I was shocked and appalled when I watched this testimony during the informational meeting of Galynn Huber (Street Utility manager for the City of Sioux Falls) talking about using snowgates, you can tell he will do everything in his power to make sure they don’t work.
Don’t be a Negative Nancy.
They do work, if you purchase the right ones. In Canada and Idaho, they have used them up to 48″ of snow. The nice part about them is they help homeowners that live on emergency snow routes and corner lot owners. But Galynn seems hellbent on making sure they don’t work. The irony of his testimony is that he doesn’t mention that most of snow removal is done by private contractors. All you simply have to do is write an ordinance that requires them to use them, in other words, THEY HAVE TO PURCHASE THEM OR THEY ARE NOT ALLOWED TO REMOVE SNOW FOR THE CITY.
I won’t go into detail about all the BS he spews, just watch him talk about how ‘useless’ they are. It is so fanatical you would think he started his own tea-bagger, anti-snowgate group.
It kind of sounds like he is scared of more responsibility. Boo-Hoo.
Interseting Informational Meeting. Looks like we will do yet another “study”, under the fair and balanced supervision of huber. I guess we can finally kiss the snow-gate concept good nite.
Even more interesting was the discussion of de-icing, or lack thereof, we will experience during the huether years. Huge cutbacks, and Mr. Brown once again asks the most pressing question. Will we be given fair warning as drivers that a huge percentage of our streets and intersections will now become skating rinks?
One other thing, on the subject of mayor hubris and his budget proposal. The Argus yesterday on their online version mentioned the mayors mysterious 4th employee in the mayors office. You know, the one formally occupied by Jodi Schwan. Honest Mike still has a 4th position in his new and improved budget. The Argus addressed it yesterday, now I cannot find that story anywhere. Memoryholed. I wonder why?
Yeah, didn’t it seem so obvious that he really isn’t to interested in providing quality customer service to the citizens? If I were mayor and saw this public testimony, I would have delivered his walking papers last night.
4th Employee? Hmmmmm.
The Argus story that was holed only brought up mayor hubris budgeted himself for this 4th mayors office position. Kinda flys in the face of his campaign rhetoric of DOING AWAY WITH JODI SCHWAN. The Argus also ran some numbers from the 2011 proposed “mayors office” budget. The numbers the Argus ran were interesting, but still very incomplete, and huether friendly. That’s why I’m a little surprised the story got memoryholed.
I’ll do some digging.
Huber’s “tests” appear as a huge waste of time, effort, and a resolve to do his darndest to not learn from others. Instead of wasting time designing tests, collecting, and analyzing data (on known and accepted technology) Huber should just send his second-in-charge to Winnipeg or Idaho to see how snow gates work and how the new deicing mix works. Huber’s doubting Thomas attitude is the huge willful cultural blindspot in South Dakota – the unwillingness to move beyond the 1950’s and a Happy Days mythology.
Poly- The AL is working on a story about the mayor’s budget, so let’s keep our fingers crossed.
John – You are right, snowgates CAN be researched w/o purchasing them. And the jury is in, THEY WORK! This isn’t about experimenting, this should be about learning to use them properly and move forward.