We're going to talk about. We have a couple of topics to talk about. Snowplowing is one of them. But if you have a topic, you want us to bring up all you
those have to text me and down below the civic media app and go to WRJN and send the text question in. And we'll see if we can get to it this morning.
All right. Okay. Welcome. So this is your first term as Alder. Is it everything you dreamed and hoped it would be? You know, there's a it's been good to work with a lot of my colleagues and good to work with number of people in City Hall.
There have been different challenges than I thought there were going to be. That's for sure. Actually, this is one of them. Okay. Now, I don't deal with the public one on one.
In all my years on this planet, I've never had a job where I deal with the public one on one because I couldn't do it. I'd yell at them, scream with them and tell them to get lost, which you can't do when you're in Alder, because that'll be the last day of your work. You have to be very diplomatic about it where I I don't. So we're talking about snowplowing. We have it with not a lot of snow this year, but so far we had a couple of inches. That said, it hasn't been horrible like Buffalo, New York where we're getting over two feet today, two feet. Wow, how do you function with that? Do another two feet.
Okay, so with snowplowing, we had some, we had the county snowplow people in here last week for the Racine County Traffic Safety Commission and they explain the hazards of it and what they do and so forth, but that's the county. You're talking about the city, the city, right? Okay. They had like a hundred snowplow trucks for the county. I mean, that's a lot. Yeah, the city does not have that many. Yeah. So that, I mean, they really have a, I mean, with the county, you got a ton of roads, right? I mean, you're dealing all the way from one end, one end to the other. And I
mean, they still have county roads in Racine because like Spring Street is a county road or anything with a letter on its a county road. And so they got a lot to do here as well and they get out here and they do it. All right, so give me some of the complaints from the constituents. Yeah, and you know, I think that it's in my mind, the way that it works when you're an alter are the residents that you serve. They're your boss. They're there who pays your very small salary. It's by no means a
even a part-time job for this salary that's paid. I think somebody did the math and one of my colleagues and it comes out to like a dollar an hour. But I love doing it. And the residents are our boss. And the, the level of frustration that comes from snowplowing here is a huge issue, a huge area of concern. And I've got some firsthand experience with this. I live on William Street. And for anyone who says,
that you know, Alders, they get their streets plowed first. I can, I can tell you for sure, at least in my case, that is not not the, not the way it is in North should it be. So I'm right there with you of, you know, with that first big snowstorm in the last year. And it was days before William Street got plowed out. And so there's been a number of people calling in and they range from, you know, I had family coming over and they got stuck.
To my street got skipped. I wasn't plowed. I can see where the plows were. They didn't get it, they didn't get to my street. There was, you know, my friend had a medical emergency and they couldn't get to the hospital because their car got stuck.
The, the UPS driver marked my package is undeliverable because he couldn't get down my street off, off of Main Street, any number of things. And it all points to, we've got a problem.
Okay, we had a listener question. Okay. And this is basically what you're talking about here, but their question is interesting. It says to the alderman, when they plow, why do they plow in all the legally parked cars first, making people have to shovel it out?
Well, I don't know how they get around that when they're, when they're plowing, they can't all of a sudden stop and leave the car. I mean, they got to plow around it.
And usually when you get a snowstorm, if it's a snow emergency, you got to get your car off the street. So this is from Pat of Racine asked this question. And I mean, I don't know what you would do if there's a car parked on, you got to go around it, but you got to keep plowing. You can't lift the plow.
Right. Yeah, with street parking, you know, the alternate side parking, actually during a snow emergency, there's certain streets, you know, the main thoroughfares you can't park on, but the side streets are in Racine, at least during a snow emergency are still cars are parked there.
And yes, it's very difficult for the plow driver. I've did a ride along in a former life. I was on the Jamesville City Council for two terms. And I always did ride along with the plow guys and the amount of finesse and just sheer ability. You have to have to be able to do that. That is something that minor. I'd be on the edge of my seat the whole day doing it. And these guys are doing it like it's a normal day at the office cruising around with a vehicle that could, you know,
destroy a car if they did it wrong. At least take off the side view mirror. Oh, yeah, I'm talking about the side door. One of them guys told me when he was here last week, you said, only once they took out a mailbox.
