Six weeks of ice-rutted streets have tried the patience of Denver residents, and City Council members who find themselves inundated with complaints now want answers from Mayor John Hickenlooper’s administration.
Several council members told the administration Monday that they are losing credibility with constituents by vouching for the city’s claims of snow and ice removal.
“I can no longer, with good conscience, tell my neighbors and constituents that ‘the city is on its way,”‘ Council President Michael Hancock said in an e-mail.
And Councilwoman Jeanne Faatz said she and her colleagues aren’t seeing results from the Public Works Department.
“They tell us what they are going to be doing, we pass along the word, and then it doesn’t get done and people question the credibility,” she said. “How many times can we apologize for the administration?”
Bill Vidal, Denver’s manager of public works and deputy mayor, said he has heard the frustration but is trying to balance it against the city’s growing snow- removal tab.
The city is spending about $1 million a week cleaning up snow, Vidal said. As of Friday, the total was more than $7 million, he said.
“We are walking this fine line now between what are the effective strategies to put in place,” he said, “and how much money do we spend in these strategies to remove snow from these neighborhood streets?”
He said the snowstorms that have hit Denver weekly since the Dec. 20 blizzard have thrown off ice removal.
And with below-freezing temperatures, even when equipment does get out, the clearing goes slowly. Vidal said crews have been trying to clear the city’s 14,000 neighborhood blocks at the rate of “100 – maybe on a good day 200 – blocks a day.”
Councilwoman Marcia Johnson, who chairs the city’s public-works committee, said in a follow-up e-mail to Hancock’s that she tries to underscore those facts to the public. But she said that only makes her “sound like an apologist for the city when the citizens really want an advocate.”
The e-mail chain began Jan. 22 when an aide to Hancock notified the city about ice in front of the U.S. Post Office on Hudson Street. Public Works replied that the area was “already on the list.”
Hancock then wrote to Public Works, Vidal and Hickenlooper’s chief of staff, Kelly Brough. Hancock said that “the ‘we will put it on the list’ line has gotten old and is perilously eating into any equity we hold with our constituents.”
The issue of snow and ice removal likely will be raised today at a scheduled mayor- council meeting.
And if Councilwoman Faatz’s e-mail is any indication, more changes will be considered. “This type of snowfall may not occur often,” she wrote, “but we still need to provide basic city services to the entire city when it does. We do, after all, live in Colorado, not Florida.”
Staff writer George Merritt can be reached at 303-954-1657 or gmerritt@denverpost.com.
