on a street that doesn't have parking and no sidewalks. Absolutely. Because you're not impeding in anybody's, you know, walking area. But that that's all I have.

Thank you. Do you have any other questions from Mr.

I do have one. Yeah, I'll jump to that one. Uh for the schools, uh just last Friday, uh I was sent some pictures and just shown some pictures where students and this was at Tandy specifically on Rice Street. um that where they're trying to drop off children. Uh there's kind of snow between the sidewalk that is shoveled and then the street which has some snow up into the curb. But I

think uh the concern is people were trying to climb over those snow piles where well particularly the doors couldn't open um in those areas. So, um, you know, given that this was last Friday when they told me about that and shared some of those photos, um, what can we do differently from a school perspective, um, just to make sure that those drop off areas are done in a way that doesn't put children in the street?

So, I would say that, um, we do have a couple of pieces of equipment that could actually throw that snow um, or move it onto our property. And in some areas, we we did do that. Um, Ray Street is a relatively wide street, you know, normally. Um, but with the situation of that amount of snow, we did have to clean a sidewalk, a walking sidewalk.

So, there is a snow mound between that snow drift between the road and the sidewalk. The sidewalk I need for the students to walk and drop off areas are very difficult in any school. Uh, Tansey not as much as other schools. I mean, we do have some schools that are really, really bad in tight neighborhoods that we would definitely have that problem. I didn't realize that because I'm going to

tell you that this is the first time hearing about a Tansey issue. That's the other piece of making sure that it gets to the right people because I can't move what I don't know.

We end up cleaning that up yesterday, too.

So, perfect.

Thank you. Sorry.

And I will say any issues I brought to the administration yourself, uh, you guys have addressed them in fairly quick manner. I know there's a a long list of things, but um that's all the questions I have for to his point though, when you have a long stretch like that, you should make a couple of openings so that people can go from the street onto the sidewalk and it's usually the side because they can't

get across. They have to go over the big mountain of snow to get to the sidewalk that's clean or they got to walk all the way down the street to get to the sidewalk. By then, they're already in the parking lot to the school, right? So we should just try to have the guys whenever they're doing the sidewalk to make some passages onto the street as well so people can just break it up so

people can go from the street into the sidewalk very quickly.

Thank you, Mr. Chico.

Councelor, if I may add one thing to your question. Sure.

Curb the curb.

So when we plow, we plow away from the vehicles. Okay.

Towards the uh away from the fire hydrants, fire hydrant side or the open side of the street. That's what I nor I'm try.

Conditions sometimes do not allow us to get it all over there, such as the weight of the snow. Does it have water in it? Can we push it? Can the trucks are big enough to push that amount of snow to a wide street or or a narrow street? Even your question of why it wasn't curb curb is just like Mr.

Pico said, there wouldn't be any sidewalks. We're going to be buying fences. We're going to be buying all kinds of equipment that the that the residents own because we're going to be burying it in snow. So, we have to make a choice somewhere down the street where we stop with the snow and pushing it so that we don't impact the residents totally. And your reference is is what I

mean by that is in some cases we could be 5t away from the curb on a particular street. Well, that resident now has another five feet to get that snow before they can get in their driveway.

But you got to look at the weight of the snow, number one. Number two, you got to look at the time of day. People are standing in their driveways. They've already shoveled them. They don't want us pushing more snow closer to their to their side of the street. You got to look, there's a whole host of problems with a lot of this stuff. Sometimes the trucks are not heavy enough uh big

enough to push that amount of snow closer to the curb. Um, it would take a DCM truck full of salt, um, a triacle almost to push some of this snow based on the weight. We had 14 inches of snow.

It's an awful lot of snow and it piles up quite a bit as you've seen throughout the city. So, you you you try to do the best you can. You're not going to please everybody, but we're going to do our best. And it it it does, you're right, it does come off the curb, but you got to look at the number of inches we had.

Okay. The conditions that we face or anybody faces.

Yeah. I think to your point, um, what happened, I think, is the number of inches of snow that accumulated in certain areas got to a point where, you know, the trucks couldn't move as much.

Exactly.

Because we didn't have enough trucks.

Well, no. No. Yes or no? Yes or no? But the weight of the snow look at So in some cases in you're right in in in your three times as many trucks, four times as many trucks making more frequent passes, it's not going to accumulate as heavily.

Well, it if you add some water to it, it gets extremely heavy. Okay. And once you do that it and you expose a street, it call it's called I call it flashing. So the soon as you expose the street, you start spinning your wheels because it's frozen underneath it. It flashes to ice and it's impossible to push that kind of truck that kind of weight going up a

hill or down a hill in some of the se areas that I have.