And it was so snowy. You couldn't, you know, just piled up so high and they took out the guys mailbox on it happens. It's, you know, when you're dealing with this kind of stuff, they don't sound a daily occurrence. I don't try to do it.
So, but yeah, if you have a car parked on the street and the plot trucks coming by, it's going to get plowed in. He's not going to go around.
Same thing people get up saying, I just dug out my drive when he put the snow back. Well, what do you want to do? I mean, the plot trucks coming by, it's, it's an
necessary evil if you live on a street and you live in Wisconsin. If you don't like it, you can always go to Hawaii or Florida. They don't, that problem doesn't exist.
I don't think they own a snow truck. Right. Yeah, you've got hurricanes and lava flows. That's about it. Right.
We don't have those here. No sharks in the water and Lake Michigan either. Yeah. But yeah, I, you know, it's this tough. Yeah, it's a very difficult thing. And that's why it's so important. Where if you do have the ability to get your, your vehicle off of the street, even if, you know, it is on the, the correct side of the street.
If you can park it off the street, you know, it's so important to try to do that just because it does make their job so much easier.
You can ask a neighbor if you can use their driveway just for a few hours just to get it off the street because what happened was during the first snow we had, they went around the truck. It was parked in front of my house. And then, because it was so cold for the next month, that snow didn't melt. And so we had this giant snow berm in front of my house where I couldn't park because it was so big and it was ice after a while. So it's a problem. If you can get to car up the street. So if you can't, you can't. So what's the solution to get these side streets plowed?
Well, so the solution, I believe, is what we're going to be starting on this coming Tuesday. So myself, I had submitted a communication and I've been joined with a number of my colleagues. In fact, this, this communication is by myself, Alder Mac has signed on, Alder Harmon has signed on, Alder Allen has signed on, and Alder Pobona signed on.
That's a bit of a rarity when it comes to these things. Usually you have, you know, one author and then maybe one co-sponsor. It's very rare that you get this many authors or Alders on this, but it shows the importance of it. So we're going to be doing a total overview of the Racine Snow nice removal manual this coming Tuesday, 530 City Hall.
There is going to be a public comment as well, too, because I believe a lot of the answers are going to come from the public coming together to share, you know, their concerns.
Because like I said, we've, you know, the public's our boss. And so they pay a lot in taxes to live in our city. And it's so important that we provide a great level of service. I mean, it's never going to be perfect. I want to make that very clear, but we can absolutely do better than we're doing.
Fifth district Alder, Jen's Jorgens it is here. We were talking about snow plowing in the first segment there. And, you know, and the Pat from Racine said, but these are legally parked cars on the street and they plow them in.
You got to remove the snow from the street because the majority of the people have to be safe and they travel on the street. And it's, you know, it's not a safety issue if your cars.
You can, you can, you can on, you know, and you dig it out, but it's a safety issue if they leave that snow on the street. And you can have that.
Yeah, absolutely. The streets got to get clear. Now the snow plow driver should be doing everything they can to not plow in legally parked cars.
But there, there comes a limit because they, like you said, the snow is going to go off the roads.
Okay, so you got the public meeting Tuesdays. Go over that again. If people have comments, they can actually show up and give their comments.
Keep them real. Don't be out there complaining and gripping and grumbling the whole time. Give some, you know, good for you back. And that's at City Hall in the big meeting room there.
And what time is it date? So is this Tuesday? What time this Tuesday at 5 30? It's not a car 25 anymore. Is it? They still do that? It's on YouTube.
Yes, we do live stream. It's been on cable on 25. I'm not sure if it's still on there. I've always had to watch them on YouTube and they've done very well.
All right. So you're going to talk about the future of making it better. Yeah, absolutely. You know, I think it's important to go over a total review because I shared earlier.
I served on the Jamesville City Council and you know what? The number of times that I had somebody call me for a snow plow issue. I could probably count on one hand.
I would need to count the number of times that I've had somebody call me while I've been in my current role for less than a year.
I would need my hands, your hands. We'd have to get a few more people's hands in here. It's not normal. This is there's clearly an issue. There's something wrong going on.
Well, as people point to regularly that this is something new that this is it's gotten worse. It's never been like this. This is this is really bad this year.
And that points to something. Something's broken. Something's wrong. Something needs to be changed.
And it's going to cost more money if you put more snow plows out there. Right. More overtime hours.
Well, if you put more snow plows out there, there's going to be a cost for that. But overtime hours too.
