What The Heck Is Somerville Supposed To Do With All These Parking Space Savers?

Image credit: 311 Somerville

Unprecedented problems require unprecedented solutions, as the City of Somerville is all too aware at the moment.

Last week, the Somerville Department of Public Works began rounding up plastic chairs and other miscellaneous objects residents had used as parking space savers - which was never legal in the city, incidentally - during the record-smashing series of snowstorms that shackled the entire Boston area last month. Photos of the mountainous piles of space savers made a minor splash on social media.

But now that they’ve collected all these chairs, boxes, and similar bits of junk, city officials can’t figure out what the heck they’re supposed to do next.

Can you blame them? If you suddenly had a thousand-or-so plastic chairs, would you immediately know what to do?

“We’re always looking to be creative, so anything’s on the table (big or small)” Somerville spokeswoman Jackie Rossetti told WBZ-TV.

The source reports that anyone - locally-based or otherwise - with a practical solution is invited to email mayor@somervillema.gov, or call either 311, or 617-666-3311 if they’re dialing from outside Somerville.

Keep in mind, the idea to donate the chairs to a nation with a crippling shortage of places to sit down has already been thrown out there by Patch.

Boston began its own space saver clean up on Monday, March 2, and may soon find itself with a similar quandary.