The Boulder City Council adopted a resolution at its Dec. 16 that formally established the city’s responsibility for removing snow from certain sidewalks. The city, which has relied on the snow plow services of Boulder resident Bill Woods for more than 10 years, now seeks to replace his services upon his impending retirement.
“Ever since I’ve been living here, Main Street has been plowed for everyone,” said City Councilman Tim Graff. “It’s something special about Boulder that you’d wake up and the sidewalks are already clean for you. We’ve all been very spoiled in having Bill Woods, and I don’t know how easily we can replace him.”
Graff, who has plowed the sidewalks along Main Street and West 3rd Avenue leading to Boulder Elementary twice this December to determine the feasibility of city employees conducting their own snow removal operations, claims that it takes roughly two hours to plow the walkways.
The City Council, while having yet to adopt a formal resolution on how best to move forward, is considering the purchase of a side-by-side equipped with a snow plow or outsourcing snow removal to a private contractor. Woods had previously charged the city $100 per street side per snow fall, amounting to roughly $1200 a month during the winter season.
“I do think the City should be doing this. But the question is what should be the mechanism,” said Boulder City Council president Drew Dawson.
Boulder Public Works Director Dennis Wortman suggested hiring an outside contractor to ensure consistent snow removal, while also securing some means for the city to remove snow itself.
“If we had another Bill Woods on the line, that would be a different story,” said Wortman. “It’s not easy to get up at 5 a.m. and come plow the sidewalks. If a contractor quits, or someone doesn’t show up, it’d be good to have a way to do it ourselves.
“We’re going to have snow storms between now and then, and there’s always a chance that if we’re paying someone $24 bucks an hour to do it they might say it’s not worth the pay after a few negative 15 degree mornings. Bill was so reliable it sort of made us all numb, but now I think we need a few options at once.”
The Boulder City Council will make a formal decision on how best to move forward at its January meeting. Snow removal along Main Street will be done on an ad-hoc, storm-by-storm basis until a permanent solution is agreed to.
Woods did not respond to The Monitor’s interview requests in time for publication.
