The City of Watertown will give residents a break from the sidewalk snow shoveling rules after the blizzard of Jan. 22 and 23 dumped around 15 inches of snow on top of snow remaining from the storm in January. But the overnight parking ban — scheduled to end on Feb. 28 — will be in place until further notice. This winter’s storms have already sapped Watertown’s snow and ice fund for the winter, so the Council approved additional dollars to be spent on snow removal.
At Tuesday’s City Council meeting, City Council President Mark Sideris gave credit to the Department of Public Works for its work to keep Watertown’s streets clear of snow.
“I want to thank Public Works, (Superintendent) Mr. (Tom) Brady and your staff for a very challenging few days here, and I know we’re still trying to catch up, and it’s going to be some time, but please express our appreciation for, so far, what you’ve done,” Sideris said. “The public safety units as well, police and fire. I actually saw a police officer this afternoon shoveling a driveway on Union Street. So, you were going above and beyond.”
City Manager George Proakis joined the meeting via his computer after being stranded out of town by the storm, but he has been keeping in touch with the DPW and others to track what was going on.
“Thanks to everyone in the community for moving vehicles and making sure to stay off the roads,” Proakis said. “We did tow a handful of vehicles, I think about 18 or 20. We ended up giving over 100 tickets for the snow emergency parking ban. But we also had a lot of people who moved and got things out of the right way. We really needed cars off the road in order to be able to handle this sort of a storm in this sort of circumstance.”
Given that plows have pushed even more snow on top of the banks left from the Jan. 25 and 26 storm, Proakis said the residential snow ordinance (which requires a path be cleared within 24 hours of the end of the storm) will be relaxed.
“For the time being, we will not be strictly enforcing the shoveling ordinance against residential properties,” Proakis said. “I do want to encourage people to continue to shovel your sidewalks. Don’t overexert yourself. Take frequent breaks. Be safe when doing so, be neighborly.”
Watertown’s snow ordinance also requires commercial properties to clear sidewalks after storms. Proakis said some leeway will be allowed if needed.
“We understand there are challenging conditions around this storm. We do still expect that we can enforce on our commercial properties on the sidewalk shoveling,” Proakis said. “Although, like I said with the last storm, we’re looking to work within the realm of the possible. If we’ve dumped an eight foot bank at the corner, I know how difficult that can be.”
Due to the size of the snow banks, Proakis said that the overnight parking ban will continue into March. In November, Proakis announced that Watertown would have a shortened Winter Parking Ban for 2025-26, from Jan. 1 to March 1. The winter has not cooperated, however, so the ban will remain in place heading into March.
“We announced, as we released the parking ban, the snow emergency parking ban, that we are going to continue the overnight parking ban beyond Feb. 28, which is when we really initially intended to end it, which was earlier than we usually do,” he said. “And we were trying to do that, anticipating the possibility that we’d be able to not have a significant amount of snow on the ground at this point in time. That hasn’t worked out,”
The overnight parking ban will remain in place until further notice, Proakis said.
“We will assess the circumstances of the snow banks,” he said. “Then as we monitor this over the coming weeks, see when we can really safely be in a circumstance where if a car is back at the curb and stays there day and night, that it’s not impeding our ability to continue to clear streets, continue to work to make streets better and safer in those overnight hours.”
The snow removal efforts have drained Watertown’s snow and ice removal budget, Deputy City Manager Emily Monea told the Council.
As of Feb. 18, the City has exceeded the annual $1.5 million snow and ice removal appropriation by $133,298. This came before the recent blizzard. According to the memo from the DPW, which was written before the Feb. 22-23 storm, the DPW has salted 11 times this winter and plowed two times. Crews also removed snow from bus stops and crosswalks for several days after the Jan. 25 storm.
Sideris reminded Councilors that the snow and ice fund is the only one in the budget that Massachusetts communities can exceed the budgeted amount, but it requires a City Council vote to do so. He was asked how the City will pay for the excess costs in snow and ice.
“We have a couple of options here, after the snow and ice is finished, the manager would have the option of either adding it on to next year’s tax bill or finding funds in this fiscal year’s budget to ask for a transfer to fund this,” Sideris said. “(Proakis has) already told us that we’re going to have potentially significant increases without a Home Rule petition. So, as the chair or president of the City Council, I would be advocating that we find the funds in this year’s budget to cover the deficit, but that wouldn’t happen until April or May, when maybe it stops snowing.”
The Council voted unanimously to allow the City to exceed the snow and ice budget.