The politics of snow removal linger long after the snow melts

A fellow parent and I were chatting yesterday when she told me how frustrated she was with Palos Hills’ snow removal efforts last Saturday night. Since these storms are all starting to run together, I’ll remind you that last Saturday we had a very heavy snow in the afternoon. It was icy and cars drove very, very slowly on the unplowed roads.

She was frustrated because her street hadn’t even been plowed when they left to attend 4:30 p.m. mass at Sacred Heart Church. The family left early since the weather was bad. They didn’t think much about the fact that their street wasn’t plowed until they drove by Palos Hills City Hall on Roberts Road. There, at 4:00 p.m. on Saturday, they saw plows cleaning the parking lot. They were furious. Palos Hills City Hall wasn’t going to be open again for nearly two days, yet it was plowed before the side streets? People couldn’t get out of their driveways, but elected officials had clean parking spaces at Palos Hills City Hall?

Sure, you can argue that the city hall parking lot needed to be cleared in case of an emergency, but no one will believe you. If there was a true emergency, wouldn’t officials gather at the police station? (And remember, we’re talking about Palos Hills here. How many after-hours emergencies really required the staff to run back to city hall?)

This family has spent days telling everyone the story. They are both quite involved in the community and know lots of people. A lot of people have heard this story. It seems that no one was surprised that the politicians had their office parking lot cleaned before the side streets.

It would be easy to blame the public works employees, but we all know that’s not going to happen here. I have known a lot of public works employees in different cities. It’s a highly political job, even though every talks about equal opportunity hiring. A college friend’s father was a Chicago public works official. He knew exactly who got what services and in what order. It wasn’t something that was written down, nor was it discussed. It was just the way things were scheduled. Everyone knew not to question things. If you wanted to keep your job, you just followed the schedule. Palos Hills Public Works employees work too hard to be scapegoated for something like this, even though we all know elected officials would be happy to throw their hands in the air and say they didn’t know why city hall was plowed before the side streets.

If you’re an elected official, this should be a cautionary tale. Elected officials, especially those in office for a long time, seem to forget that they are public servants. It never looks good when the public officials are the first in line for any public service. Elected officials should be making sure their constituents’ streets are cleared. They should be connected to their communities so they know which streets need additional attention. Mostly they should be making sure that their constituents are receiving the public services their taxes provide. Once that happens, then no one cares if a closed city hall parking lot is plowed.

The politics of snow removal are simple. Everyone knows if their street is plowed. Everyone knows if their street is the last one plowed. And, all it takes is one angry family to make sure everyone knows that Palos Hills City Hall gets plowed before side streets, even though it was closed. 

Maybe it wasn’t the elected officials’ intention to send a message that it was more important to clean city hall parking lots even though it was going to be closed for the next 36+ hours, but that’s the message that was sent. This family is still annoyed. They will be telling this story for months and months. It’s time for elected officials to remember that the politics of snow removal can linger long after the snow is gone.