Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Cheshire's snowplowing costs last weekend

From the NHRs Luther Turmelle:

In Cheshire, for example, 22 snowplow drivers were paid at double their normal rate because they had to work on a Sunday, said Joseph Michelangelo, Cheshire’s director of public works and engineering. “We budget Dec. 1 through March 31, so we’re about 10 percent through the winter and we’ve already spent quite a bit more than 15 percent of our budget,” Michelangelo said. Cheshire budgets an average of about $175,000 per winter, he said.

I thought we had 14 routes with two drivers each - one in the classic dumptruck plow and one in the pickup truck plow. The big truck would do the lion's share of the roads, while the pickup cleans up the trickier areas, such as small cul-de-sacs. Anyone happen to know how many routes we normally have?

Tim White

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

4 of the 22 are mechanics.

Anonymous said...

They did a terrible job as well. On my road, it was barely touched and impassable most of the day. My neighbors commented we saw the plow once the entire day......so much for our tax money. This town is a joke. For what we pay in taxes we get little in return.

Anonymous said...

Have to agree--not a very good job plowing--what about outsourcing this?

Anonymous said...

Management determines how long the trucks are out, when the trucks are dispatched and how much material is dispensed. There is less material dumped on the roads and the trucks either are dispatched later or sent in earlier all in an attempt to save money. I personally feel that public safety is being compromised in an attempt to save a buck. The roads were always taken care of better than surrounding Towns in the past, but not anymore. Speak out publicly if you don't want plowing operations to be part of the cuts. Welcome to the age of money savings!

Anonymous said...

You can bet when that turf field goes in they'll treat it like gold..spending all kinds of money to groom it, disinfect it, watering it to keep it cooler, etc. and then they'll pay big bucks to replace it!

Anonymous said...

I think the town did a great job of clearing the roads. It's a matter of priority. The main arteries and places like hills and bridges where the possibility of accidents is highest have the highest priorities and the less frquented and culdesacs are later.

Even power outage restoration planning and schedules are based on priorities.

So if it's very important for you to get out very early, you shouldn't probably buy a house on a road that has few residents and is not frequently traveled.