It is no secret that there has been a huge failure in the maintenance of our streets this winter, but who is to blame? Many say it is due to budget cuts by our mayor, leaving insufficient funds for the maintenance following the big December snowfalls that mostly exhausted money budgeted for street plowing.
Another problem I have heard is that there is a shortage of plow operators and heavy equipment mechanics to maintain the plows. All I really know is that roads like Northern Lights and Debarr Road have been reduced to one-and-a-half lanes going in either direction. Most of the residential streets on the east side of the city go days or weeks before we see a plow; check out the huge pile of snow on Falcon Circle as an example. The big snowplows can no longer go around the circle and the recycling truck got stuck one day; I helped shovel him out.
I once lived in Syracuse, New York, and they would not stand for this incompetence. It’s time we held street maintenance accountable. Is it a scheduling issue? Is it time to boot the mayor? It’s your tax dollars either being wasted or improperly used. Speak up!
— Robert Gill
Anchorage
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