And overtime too, there would be. But it's not necessarily always, you know, there needs to be more people out there.
There may be opportunities to just do things differently or do things better. One of the ways that I think is something that we need to be looking into is we should be making sure that we're providing a pretty high degree of autonomy to the snow plow drivers that are out there doing their job.
In my mind, those are the true experts. They're out there. They're on the roads, clearing the roads. And if they're, you know, on a main road plowing it, because the way that we currently do it, we're seen as we send our plows out to the main roads during the snow event.
And once the main roads are clear, then they'll go into the neighborhoods. What that usually means is they'll continuously be re plowing and re plowing the main roads to keep them open while the neighborhood streets, you know, get further and further snowed in.
Now, I've had a couple of people call where they say, you know, I live around the corner from a main road and I watch them and there's times where the plow will go by.
And their plow is down and the street is practically bare pavement. And in my mind, I'd like to check into that and see, are we doing things like giving the snow plow driver the ability to call in and say, hey, you know, dispatch.
I'm on Melvin and my plows on bare pavement. Can I go into the neighborhood, circle around and they're going to go to the next road, just being the next main road to speed this up.
But how can we, how can we make sure that what they're seeing in the field is reflecting the actions that are being taken.
Another example is I got a call from a constituent. She said, my street wasn't plowed. And this was when most of the other streets had been.
So I got my car drove over there. And let me tell you, from one section of the street when I got to her area that wasn't plowed is definitely unplowed.
I mean, it was hard for me to get there to her house. And in fact, I almost hit a car leaving her house going five miles an hour, cruising over, you know, six inches of snow, you know how the slush sometimes will pick your car up pretty much and just kind of send you on your way.
And there was a most where another car and I were going opposite directions and we both kind of got picked up on the slush and sent each other.
We locked eyes and thankfully we're fighting. That's terrifying. You know, you shouldn't have it in a city of.
As big as the city has received a recene is in a neighborhood, that shouldn't be your experience.
You know, 18 hours after the snow stops that that should not be we should be doing better than that.
A hard part was she called and was told, no, your street was plowed.
She's looking at it. It's not plowed. A snow plow driver came through and he said, I think I'm going to have to come back and do this. It doesn't look like it got done.
He wasn't able to come back. I guess he was sent somewhere else. I called in and said this wasn't done. And in fact, all their Mac took time out of his day. He's the chair of public works.
He took a he took a drive out to her house and also said this wasn't done. At what point, how many voices do we have to have saying, hey, this person's section was missed before we get a plow back out there to get it done.
I don't know why it's this point of contention of, oh, it's good enough for it was plowed. If it's not safe and we have cars almost hitting each other, I think we got to do something to fix it.
That's common sense, I guess. I'll tell you the last street to get plowed in recene is victory Avenue because I come in.
And I take all the plowed streets north main to 14th to recene street to 16th, the later and when I make that right turn on the victory Avenue.
It's noticeable, but they do plow all the streets by the time I get here, they're all done 16th, 14th, the later if they're all done.
It's just when I get under victory and I understand victories is smaller street. I do I understand that it's not time, you know, priority.
I do understand that, but it, you know, when you're trying to get to work and you're going through that snow and then I get into my driveway.
And then they do come and then I got this giant berm getting into our parking lots, I got a park in front.
I understand it. I don't live in Hawaii where it's 80 degrees year round or in Florida when my daughter lives where it's a constant 70, 78 degree temperature. I understand that.
So I put up with it because it's snow and I understand it's one of these things you live in Wisconsin. It's going to be cold and it's going to be snowy.
Luckily, we don't live way up north where it's snowy snowy snowy and cold.
Right. Yes. Well, we do get like effect snow, which you know, it brings a unique challenge to it.
But the main road portion is that it's great. I mean, there is numerous times where you'll come out from William, get on the main street and main street is bear pavement.
Clear as a nice morning. It's beautiful, but the neighborhood streets are terrible.
And so that brings a unique challenge because you know, everyone who's driving through the city.
So all the residents from one point can take main street through the city just fine.
But all the residents who live here can't get to main street because their roads are still snowed in way too long.
And so we have to improve how we're doing this. We have to do a better job.
Are you going to have people from the services department in there on Tuesday or no?
Yes, so public works that public works. Yeah, public works will be there.
