The city will not be responsible for replacing mail boxes knocked over by snow tossed by a snow plow and snow removers will be prohibited from blocking storm drains when they pile up snow.
The Carthage City Council’s Public Works Committee advanced two snow removal policy changes to the full council for consideration on Tuesday.
The first says the city is not responsible for replacing mail boxes that are knocked over by the snow coming off the plows as they plow the streets.
The second says contractors removing snow from parking lots or driveways must not block storm drains or place snow in city roadways.
Carthage Public Works Director Zeb Carney said the city will still replace mail boxes if a snow plow actually hits the mailbox with its blade, but a good supporting post and securely attached mail box should not be damaged by snow flying off the snow plow’s blade.
“All street crew drivers are instructed to drive as slow as realistically possible during wet snows in order to minimize the problems with mail boxes,” the city’s new policy says. “Mailboxes that are damaged by actual physical contact with city equipment will be repaired at the city’s expense, but only if they were properly located and installed. The mailbox owner is responsible for repair or replacement of the mailbox if the mailbox was damaged by the pressure of the plowed snow and there was no physical contact with the plow equipment.”
Carney said the city has had problems in recent storms with contract snow removers putting snow on top of storm drains. Then when the snow melts, the water doesn’t have anywhere to go, causing flooding in some cases.
“We’re not going to go out and write someone a citation for plowing snow,” Carney said. “But this puts in writing a policy so we can go to a contractor and tell him not to put the snow in the roadway or on the storm drain.”
City Administrator Tom Short said these are changes to policies and not ordinances so they will only require one vote of the council.
