WESTFIELD–After the public hearing for Westfield State University banners was cancelled due to lack of proper notice, the city’s board of public works meeting drew little interest from residents despite discussions of property damage during the recent snowstorm.
The meeting, which had mostly public works and city employees in attendance, covered topics from future projects to employee changes to goings on in the department. It was originally scheduled to have a public hearing on the WSU banners along Western Avenue that are supposedly against city ordinance, but the notice was not submitted to The Westfield News for print in time according to state law, so the public hearing was postponed to January.
Board of public works discusses in their new meeting place–city council chambers
However, the most talked-about topic during the meeting was snow removal–both the good and the bad of it.
According to the public works board, several residents on Russellville Road had complained through other media outlets that their mailboxes were struck during the recent snowstorm by snowplows removing snow.
While the department of public works reported just one complaint regarding the damaged mailboxes received by telephone, the issue was acknowledged by David Billips, director of public works, which he contributed to being a risk of snow removal with plows.
“The unfair reality is when you’re pushing snow you might take out a mailbox,” Billips said.
The department spoke highly of the recent snow removal, which was aided by their new web-based management program “Snow OPS.” The first snowstorm was also the programs first official run, and results were positive.
“It cost us $27,000 for the most recent snowstorm, and with Snow OPS it literally took hours to do what used to take days to compile in invoices,” Francis Cain, assistant director of public works, said.
“In the long run, you’re going to see [Snow OPS] saving the city a substantial amount of money,” Billips said.
The program, which was originally described in the Oct. 7 edition of The Westfield News, utilizes GPS tracking through radios in snow removal vehicles, whether they are city-owned or contracted. The central dispatching unit is able to see the vehicles’ locations on one screen, while keeping track of tasks on another screen.