That's where the mountains come in.

But to the counter's point, if we had more vehicles, then it' be more frequent and be less snow to push aside. So it it would help like we said earlier, but it's not going to be perfect even with more vehicles. But it would it would have helped.

I feel like the amount of snow is cumulative right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

With the with the mountains, right? So, she was talking about uh William Street, right? So, if you even go a block, cuz I used to live on William Street.

So, you can't even make a full block without making a mound with that type of snow. So, you would have a you you plow up, then all of a sudden you just come to a stop. So, you're going to leave that there, then start again. And I get it. If you're going down, what's the street? The first one off of Belleview Avenue and you go down and you're hitting Del W Street, it's

freezing. You're in a plow, you're pushing snow. That truck gets out of control. What are you going to I mean, it's it's not easy. If anyone's ever been in a plow truck while someone's plowing on one of these hills that is going parallel, you will see what it's like under treacherous conditions. It's not an easy task. I give people back credit.

I agree. It's it's a not an easy task.

down Herman Street sideways.

Yeah. Well, we I've seen come go sideways. Yeah. No, that's true.

But to his point is that if we had more vehicles, we make more frequent passes.

There'd be less snow to push over. It might help a little bit, you know, which is true.

But I think we have to remember this was a different storm. People, a lot of people died during the storm. Um not locally, but down south. And it was threequarters of a country was covered by the snowstorm. And we got hit with an awful lot of snow. And then it was cold for the next few days. Really cold, which made it even worse.

And with the lack of salt, you couldn't touch anything [clears throat] that froze.

Yeah. Not a good situation.

And then the subderee temperatures, right? Subderee temperatures didn't allow for any type of [clears throat] melting windchill. Um I do have to say that I I am very proud of the people that actually worked around the clock on several days.

Most of them moves 40 hours. the in on on a typical snowstorm, you have people that do what they need to do and they go. I had we had a lot of people that stayed on for the full two days. That's that's just you can't you can't there I don't even have words for that because these people are just they're they're they're hurting.

It's called a lot of coffee.

A lot of a lot of I mean we we made sure that they had breaks and around the clock I mean and everybody on this table they were there. I mean I we were there.

We were there around the clock with everyone. So, it's not easy, but I'm very proud of the people that actually did do the work around the clock.

I want the council to finish his question.

I am very appreciative of everyone who stayed and did those efforts. I do um enforcement um of people uh shoveling sidewalks. I don't think we have anybody from enforcement, but I was provided some information. So, I just want to highlight some of the things for the record because I've gotten a lot of calls. Um, you know, there's a mix between people who haven't shoveled their sidewalks. There's a mix of

businesses who haven't shoveled the sidewalk. And I did obtain the information um that um from the first snow day of January 25th, enforcement began on January 27th. Uh, and that enforcement has actually continued. Uh, they were out uh, as far as I know, there's two of them, and they're out there every single day since. They've issued a total of 150 citations to uh a split of residential and businesses.

Although a majority of those citations for not shoveling are to businesses. uh what I was told which was I I thought some very good information I wanted to share was that when it comes to some of the corporations uh the Walmarts and any any basically company that has a big headquarters we're not mailing these tickets locally because we have to send it to the owner and the owner of record

is uh typically somewhere some other state many cases. So, um I think that was a good learning for me today that, you know, they're mailing these out, but you know, they may be going back in a couple days. Um they're giving a couple days for many of these businesses, more time on the residential side. Um but uh that's why we don't see, I think, some of this big response. They're really not

supposed to go on private property. So, I just wanted to uh highlight that as a call out because people have, you know, talked to me, hey, this business hasn't, you know, cleaned up. What can we do?

and and the city ordinance is, you know, we can issue the fines and we whatnot, but we are not out there doing it for them and sending them a bill.

So, not only have they not complied with doing their sidewalks and stuff, most of them, as Mr. Hathaway will contest do, most of them plow their stuff back into the street.

Okay.

I don't know how we how we catch that or address that.

something to think about.

I think I want to think about what's what do we do next for the next one, right? Uh to the point we could have lenient winters where but we do need to try and be more prepared for a big storm. You know that I think we I don't want knock on wood I don't want to jinx us, but I think we're we're not going to see a major major storm this weekend from where they were

originally saying, but it could be next week. It could be a month from now or it could just be a year from now or two years from now. But either way, I think about you know what based on this storm um what can we do differently to be better prepared for the next one. Do we have any takeaways because things went I think we can always do better, right?

And I'm sure we had some learnings particularly now where we had so few trucks than in the past.

