Maybe That Extra $250K Is a Good Idea

Mayor Lisa Wong requested an extra $500,000 for snow-and-ice last week, and the City Council gave her half that. Four days later, it snowed another 10-12 inches in Fitchburg.

Save Fitchburg doesn't employ a meteorologist, but you'd have to think the snow predicted for Thursday night/Friday morning is going to put the city close to 50 inches for the season. Yikes.

Communities are allowed to deficit-spend on snow-and-ice. They can shift money around to fill in the debt, or carry it over to next year. It is not unusual for a community to overspend, so no blame necessary for the situation.

That said, the city has blown through its snow-and-ice budget, and everyone well knows, Wong didn't come into office with envelopes full of 100s tucked in desk drawers. A few hundred thousand here, a few hundred thousand there, and eventually you're talking real money, especially when your wiggle room is so limited.

The point: Snow sucks.

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow

OK, maybe not. This snow stinks right now.

If you're a member of the Fitchburg Hometown e-mail chain, you've seen tons of feedback in recent days over the city's snow cleanup, or lack thereof. It appears much of the complaints focus on the tight neighborhood over near B.F. Brown and Elm Street.

To play apologist here, the Thursday and Sunday storms dropped a good 16-18 inches on the city, and let's be honest, none of the stuff that fell Thursday melted by Sunday. So really, we're looking at one big storm. Even around here, it's fairly rare that we get an 18-inch snowstorm.

So, this is an unusual situation.

But, there were some weather-related problems yesterday. Some sidewalks near schools weren't taken care of, and a portion of the South Street School didn't have heat yesterday.

Any other weather-related problems? Are the problems isolated, or this is a city-wide struggle to keep up with the snow? Any anecdotal evidence appreciated. What's the deal out there?