Northeast News
February 5, 2014

February is once again upon us here in HNE and this li’l news doggie is just flat fed up with the cold, the snow and the inability of this city to properly clean streets.

By the time this edition breaks, it’s a pretty safe bet that it will land on about six inches of fresh snow. Even this dog brain understands that it’s February in the Midwest and we should expect this kind of icebox weather. But the street cleanin’ this never-happy canine is referring to doesn’t involve snowplows, it involves the street sweeping machines and the mess they leave behind that’s often larger than the mess they were sent to clean up.

We’re not sure who sets the protocol for sweeping but when there’s no notice sent out as to where the sweepers will be ahead of time, parked vehicles are routinely swept around, leaving a debris trail that looks more like a farm-to-market road than a supposedly well swept city street. Here’s a novel idea, why not send out notices to areas that the street sweepers will be in so that residents have the opportunity to move their vehicles, allowing a clear path for the street sweepers? Any errant vehicles still on the street will be towed to impound. This seems to work in larger metropolitan areas like Chicago or Philly, why not here? Sadly, though, this behest will fall on deaf ears or even no ears in the Public Works Department. Those taxpayer paid junkets to the Spanish Riviera just seem to get in the way of minding the proper spending of taxpayer dollars. City government at work. Gotta love it.