So obviously it's trying to get more pieces. So th that's really the first and foremost. uh look at the rates um and just find out how we can get more pieces, get more word of mouth, get more uh media um out there just to make sure that we do get um the right amount of pieces for the next storm and training.

Talk to me about training.

We're going to do some in-house training too.

So, in-house of our staff or Yes.

Okay.

Yes.

When we think about plows that want to come work for the city, um do they get any type of training or do we offer any type of training on how to do that stuff?

No, most of them have their own equipment and they're already good to go.

Okay. One thing I've heard um and seen a few videos and not enough to quantify um but just that you know the city vehicles will plow right to the pavement but that many of the private plows sometimes want to lift off and not quite go down that far probably because there's potential damage. I don't know if Mr. Hathaway if there's any Oh, I'd love to answer that one.

Sure.

So, in my sector, yes, I uh this particular storm uh I went home and got my own truck and plowed because we were short on trucks and we needed help. It was that type of situation. However, uh I'll be the first to admit I went down numerous streets that were plowed by me and I went back to widen them and the people are shoveling their cars out and throwing it back in the street. So, I

picked up my plow and went over it. If you want to leave it in the street, you want to put it in the street, it's going to stay in the street. Okay? And and I've asked probably a hundred people not to throw it in the street, make a pile behind the car, and some of them took my my advice or my um my request seriously, and they did just that. The ones that

don't do just that, uh I pick up my plow and I leave it there. And that made for some really messy streets because, um they chose to have the messy streets.

I've made to clean them and uh some of my plow operators get really frustrated over this. Uh it it's really really I encourage you we get another storm. I got an empty passenger seat. If you'd like to join me and see firsthand what we experience. Um however, yes, it happened. I'm the first to admit it.

I'll lift up my plow and leave the snow there. You put it there. I removed it and you put it back there.

So I believe it's against city owners to do that. Um so what can we do futuristically to we can't we can't involve the police all the time. They they've got their hands full. Okay. And these people are not the best of people to deal with.

Unfortunately, they're they're already mad because they've got to shovel snow.

They don't want to shovel snow. They don't like us. Um, we're not we're not loved by anybody really in in the plowing side of things. Uh, because we bury driveways, we bury cars, we bury sidewalks. So, we meet all kinds of people. Some of them are very um happy to see us and enjoy seeing us and very thankful we're out there. 99%. But that 1% is what you're hearing. The snow

stayed on the street. Yeah, I I got at least three or four streets. I did it to areas. Not the whole street, but that block. Okay, if you I'll put it down when I get past you and and continue on, but uh I'll be the first to admit. So, I can get fired over it. Okay, one less plow. That's the way I look at it. But the the the citizen caused me to do

that. It's that's a sore subject with me.

Okay.

Do we have the right equipment? Do we have enough equipment? And I when I say equipment, not the vendor piles, but specifically in house when we think about, you know, we're in New England, it's very likely that snow will continue throughout my lifetime. And so I start to wonder as we think about capital projects and things like that, are there pieces of equipment we could buy that

could do what I was describing earlier?

something that when you go down some of our our South Main Street, our North Main Street, our Bedford streets, our big streets that would rather than just plow it, right, where if we can't get to the curb, um we are removing it. You know, they I see big cities, right? They they shoot it up into a truck and take it away and dump it and then continue on. And you know obviously that would

make for a better situation particularly for the businesses of the city who I think have been really affected not just you the week of the storm but just in the week since if their business in front if there's no parking there you know there's a big impact to them and I think this of course you know just this month of the year I think is some of the toughest months for some of these

businesses. So um do we have the right equipment? Is there something we should be looking at from a city uh to consider purchasing? Even if it's one unit that would take care of major roads to set us up so when this big event happens, and it will, we can be very prepared.

So, we we're we're constantly looking at at newer newer things out there. Right now, we we have in our shopping list is to get some more Brian machines, some more inserts. So, that's the first one.

uh that the machine that you're referring to [clears throat] uh we're looking that would only be used in the main thoroughways some wide open areas because that's a double that's a double uh access area. We we can do that. We can look at that and we have we have looked at some of those um blowers per se. Um the one that we have is just very small for smaller areas. We can look at

the larger ones. I just don't know how often you're going to use that. So, um, and it the main the main roads. I mean, could we use instead of buying a $150,000 machine orund um do we use a couple other vehicles instead? So, those are all the analysis that we're making, but we will we will look at that machine.

Uh, I've seen it million times. I mean, Canada is heavy on those type of machines. So, we will look at any any type of we can also add it to our backs and loaders, too. So they do have an attachment where the snow blower is like it attaches to the backhoe or attaches to the loader and then as you drive forward it can shoot it out. So we're looking into that too. Okay. Yeah. I

think you know small businesses are the backbone of Fall River and I I start to think if they're not making business we're not getting revenue right and at some point this will probably you know chip away at the cost of that if they're just being able to do business and people be able to frequent their businesses. So, I I start to think if we don't have something like that, you

know, I'm not We don't want the sparkly one with all the wheels and everything.

