They waited a day to declare a snow emergency.
It didn't set them back, they say. But it did allow them to wait until all 8.2 inches of snow fell over the city. That permitted a clean sweep the first time through, and, as an extra bonus, it saved countless holiday travelers the horror of coming home Sunday night to find their curbs bereft of snow - and their cars.
"It's going wonderfully," said Brian Lokkesmoe, the Public Works official who directs Minneapolis snowplowing. "It was nice to have the extra time."
As it was, more than 1,000 cars were towed Sunday night and Monday in Minneapolis. Police wrote 2,100 tickets for cars illegally parked in the way of plows.
Meanwhile, a record 807 cars were towed (and 3,610 tickets issued) over the weekend in St. Paul, whose snow emergency started at 9 p.m. on Saturday, 24 hours ahead of Minneapolis.'
That's twice as many towed cars during a single snow emergency than at any time in the city's history, eclipsing the 1998 record of 405 towed cars. Among the reasons: A new towing contract that divides the city into three zones, enabling at least 36 tow trucks to be on the streets at the same time. Officials also noted that more tow trucks were available in St. Paul because Minneapolis didn't declare a snow emergency as quickly.
St. Paul officials had tried to raise public awareness last winter by sounding civil defense sirens to signal snow emergencies. That experimental program was not continued this winter.
The snowfall in the wake of the New Year's holiday also might have caught people off guard or out of town.
"I wish we could schedule the snow around holidays, but our policy is to plow whenever it snows 3 inches," said Gary Erichson, a St. Paul street maintenance engineer who declares snow emergencies. "I would be lynched and criticized for not being responsive if I said: `Let's wait until the holiday weekend is over and just plow next week.' "
While the cities' differing schedules might have confused residents on both sides of the Mississippi River, Minneapolis officials said differences in geography and plowing systems should be sufficient to answer all excuses being heard in the lines at the cities' two impound lots.
Speaking for Minneapolis, Lokkesmoe explained that the decision to hold off on declaring a snow emergency was made at about 2 p.m. Saturday, when only 2.5 inches of snow had accumulated, with more predicted for the next day.
"We thought it was better to wait until it was done snowing," Lokkesmoe said. "Waiting allows us to do a better job."
Minneapolis' normal snow emergency threshold is 4 inches of new snow; St. Paul has a 3-inch threshold. At 2 p.m. Saturday, the appointed hour for making a decision in Minneapolis, St. Paul Public Works officials hadn't made a call yet in their city, further encouraging Minneapolis to hold off for a day.
According to Lokkesmoe, nothing was lost. Work on main roads, alleys and center cuts on residential streets commenced Friday night. "A snow emergency is just to get cars out of their parking spots," he said. That part of the job was ready to go Monday morning.
The marginal snow accumulations also allowed Minneapolis Public Works officials to take into account an additional factor in the snow-emergency calculus: holiday travel. "It entered into the decision just a little bit," Lokkesmoe said. "We want what works best for people. We don't like towing cars. We'd rather get compliance."
Cars impounded
Even so, compliance was less than total in some pockets of the city, such as the 2600 block of 1st Avenue S., where most the cars on the block were towed, according to resident Kamesha Jennings.
Jennings, standing in line Monday at the impound lot near downtown Minneapolis, expressed a common lament: She hadn't heard about the snow emergency declaration on Sunday. "I was just hearing about it this morning," she said.
Also caught unawares - until her car was at the impound lot - was Monique Manning, of south Minneapolis. "This was bad timing, right after Christmas," she said. "A single-parent family needs all its dollars."
While the experience was novel to Jennings and Manning, it's apparently not too unusual for many other impound lot visitors. "I've never been able to figure it out," said retiring Minneapolis transportation director Mike Monahan, who's been with the city for 30 years. "It's the same people, snow emergency after snow emergency."
The lines at the St. Paul impound lot at 1660 Como Av. south of the State Fairgrounds were finally dwindling Monday, but the anger level was not. Someone even had scrawled: City of St. Paul, City of Thieves on the counter at the impound lot.
Elisabeth Monsma-Heron was married Friday and looked out her window near the St. Paul Cathedral the next night to see her car being towed.
"He had one strap on my wheel and said he'd take it off for $65 in cash," she said. "I only had $40 in cash and the whole thing made me cry."
She stopped at the lot Sunday, where she was told she would have to wait up to four hours for her car.
"The people were nice and said I could go home and call them every hour to see if my number was getting close," Monsma-Heron said. "I told them, `That's nice, but how can I go home without my car?' "
So she came back Monday, losing another $12 in overnight storage fees, for a total towing bill of $129.70.
Jennifer Trastek, a junior at the University of St. Thomas, moved her compact car off Grand Avenue Saturday night, only to be towed off a side street Sunday morning.
"I thought I was being smart," she said, before forking out $129.70 and heading to the airport for a month of studying theater in London. "But I guess I learned a valuable lesson, a very valuable lesson."
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Snow emergency towing and tagging charges #
Minneapolis: $100
- Towing charges $70
- Parking ticket $30
St. Paul: $157.70
- Towing charges $117.70
- Parking ticket $40
# does not include daily storage fees of $10 in Minneapolis and $12 in St. Paul. The fees kick in after a car has been impounded 24 hours or more. In St. Paul, a $3 fee is assessed to those paying by check.
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