02/03/2009 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Council Minutes of Z/3/Z009 now and take responsibility as he was voted into the position by the people of this great city. Recovery for the city starts at the top. Mayor O'Grady commented he has never met Mr. Genaro but has spoken to him on the telephone. He feels that Mr. Genaro does not know him, and it's amazing to him to see so many distortions in one letter. He disagrees with Mr. Genaro's allegation that north Bretton Ridge is being plowed first because the Mayor lives there. He asked the Service Director to explain the snow plowing process. Service Director Limpert said he has had some positive conversations with Mr. Genaro and a few that were less than positive. Mr. Genaro drove up to the Service Dept. that evening to tell him it was impossible to drive up there. That kind of set the tone that it was impossible to get to where he just got to. The prime responsibility of snow removal is to get the main roads passable. It doesn't do any good to remove snow on streets exiting to main roads if the mains are not passable. After the main roads, there are secondary roads like Alexander or Maple Ridge which are done. After that, they rotate the residential streets so that the same streets are not always first or last. No matter how they do the streets, there are always people who feel their street is last. He noted that Bretton Ridge is not always done prior to Bretton Ridge south. Although the legislation to hire contractors was not passed, he felt overall the city was doing a good job managing the snow removal. Councilman Orlowski suggested that he could provide a phone number for a Teamster business agent who could provide names of truck drivers who could be called in times of an extended storm when help was needed. These drivers have Class A CDL's and would require a short training period. This is only an alternative solution. Mr. Limpert said perhaps that could be addressed in a labor/management meeting. Mayor O'Grady said he felt this had been offered in the legislation which failed to pass. Councilman Orlowski said he was not looking to privatize snow plowing but to have a list of accomplished truck drivers to supplement the city's needs if our own manpower needs to rest. Mayor O'Grady said the legislation was not to privatize snow plowing but was specifically for extended snow events where we run out of drivers. AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION 1) Dennis Lambert, 25057 Carey Lane, commented his street normally gets plowed last, but they did get through the first snow event; and, during the second snow storm, actually had a plow on the street at 10 a.m. Thanks to Councilman Orlowski and Service Director Limpert. Regarding I & I concerns, he will share a video done by United Surveys in Fairview Park years ago when that city was initiating grouting and clearing of sewers. Regarding regionalism, he spoke about a suggestion from Julius Ciaccia, who was previously in charge of the Cleveland Water Dept. and is now with the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District. The suggestion was to process runoff water from driveways, parking lots, etc. In Mr. Lambert's opinion, Mr. Ciaccia is doing nothing but growing himself as big as he can before he retires. This is what you get with regionalism. If he gets his way, every taxpayer in this community is going to be hit with a large bill processing storm runoff water that's normally called rain water. This is ridiculous.