We want wheels, I guess. We don't want the super fancy one with all the bells and whistles. That's what I was looking for.

Um but I I think we you know, for the main ways, I I think um you know, having something like that could be beneficial.

And if we already have equipment that we could modify, even better because that would keep that cost down. But I think that um we just especially with a count of total vendors down um anything we can do particularly on the mainways. I mean I think I was driving out in the storm on the mainways a couple days after and I was like Bedford Street which is the number one street I go down frequently.

It's still even today you know still would have benefited from a machine that were picking it up. I understand now everything's kind of frozen over right and it makes it very difficult.

So you figure a lot stretch like Beth Street right?

[snorts] How many triacles are you going to need?

You're still going to have to rent equipment. We don't own a triacle. So to fill it, we only have small dump trucks.

We don't even have a large dump truck.

Well, we have two, but them have the salter inserts in them.

Okay.

So, if we're using it for an event, we don't have a large dump truck that doesn't have anything in it. So, we would have to hire the triacles and stuff like that.

Okay.

melters probably don't make sense for the the amount of time we would use that I don't think right just what you have that you've mentioned with the brine setup just I I think you said it was a pickup truck we said is that big enough though to do I mean we everything's big enough depending on the storm yeah and not just the storm but the fact that it was cold after I mean if you

look at the blizzard four years ago the snow was probably gone a week or two later, right? Gone.

This is just a unique situation where we got dumped on and then it [clears throat] got cold to the point that nothing is moving. Nothing. And you know, the river was frozen all the way across for the first time that I can ever remember. I mean, this was just a unique set of circumstances. And and I don't think it's prudent to stop I don't think it's prudent to staff my department um to the worst case scenario.

Correct. And I think I don't know that it's prudent to buy a machine and you know dump trucks because that's going to take away from police cars, ambulances, and fire engines and dump trucks that they need for other uses that they're going to use 150 times a year rather than once every five years. And that's what that's what I think that's ultimately right how how often will we use these machines? Is is

there going to be an inconvenience?

There's no doubt about it. That's why instead of console we instead of going with like a $100,000 brand new truck we've opted for the inserts right with the salter inserts and we're only 10,000.

So between them and the brine the brine machines also 10,000 also we can put them in our dump trucks take them off when we don't need them so they'll always be there in the Yeah. some small mobile sidewalk removers, snowb blow machines are excellent, too. And and there's a lot of things we could do differently. But to go to the extreme of a heat machine and uh that's so difficult to do, it's just

and I think that this storm is unique because there during the middle of the night and the main thorough affairs were clear for our ambulances to get through.

when I was talking to uh [clears throat] Deputy and they actually took advantage of the parking garage over at um Primacare so that they could keep the cruisers from you know frosting up and um the snow came down fast like at that point it was coming down I don't care what you had I don't keep it was coming down 2 inches an hour and it was fast but they I can tell you that we

were able to just from my perspective because I was there I think at 2 in the morning we were still able to make our way to where we the side streets were difficult, but then we called and they they got us through. But the main thorough fears to get to the hospitals and where people needed to go were were clear enough to me.

And let's figure let's just let's think about that, right? What's the most important thing we need to do in this city? We have two hospitals that we're going to make sure you get access to the ambulance and get in and out. Fire protection, major thoroughs. It's it's it's a very difficult city to plow. So, the last places we're going to go is the dead end streets, which I live on one,

and that's fine. We don't see a plow for forever. None of us are worried about it. We do the best we can and if we need to go somewhere, people have four-wheel drive cars and they can make it. If they can't make it, someone else will help them with it. But the last resort is dead end streets, cults. Let's get the main throughways. Let's get the hills, Sanded Salted taking care of President

Avenue, Stewart Street, all those weed street. Those streets are, you know, all the way down to Malberry Street, Hope Street. It's just a difficult city to do. And I think overall, as much as it was a major inconvenience to a lot of people, it was the size of the storm.

The storm was something we haven't seen in years.

And I have to say too, at that hour, I have to give the citizens credit because there were not a lot of people out driving around, which is unusual.

Correct.

There's normally a lot of people driving around. That really helped. And it may have helped that at that hour of the night, everybody was at home and where it was accumulating so quickly. But when they wake up at 7 o'clock in the morning, they're not aware at two two o'clock in the morning just three hours ago that it was coming down two inches an hour. So I think the perception I'm not saying that we did perfect.

