By Sara Quam
It may be the dog days of summer, but the city of Luverne is already thinking about snow removal.
The Luverne City Council met as Committee of the Whole Monday to discuss, but not vote on, a few items, including snow removal.
Unlike many larger cities, Luverne can clear streets for travel in a matter of hours after a snowfall. Citizens donÕt have to wait days to safely drive all streets, but the process requires cooperation from the community to be efficient.
When citizens park cars on streets, efficiency is compromised.
The public works department and law enforcement personnel donÕt regularly ticket or tow vehicles that are parked during snow emergencies, but that poses problems for crews working on clearing streets.
The snow removal issue is resurfacing because the city has no way to notify residents when it intends to start plowing snow. Luverne used to interrupt television programming for announcements but can no longer do that because of Federal Communications Commission regulations. The local radio station is syndicated at night, so announcements there wonÕt get to residents either.
The council discussed what ordinances it could write that would allow the city easier snow plowing.
City Administrator Matt Hylen said to the council, "What level of laws and enforcement do you want?"
A concern to city workers is hitting parked cars with blades and having to reblade roads that have been previously cleared around parked cars.
Public Works Director Darrell Huiskes said it would be easiest if people parked off the street when they noticed snow or heard the forecast for snow.
Councilman Keith Erickson said that for people going to bed early, late-night storms would be missed. "It would be easier if we knew that during the winter, let's just not park on residential streets."
The downtown business district already has year-round parking restrictions from 1 to 6 a.m. In purely residential areas, though, it may be a more difficult regulation to enforce.
Councilman Jim Kirchhofer said that some residents donÕt have garages or off-street parking, and creating an ordinance that forbids winter street parking would cause some isolated problems.
Huiskes said that doing an adequate job blading streets saves the city money because less sand and salt is needed.
Graffiti ordinance
Rock County Sheriff Ron McClure was present to discuss graffiti issues and what role the city should play in managing it.
The City Council had a copy of Worthington's ordinance to get direction.
This spring's graffiti activity will likely result in restitution and wasn't gang-related.
Some graffiti is still around town, although most has been removed. An ordinance could require property owners to remove it instead of waiting for the graffiti perpetrator to be caught.
Erickson said community service is an appropriate punishment for the crime, although that's decided in the court system. "Too often," he said, "the parents end up paying it off."
The council leaned toward requiring property owners to erase the vandalism and then be reimbursed through restitution when someone is prosecuted.
Councilman Tom Martius said, "Could there be some type of fund where the property owner can pay for it through there? If there's a big project, a business owner could be saddled with that cost."
Fines for graffiti could go into a fund for that, but city administration and law enforcement are looking into that further.
BMX track
When the new skate park was looked at for insurance purposes, the BMX (bicycle motocross) bike track was also inspected. The bike track is near the Rock River dam by the city park.
Berkley Risk Administrators evaluated the area and said that facilities like it, in general, represent an exposure to injury and liability problems.
The company listed minimum measures the city should take on the track area. Many cities have removed their tracks or fenced them off for use only during sanctioned races because of liability concerns.