MONTE VISTA — With snow season fast approaching, public works Director Rob Vance brought Monte Vista’s snow removal policy before the council to review. He also gave them the snow removal polices of neighboring communities to see how Monte Vista’s policy compared. The city’s current snow policy has been in place for close to a decade. Last year, the city received a number of complaints caused by the above average snowfall. Vance felt that these complaints warranted bringing the policy before the council to see if there was anything they wanted to do differently.

“Our snow removal policy, in a very simple summary, is we plow the downtown roads to the center and haul the snow away so people can access the businesses. What we classify as the downtown is pretty much from the intersection of Highways 285 and 160 to basically Monroe where it turns going to Safeway and 2nd street. That includes Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe and 2nd street. Everything else is either arterial or collector on what we call our primary route and that would be 6th Avenue, Prospect and Chico Camino. Primarily those routes are designed to get people from a residential area to a highway or to a business center,” explained Vance.

The secondary routes don’t get plowed until there is 6 inches of snow or more in residential areas. Everything that’s not downtown is plowed to the outside. The heavier snows create windrows, therefore plowing starts in the center of the streets and snow is pushed to each side of the street so each side of the street receives equal amounts of plowed snow.

Last year the city of Monte Vista held two public hearings at city hall to hear feedback from the public on the city’s snow plowing policy. They also posted a survey on the city website which asked three questions.

1. Residents were asked which way do you want the city to plow snow? Thirty-eight percent said to the curb and 62 percent said to the center.

2. Residents were asked when they should plow the residential streets? Eleven percent voted at 1 inch of snow, 3 inches received 52 percent of responses, 6 inches 34 percent, and never 3 percent.

3. Residents were asked if they would be willing to pay a fee for snow removal operations and equipment in the amount of $2 per month added to their water and sewer bills? Sixty-five percent said they’d be willing to pay the $2 monthly fee while 35 percent said they wouldn’t.

While the survey was being administered, the city started to receive letters from emergency response services voicing their concerns. The first letter came from the ambulance service. They were concerned about not being able to respond to emergencies in a timely manner if snow is pushed to the center of the streets. They also received a letter from the fire department expressing similar concerns. The fire department stated that it is very difficult for them to make corners in the long fire trucks if a windrow of snow is in the middle of the street. The police chief also sent an email explaining his concerns. The chief wrote that last year several people tried to jump the center berms and became stuck. Snow plowed to the center also creates other traffic issues as the already narrow roads turn into one lane streets.

“Part of my job is protecting life and safety and I struggle with the idea of doing something on one of our roadways that’s going to prevent an emergency service vehicle from getting to somebody’s house and unfortunately resulting in a death that could have been prevented,” said Vance.

Patrick Sullivan of the Monte Vista fire department spoke in agreement with Vance. He explained that plowing to the center makes the streets so narrow that the fire trucks will either crash into parked vehicles or get stuck trying to go on the berm on their way to a burning house.

“From an emergency service perspective, it’s safer if it’s plowed to the curb. We can crawl over the curb and we can drag a hose over the curb. But I can’t get an apparatus over a three or four foot windrow,” said Sullivan.

Most cities plow to the curb as it is the safest and keeps the roadways wider. Plowing to the curb can make it difficult for citizens, especially the elderly ,when it comes to getting around. Either way the snow creates difficulties, but city officials hope that if they plow as soon as possible when a storm hits that it will help with some of these issues.

After discussion, it was decided the city would plow to the curb and begin plowing at 3 inches of snow accumulation. City officials will also try to figure out how to help the elderly citizens who need assistance removing the snow from their curbs. Vance will be working on adding these modifications to the city’s snow removal policy.