Nothing's always I agree. We can improve it.

But from us, from a public safety standpoint and from the citizens of Florida, they were safe. We we actually, like I said, we worked very well together. We made sure that we had the cruise and the manpower to get people to where they need to go. And that's what really mattered to us. And parking not too close to the corner is imperative.

We've had to walk up streets because we can't get around the corner. And pulling a stretcher in 22 in of snow is a is a bear.

Joe, I think we came very very close to having a second storm of a similar caliber hit us. So, we did a good job in the first one from a public safety perspective. The trucks were able to get down. Had that second storm not fizzled and we were very lucky, what do we think we would have done um with the snow?

We would have went out there and plowed it just like we normally do. [cough] You can't [clears throat] think about the stuff that's already there.

I know. I think I just I asked this in response to, you know, yes, you know, purchasing it may not get used uh as frequently as we'd like it to as other pieces of Kand Duba. I'm just worried about the worst case scenario.

And this comes back from my Boy Scout background, Eagle Scout, right? Be prepared. And if you have one storm followed by another, at that point, we really need to be removing it, particularly from probably those main roads. And I I'm just concerned uh about our ability to do that in an efficient manner. I think I've, you know, to the credit, Miss Sutton, uh, anytime I've called or emailed, you guys have been

able to get out there and take care of it, whether it be a a snow pile on a curb, you know, leading to a school, whatnot. But it's not very efficient the way it's being done either, right? You get the what looks like a backhoe, I think, lifting it up, throwing it in a truck. It takes a while. It's timeconuming and there's only two pieces of equipment like that we have. So,

so that's what I'm worried about. If you got almost a thousand streets and we got two pieces of equipment with small dump trucks, it takes a while to do a street.

Yeah. I mean, I think back to my childhood in the winters we used to have. And I'm hopeful this is a fluke, but if it's not, and this continues to be the case with extreme weather, I know we're seeing the hurricane aspect, right? And the storms seem to be getting stronger. this were to also be the same path of winter storms and we start you know this that was just a cycle we were

spared. Are we prepared for a situation where we get backto back big storms like that like it could almost was well I if you want me to answer that I will I don't think any community is prepared for that type of storm. So what happens is when you get a major storm like that, let's say a blizzard of 78 comes in right now the state comes in and they start to bring in their

vehicles. When they're done doing the highways, they start to help out cities and towns. National Guards will come in here. So depending on the weather, depending how bad it gets, there's other things in place that will help out communities such as For River and Somerset and the state kicks in, they'll give us more funding as well so we can hire more people, not have to worry about it from the local aspect of it. So

they'll kick in funds for us as well. So it all gets to the point of at what point what snowstorm do you prepare yourself for? We just had what did we say 14 15 16 inches and I think with the conditions the way they did I mean we did the best we could with what we had concerned it hadn't snowed in the last four or five five years much at all. [clears throat] It was the

perfect storm. I mean we we 70° temperatures daily.

It's like saying how do we prepare for an earthquake right? What [clears throat] what are you going to do? You can't get ready for an earthquake. It happens. You just deal with it. It's the same type of thing with the snowstorm. The bigger the snowstorm, the more muscle we'll get from the state and other authorities as well to come in and more money to help get people in place that can help us

move the snow. You can't put that all on a city or town, you know. So, it all depends on how big the storm's going to be. You know, there is no preparing for the I just want to make sure we have the right equipment for our city in place.

Council, you're exactly right. Good answer.

Thank you. in and I think the city of for I've seen snow before. I've been here for 30 years. Absolutely. I've know I've been in those trucks. I know what you guys go through and and and I and I I'm glad we're having this meeting because I think people who have Have you ever been in a plow truck? I don't know how many people. Have you ever been in one, James? You should try it sometimes

because it is an eye opener when you're in there and you can't see 20 feet in front of you. He's coming down. You're going down a hill that it's freezing out with the windshield washer. It's freezing even though it's not supposed to freeze and you can't see anything and it's so every snowstorm is different and every [clears throat] challenge is different. And you get some guy that

might have plowed twice before in his life at the last three years ago and it snowed and now he's doing it again and not comfortable with the equipment he's driving because it's not his because someone else has put him in a different truck. There's a it's snow plowing is an amazing thing. It's it's an incredible um trade and and I give those people a lot of credit. Under certain conditions,

it's it's sometimes impossible and you have to ride out the storm, let it take place, and then come back later on.

Weather permitting, if it's not freezing cold, you can tackle it. And that's the issue. So, I I know we can prepare all we can. We'll buy more equipment. I'm all for it. If we have the funds, let's do it. But I don't want to get to the point like we prepare for, you know, um an avalanche, right? And I'm not trying to make light of it, but it's like how do you prepare for an earthquake?

