During a special meeting of the Assembly Enterprise & Utilities Oversight Committee, representatives of the Municipality of Anchorage and the Alaska Deportment of Transportation & Public Facilities (AKDOT) presented a brief on the November snow removal response. Assembly Member Zac Johnson, Co-Chair of the Assembly Enterprise & Utilities Oversight Committee, issued the following statement:
I genuinely appreciate the Administration and the Department of Transportation for their participation today. We learned a lot about what happened last month. While necessity may have required diverting Municipal equipment to clear State roads, these delays had significant impacts to neighborhoods. For example, while plow operators would normally work in teams of two to clear a cul-de-sac in 3-to-4 minutes, November’s piles of heavy, wet snow took up to 12 minutes. It’s no wonder there were delays across the Municipality.
We also heard that the Municipality and State have signed a memorandum of understanding for the State to repay the Municipality roughly $35,000 for helping to plow State-maintained roads.
The question I’m left with is this: is our current strategy working for municipal taxpayers?
We have found ourselves increasingly reliant on contractors to fill these roles. And while there are advantages in maintaining flexibility, there are costs and tradeoffs that come with not having State or Municipal resources available to call on.
I’d like to recognize the heavy equipment operators, the plow drivers, the graders, dispatchers, mechanics and other support staff who work tirelessly to plow out our city in the worst of conditions. These are hard jobs. And if our snow removal strategy isn’t meeting the public’s expectations, that’s on us, not them.
Going forward, we intend to work together to establish reasonable expectations and determine what resources we need to accomplish them.
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CONTACT:
Zac Johnson | District 6
Enterprise & Utility Oversight Committee Co-Chair
zac.johnson@anchorageak.gov