Board of Aldermen 02-08-2022 Page 13
President Wilshire
Then we would have discussion about it.
Alderman Cathey
But if only one alderman objected, it just ultimately goes through anyway, right?
President Wilshire
Well if we take a vote, yes, and everyone else votes in the affirmative it goes through yes.
Alderman Cathey
Right. | just wanted clarification on how that all works. Okay.
President Wilshire
Okay. That’s fair.
Alderman Cathey
| understand some of the public’s frustration with DPW. I do. | got a lot of e-mails, some from the same people which is
fine. | don’t mind being contacted. | love to help out the citizens and | will reach out to whomever | need to. | will say that
DPW gets a lot of calls from residents about storms. They do. So if you think that they’re not answering, they're talking to
someone else on a daily basis — 40, 50, probably sometimes 100 calls a day, multiple days in a row when there’s a storm.
They just don’t have that kind of time. They’re not trying to avoid. They’re not trying to dismiss. They have a job to do
just like the rest of us. If you feel like you’re not being heard, you can e-mail your Alderman. Certainly people have e-
mailed me to reach out and | did. | got some great answers from DPW about plowing. | had multiple individuals worry
about the sidewalks from BAE down to Bernie and Phil’s. Just so the public knows, that sidewalk cannot be plowed
because does it not meet the reqs. of the machine that plows sidewalks. There are not enough people in the DPW to go
manually shovel it because those same people that would be shoveling also drive plow trucks. It’s the same crew. We
don’t have that money. We don’t have that manpower especially in a big storm.
| will note that DPW plows hundreds of miles of streets every storm and 50 miles of sidewalks every storm. They have to
continually do that and they have to cover the safe roads initiative for schools, the main arteries, and then they will get to
whatever they can when they can. Lauren has told me multiple times if a citizen has a problem, reach out and if they can
get to that street, they will. That’s their best intention. They don’t like to leave citizens without plowed streets. So we
need to kind of give them a little bit of grace because some storms are a lot. A lot of work, a lot of hours plowing, salting,
sanding, and whatever they’re doing. Just so citizens know, a lot of the streets are being plowed. It might not just be
yours. So it might go unseen. So they're doing their best.
Lastly, | think that | would agree with Alderman Sullivan earlier. | think in the future maybe, | don’t really know how this
would work. | would appreciate both sides of the story of a situation. | don’t know how that would work but | think it’s fair
because | don't have all the facts. | have this letter. I’m a data guy. | want to hear all the information first. | think that
would be more helpful. | don’t know how we move forward in the future how that gets handled. | think that would be best
for all sides involved that both sides are given ample sort of time to express themselves or talk about their grievance as it
were and then we can move on from there. | understand that now the situation is with NPD. So that might not be
appropriate but certainly in the future | think that would be maybe best. | don’t know. Something that we can discuss as
Aldermen. | think that’s it forme. Thank you.
Alderman Dowd
Two very quick things. One — we had the first reading of R-22-009 tonight. We will be discussing in Budget on the 28". It
will come back to the full Board on the 8". We have 30 days so Budget Committee review the contracts so if you have
any questions. If you have questions you'd like to get answered, if you want to reach out to me, I'll make sure the Police
Department gives us an answer before the meeting and other questions. There will be people from the Police Department
here to answer the questions on the negotiations but we have 30 days.
