May 8, 2018

MAYOR GOES ON TIRADE ABOUT MINNETRISTA GOVERNANCE BLOG POST AT COUNCIL MEETING. On April 14 the city announced on their website they were pulling snow plows off their routes due to “ongoing severe blizzard conditions”. The real reason, however, had little to do with the snow and everything to do with the fact that several of the city’s plow drivers had been allowed to go on vacation and the city was understaffed. Nobody’s at fault there…we usually don’t get snow in mid-April. Plow drivers need to sleep and that’s important. But that’s not the reason the city gave for pulling the plows. They didn’t say they were understaffed, they said it was because of the snow (at the time of the MGB post I was unaware of the understaffing). I actually praised our public works department on the blog post in a comment stating “I think our public works dept does a great job clearing roads..” and they do. The blog post, in retrospect, was perhaps opportunistic in calling out what I saw as a ridiculous reason for taking snow plows off the roads. After all, snow plows are made to plow snow. I learned last night it was the Mayor who consulted with staff to post the announcement which explains the tirade at the end of our council meeting. I’m glad to know she’s reading my blog. 🙂