“We are in Minnesota, it snows, we need to clean our streets,” stated Morris City Councilman Jeff Miller. This was in response to several complaints the city received after a Snow Emergency was declared on January 5. When a snow emergency is declared, residents must move vehicles off the streets or be fined and potentially towed. This enables the city to fully clear the streets of the snow. The city council discussed the complaints at their meeting on January 11 while hearing directly from one of the people who received a ticket.
The resident present at the meeting lives on East 2nd Street. He stated that he did not get the message about the Snow Emergency, explaining that he was signed up to get the alerts. There was a notice on his land line about a call from the Alert system but no message was included.
The resident explained that he rents his home and in normal circumstances, will park in the alley behind the home. However, due to the large amount of ice and hard snow, he is not able to do that. He did not move his vehicle off the street and thus was ticketed $50. The vehicle did not get towed which would have been another $180.
City Manager Blaine Hill told the council members that 48 citations were issued. Not all the vehicles were towed because the towing company was called out to do other things. He received calls from a number of the people who were cited or towed. Almost all of them stated that they were not informed about the Snow Emergency.
Hill then asked how they get their information. He explained that the notice is on the radio, newspaper website, and sent out through the CodeRed alert system which can go to phones, computers, etc. The notice on the television station is available to Mediacom users but no longer to Federated users.
“We used all the tools available to us,” Hill stated. “If we waived this fine, we would have to waive them all.”
Councilman Brian Solvie had a concern that perhaps the alert system failed this particular individual. “If he signed up and didn’t get the alert, I would concur that there is something to this claim.”
The council members also discussed how it is the responsibility of landlords to make sure there is a place to park in the event of an emergency. Police Chief Reggie Welle stated that the city ordinance requires one parking place per kitchen in the residence. However, it is more of an issue between the tenant and the landlord not between the city and the landlords.
“A number of these complaints were that they didn’t know,” stated Hill. We are now encouraging them to sign up for the emergency alerts to multiple notification places.”
Note- you can sign up for the CodeRed Alert on the Stevens County website by clicking this link.
“Thank you for coming in,” stated Councilman Kim Gullickson. “It opens up a lot of questions about how to let people know and how to find out more about the CodeRed Alert system. We are getting the message out there.” Read the full Morris City Council story here.