You don't there's always ways to make improvements. [clears throat] I'm sure correct. They have a wish list, right? And and we which is what and when the budget comes through, put those in there and then we can support it and give them more equipment that they need to help prepare for this because that's what I intend to do and that's what we've always tried to do.

But it's not I mean we probably never will have enough equipment in place for every storm that comes our way. That's why I said there's other people out there, other entities that help us. And I'm not trying to if if I may add one thing personally [clears throat] as a sector leader and plowing for 30 plus years and not being home for 30 plus years during any storm whether it be the city of for river or

the state. I think the city of for river does a fantastic job with what they got and yes there's residents complaining.

You hear them. I hear them. I see them firsthand. But for river does a fantastic job compared to other communities.

Beth is referencing pushing a gurnie 20 in 20 in snow. Well, New Bethford used to when I plowed for the state didn't plow their streets until the storm was over. Okay? And I can remember plowing a street following an ambulance because they were trying to push a gurnie halfway halfway up the street so that they could push it and and walk it up comfortably. Um, we don't have that situation here. At least I've never

experienced that other than the blizzard of 78. But our streets are open. First responders can help themselves and get around. And I think the city does a wonderful job. I think the plow operators need a standing ovation myself. Okay? They're not going to get that because the residents don't like us. Um, most of them, okay, don't like us for whatever reason. Uh God gave us snow. God's going to take it away and

we're going to try and move it and do the best we can with it and make everybody happy, but we're not. We can't prepare for the next storm. If [clears throat] it's going to be 20 ines and it's like this one with a little bit of moisture in it, you can do all kind of preparation. The only thing you can do is hope that the first responders can get through when they need to.

Ambulances can get through when they need to to keep everybody safe and healthy as they need to be. and everything else comes secondary. But you got to give kudos to the plow operators at some point. Um, nobody's sitting at this table. I mean, DCM guys is what he's talking about. But all the privates, they work hard. Police work hard. Those guys don't want to be out at 2:00 in the morning tagging cards. I

know. I see them. I talk to them. They'd rather be home.

Nobody wants to tow cars. Nobody wants to do this. No, none [clears throat] of us want to. We're there. We do. We understand. But I think the point of this meeting is that you know let's find out what city and let's go forward is doing a fantastic job and all that's my [clears throat] opinion.

We had firefighters shoveling sidewalks.

They would come with my truck. We would shovel sidewalks and then we had you know three people to pull the stretcher.

So the culmination of what the citizens got from the storm I think at least from my perspective anybody that had a medical emergency they came in and it was like a group of ants. So they had this the the sidewalk done.

Microphone Beth. Microphone.

You know they we got shovelers. We got we had what we needed to at least to make people safe. And okay, like I said there, we had few people get stuck, slid, crashes, [clears throat] accidents next day, but it wasn't as catastrophic as it could be. But I understand that there is preparation and I think that proper planning is important and I think that this time for the first time and I think um Miss

Arthur could testify. We we uh we decided that we were going to tow because the last snowstorm we got stuck on corners and couldn't get around the corners. So we we we broached that we breached that hurdle this year. So maybe if there's more I do agree with you maybe some more planning. But I think for overall I think um everybody at this table put a lot of effort into making

sure that we did a good job.

Okay, council. I will get you a list of things um as a wish list and things that we will definitely be able to use, but I will definitely get you a list of things that will make it better.

And I do want to say thank you to all the PA workers, not just your department, but the PA workers, the private ones that were out there. I just wish there were more of them. I think that's what I've taken from this discussion. I really appreciate the numbers because I think the the numbers of the plows speak for themselves to think that just you know even you know

in in 2021 we had 127 and you know right now and only because the insurance requirement was lifted we're at 58. So I think that's the number one thing um that I would like to see this season. I think u because one of my questions what improvements can we implement for the remainder of the winter season? I think to me it just comes down to how do we continue to get more plows

vendors signed up should another big storm happen. Um and I'll leave that to you guys doing that. Sounds like you've already gotten some more since.

Um but I think I'm hopeful that today's discussion talking about you know getting it out there that the insurance requirement was lifted. Um and particularly um I hope people hear that the city is paying on time. um you know most of them 81% from the data I saw.

Yeah. So it's shouldn't take more than two weeks.