Oh, well, they're going to pile on. Not sure who they're going to bring. But yes, this was noticed. They know about a public works will be there.
Now does everybody feel the same way you do in the council?
Well, like I said, this was just pretty unique that there is myself, Alder Mac, Alder Harmon, Alder Allen, Alder Pobone, all signed on to this communication.
Usually, like I said, it's one Alder submits it. Maybe you'll get one co-sponsor, but it's it's pretty rare that you get this this large amount, which does show something's wrong.
I mean, this is an issue that needs to be fixed.
I don't think it's going to be one thing there. It'd be nice if there was one thing of I wish we if we did this, it'll be fixed.
It'll be good to go. I think it's a culmination of things that we have to review how we're doing this.
And I'd also too, we're one of the ways that I'd like to look at this as well. And Tuesday, I'd like to talk about the opportunity for Alder to do right alongs with the snowplow drivers.
Did it in Jamesville? It was so important. It was a good way to see it through it as well as you get to talk to the guy behind the steering wheel of hearing what he thinks.
We've got to drive to work on unplowed roads.
Absolutely. Yes. The job that those snowplow drivers do is is so important. Our world wouldn't function without them doing what they do.
The most terrifying drive I ever made for my house to hear now. I'm going to take me 12 minutes to get here.
Took me over an hour to get here that morning was the the groundhog day.
Snowstorm. We had two feet of snow and I left the house at 330 in the morning and I thought I was going to die because I couldn't see where the bridge was.
It was a police car in front of me and he vanished into the night. I don't know where he went, but all of a sudden he wasn't there and I was following his lights.
And then it was got too blowy and I got to the bridge. I didn't know where the sides of the bridge were.
I was going down Highway 20. I couldn't get down Ohio because there was no way to get down Ohio.
It was so blown over so I parked at Walgreens and walked in 50 mile an hour winds 9 tenths of a mile.
I was terrified going there because I couldn't see there. I couldn't see anything.
I'm blindly going and I traveling at three or four miles an hour because I couldn't see.
And their cars parked on the street but you couldn't see because it was blowing 50 mile an hour winds.
When I got to the radio station Tom Carco was waiting for me open the door to the buildings to get in here.
It took me a little while to just wind down from the terror of driving in and walking.
I fell over a few times and the wind blowing me on Ohio Street knocking me over.
And then when I got to victory Avenue was up to my knees. It was just it was a rare event.
We probably won't have that again, you know, quite a while. It was terrifying.
I never want to go through that again. I even wrote an article for our Bliss newspaper and Bliss on this.
I wrote an article for them about this terror and trying to get here that morning. It was really scary.
Oh, yeah. It's one of the things where I think most people, you know, when they they don't think about what it took to get the streets plowed.
The driver is having to drive through it to get there and then having to go through it and plow it is.
You know, when you think about it, you look at your window and you see it really coming down.
There's a guy or a person behind the truck driving through that.
He's trying not to take your side view mirrors off the car.
Yeah, they don't have anything magical in the truck that that makes it better to be able to have any better visibility than you would.
Very nice skill. No, absolutely.
That would be a nice invention.
Infrared where they could see where everything is. Heat seeking car.
Yes. Well, thank you for coming in again. If people have a comment on the snow situation, snow blowing, snow plowing, it's Tuesday night at 530.
530 Tuesday night 530. You'll eat dinner a little later that night. You'll you'll be fine.
Tuesday night 530 at City Hall and sit there and you get to make a comment if you want.
Give your name and so forth and you have to sign in first, right?
I believe there'll be a sign in this.
Yeah, it's got to be ordered. Yeah, you'll be called up. You'll get your your three minutes or whatever it'll be.
And if I was there, say, oh, no, he's back.
I don't think we'd say that with anybody on this because it's so important to come on and have your voice be heard.
Everyone's well content is back again. He's not going to start up with those box trucks again.
Is he?
Yeah, this one we had limited to snow plowing, but also leaves if you want to come talk on that too.
Oh, that's all mother tap. Absolutely.
I know, but I believe they're they're related. The leaves in the snow plowing.
Okay. Well, that's another topic. Yes.
Thank you very much for coming in.
Yeah. Thank you for having me.
This district older Jen Storkinson and don't forget if you want to comment and if you don't comment, don't complain.
