Washington will clear streets Thursday night

WASHINGTON — City officials say they plan to start plowing roads around the square Thursday night, after winter weather brought minimal accumulation but blew snow onto streets.

“If your car is parked on a residential street, please move it to allow for the safe and efficient clearing of the street,” said a statement from the Washington Police Department. “Please do your part to help the plow operators do their work as safely as possible.”

City Maintenance Superintendent JJ Bell said crews would start snow removal around the city in the early afternoon, and return to the square area late Thursday night or early Friday morning.

“There’s too much traffic up there during the day to clean the downtown,” he said. “You’ve got cars, and businesses are open … We wouldn’t get, maybe half of it cleaned up during the day as we do at night. We usually go up there after midnight.”

Bell reiterated that moving cars off the street for snowplows would help crews move quickly and effectively. So does shoveling sidewalks into lawn space, rather than back into the road.

“Anything to get more cars off the street helps us out,” he said. “For water drainage when it warms up and (so) we’re not zigzagging around them.”

The snow event is the first of note since the Washington City Council enacted a new ordinance governing street parking. Critics said that rule change left residents downtown — and other places without driveways — nowhere to go.

"This is an issue that effects lots of areas,“ City Council Member Bethany Glinsmann said before casting her lone vote against the ordinance change. ”I agree with the intent of this, I want our streets cleaned quickly and efficiently, but we have not solved the problem of, ‘Where do the cars go?’ We can’t just tell them not to park and pretend they disappear.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com