Yeah. So that's great as well. I think there's been a misconception that you know from whatever happened they get paid and I think it was in the summer or close to it. I think certainly sometimes it's it's hard to shake those reputational things. So hopefully those two things people hearing that they'll want to sign up uh to be a plow for the city of Fall River because I do think

number of trucks definitely made a big impact here. um rates. Um I I don't know what to do with that, what the next steps are, but certainly I'm hopeful you guys maybe if you can come up with a analysis of here's what Fall River paid during the storm. Here's what the surrounding major towns and cities did and particularly the state which is a big competitor. And it sounds like, you know, the conditions to puff with a

state being highways and and flat with a lot of hazards, uh, you know, is something that people are attracted to.

So, how do we overcome that? Um, particularly, we'll we'll we'll review those rates again, councelor. Absolutely. Okay. I um one of my final questions is do we think our ordinances um do we need any ordinance or policy changes um you know to improve compliance or operations? Do we feel that what we have on the books is sufficient and it just comes down to our enforcement of those?

I would I would believe that's all we're I think the ordinances from what we have I mean unless anyone else sees anything different we we're we're working off that at this point. I mean, we the uh the snow the snow band we uh the parking van we we've uh we've maxed out what we need to do on that. We everything is all internal educ um education and compliance of what we're talking about.

We meet as a group and those those things that people have concerns and we just move forward what what we need to get the job done. Do we think that people were less compliant? Maybe because we I think it was said that we just reached the point of towing in this storm, but we don't in these smaller storms. Do we think if we were enforcing at the smaller levels when we had the

parking bands, we'd get enforcement on a greater level when we have the big storms?

I think we've just adopted kind of the process now in the system we're going to use, at least under my supervision, is that we'll do the initial enforcement of tagging and then we're going to tow. So every storm the citizens can effectively think that that's going to happen because I think if we do the notice like we did such far in advance of anticipating you know kind of like the weather chase stations do you know

there's a storm watch happening well there's a there's a parking ban warning in effect parking ban's in effect and then we're going to tag heavily and then we'll start towing in the troublesome areas. We've already taken some notes. I know one of the captains that helped out during the uh operations has already started sectoring out the city from our perspective so that we have an

operational plan of identifying kind of on a pin map of where our our pinch points were where we'll go first. Um but that's kind of the consistency and enforcement I think is where we'll get the compliance.

And then when we think about parking bands, I know I think it was a couple weeks ago there was a was a Friday night. We put in one at 6 pm for a storm that I think the first snowflake fell sometime early Saturday and I I heard just a lot that it really negatively impacted businesses um on a Friday night who you know serve dinner or things. Um, so if the first snowflake isn't going to

fall for say 12 hours, how do we know when the first snowflake is going to fall?

Well, we pay Weatherman, you know, $1675 to give us that information.

So, I mean, it's mother nature.

I mean, counselor, I mean, though those I guess my request is, can could we time this a little better for businesses? If we know the first snowflake estimated, we'll say, isn't until, you know, five or six in the morning, maybe we make the ban nine o'clock so people can get through that dinner hour. I think I I know we're not pro we probably haven't been making decisions thinking about the

businesses in mind but I just think that it would be really [clears throat] beneficial. I know we don't want to sit too late right because people go to bed but is there this balance where we can help uh you know the businesses of the city who rely on that parking on a certain side to frequent their business and particularly Friday nights are busy.

I mean councelor when we meet as a group uh the mayor's office will have a meeting prior to that. I think everything is on the table at that point. We need to make sure public safety is is a concern. We need to make sure that our plows have the ability to do what they need to do. And then also the businesses that we we've talked about all these things, but it's just

we need to make the right decision, but today we we make that decision that storm may change at a certain time. So those are some of the things that we're left with. What what do you do once that changes and at that point? So, we need to make those tough decisions right away. Um, but knowing what we're going into, that's we're putting everything on the table at that point.

Yeah, I think that's where I'm going, right? Like we put in for this big storm the 6:00 the night before and the first snowflake wasn't until the morning. We started towing at I think it was 8 8 a.m. I believe is what was said. We started ticketing at 6, but again, same situation. It's a Saturday night, right?

you know, very big night for businesses, restaurants, you know, to get their customers. They, you know, some restaurants are fortunate they had the parking lots, many others don't. And so, again, just in those situations, it's one thing if the snow is going to start at midnight and we don't have a choice, but when the snow is going to start, you know, at 10 or 11 in the morning and

we're not, we know we're not going to tow till the morning, maybe just a couple more hours, 8 o'clock, nine o'clock could probably be a better time to allow these businesses to succeed. I think there was already some the temperament for another snowstorm in general was already at a negative balance because we're this recent storm that happened a couple weeks ago, not the one we're talking about, the major

impact one, but the fallout from that people were already with no patience that hey, we're going to get dumped out again. So, I think the pattern of how we set the parking ban to be 6 p.m. on Friday is almost the same in line of the system I spoke about 6 p.m. the night before the storm. um because the first snowflakes on the major storm did not stop falling till about 10 11 o'clock on

Sunday morning and then it got progressively bad as the football games happened. I think 6:00 at night people were already shoveling for the first time. So that that's the kind of volume there. So I understand the business impact and I and [clears throat] I I empathize with that and I think the citizens in general were just frustrated with another parking ban like there's nowhere to park already.

