Preparing for Winter
Do you recall the unprecedented snows last winter? While it is unlikely we will repeat such a storm this year, I want to tell you what actions the City undertook to prepare should another occur. Led by Public Works, City staff made recommendations in three primary areas: equipment, communications and operations/logistics.

Equipment
The Public Works department prioritized funding to purchase snow removal equipment. In addition to the City's three existing snow plows, we now own a plow and an anti-icing system that can be installed on an existing Parks dump truck, a plow assembly for an existing four-wheel drive vehicle, a steel plow edge, a larger anti-icer storage tank and added de-icing capability to the three existing sanders.

This equipment allows us to clear additional streets and provide redundancy when a piece of equipment is down for repair. Improved anti-icing tools prevent snow and ice from bonding to roadways, making plowing easier with less build-up of rutted, uneven ice. It also allows us to use less sand, which accomplishes three goals: reduces costs, increases safety and minimizes environmental impacts from
the sand.