People are frustrated. People are frustrated particularly when there's a parking ban in effect and there's no not even a snowflake coming down and I think no it's true and people get very upset when everybody gets it wrong right so we got it wrong we did we thought maybe it was going to come down sooner made a decision to get people off the street and it came down to 5:00 and what

happens when it comes down at 7 o'clock and they're in the restaurants and now we didn't put a parking band in place and we can't get the cars out of the way so it's a very difficult decisions I've seen it happen for a lot of years it all depends on the know whether you get that snowflake at 5:00. I don't know who and I'm not sure who makes a call of when

that first snowflake is going to fall because I don't know if Edmond's never given me a timeline 24 hours ahead of time.

Yeah. So, we follow the weather patterns and many times recently we have the um the timing where it's going to fall and when it's going to start really coming down a lot of times.

How accurate are they? Are they accurate?

It's been I mean it's been as far as we're concerned. We we're we're reading all those um weather reports on a probably on every half hour at that point. So we we're trying to make that right decision at that point and then we'll come in and we'll say well this is what we see today. This is what we see right now and it's supposed to start at this time and will it change 100%. It'll

always change whether it's not accurate.

Again, it's the weather, right?

That's my point. It all depends on the weather. We don't know.

You said you said you just It's going to change 100%. They tell you ahead of time two hours.

Absolutely.

It's going to change.

It's going to change.

So, it's not accurate, right?

Same thing as last night. Last night, we were expected after the rain, we were expected about an inch of snow and everything was going to freeze up and it didn't happen.

Didn't happen.

They might. That's my point. So, it's tough to make a decision. So, as you're telling people, look, we know it's coming. We don't know what time it's coming. So, we're going to make a decision to put a parking ban in effect at a certain time. And it's unfortunate that it happened on a Friday or a Saturday, which is extremely busy for restaurants and businesses. I get it and I sympathize for those people, but

there's I mean, it's it's a tough decision, a tough call to make.

So, those decisions are made. Well, I I've I've been here when those calls were not made and there was no parking ban and all of a sudden there's a there's a major snowstorm coming down and now you're trying to put a parking ban in place and people don't even know about it because it's too late and they're going to get tagged.

That happened two weeks before the major storm. If parking ban get put in effect the morning of the storm occurring and there was no way we went out to do enforcement, it's like no one knows about it.

Correct. Those people are going to be more upset because now they didn't even know about it. So, it's kind of like, you know, you want to go to a restaurant and the businesses need to support and I appreciate that and we all understand that. But if a snowstorm's coming, chances are it might be a little bit late that weekend because you can't wait to and and sometimes you can wait

because if you know it's going to come at a certain time, but other times it's just someone's going to make the call.

And if you make the right call and they're going to get upset because it's too early. If you make the if you don't make the call, they're going to get upset because now it's too late. And so, like I think people don't want to lose their So they don't leave.

Yeah. But as Mr. Glenn Hathaway said, this is not easy and no one's going to be happy with whatever call you do make if And a lot of businesses were closed, too.

Domino's. I was planning on getting the guy's Domino's for the storm and the guy called me the night before, the manager, and he says, "We're not even opening."

Right.

So, it's just a tough call to make.

That's my only point. You know what I'm saying? You You're lucky if you get it right. And the weather keeps changing and it all depends on the weather.

We're going to make the call information we have at that time.

I got to questions or we I mean I don't know what else anyone wants to add to this meeting.

I don't have any more questions.

Yeah. Does anyone have any anything that you think we forgot about or that we could mention or anything that would make life easier for the residents and the businesses and yourselves as well as the privates that we haven't talked about that you think would probably benefit?

I know we all try to do the best we can with what we have and I guess the the more money funding we can give you guys to get more independence out there and you know help those people. It's it's something that just just one thing on the streets right we did the math on average each truck each vehicle had to take care of either 12 to 15 streets per vehicle.

Yeah. So it's very tough.

All right. Do you want to wrap it up? You're good. Okay. Make a motion to ajourn.

That's the motion. No, nothing table.

Motion to adjurnn.

Motion to agendas is made and seconded.

I second. All in favor?

Any opposed? Motion carries.

Thank you all very much for coming down.

Thank you.

Hey hey hey.

Hey, hey, hey.