Business owners not big fans of snow berms on Nucleus

A host of businesses owners showed up at the city council meeting last week to talk about sidewalk and highway snow removal, but a representative of the Montana Department of Transportation apparently forgot the meeting.

The city was expecting Justun Juelfs, the local maintenance chief of MDT to attend the meeting, but Juelfs apparently forgot to note the meeting in his calendar and didn’t attend.

So council just took testimony from business owners and managers. After two snowy winters in a row and the potential for a third one right around the corner, there was plenty of concern.

One of the big problems is the berm MDT puts in the center of Nucleus Avenue during a big snow, business owners said.

Mark Johnson, the branch manager of Glacier Bank, noted the berm makes it tough for customers to get in and out the bank, because it blocks left hand turns and then people get stuck trying to drive through it.

“My concern is safety and convenience of customers,” he said.

The state does remove the berm, but it can be days after a snow event before it does so.

The other problem is sidewalk clearing on U.S. Highway 2. The city began enforcing an ordinance last year that required landowners to clear the sidewalks in front of their businesses.

The law says they need to be clear by noon after a snow event. But that can be tough, as the snow is often hard-packed and icy after being plowed up on the sidewalk by snowplows.

In addition, some businesses have no place to put it. Mike Burr, manager of Whitefish Credit Union, noted on its property, there’s not much space to put snow, except to blow it back onto the highway.

Mayor Don Barnhart suggested later in the meeting that with the wide width of the sidewalks, that people maybe clear just five feet or so of the walk and berm the snow between the sidewalk and highway.

There’s also problems with compliance with the law. Some businesses and landowners complied, and others did not. That made for sidewalks that were plowed in one section and unplowed in others. There’s also sections of sidewalk that don’t front private land, but state land.

The state rarely plowed them in the winter.

Some thought the state ought to simply plow the sidewalks along Highway 2. After all, they plowed the snow up on them to begin with.

Businessowner Karl Sorenson noted the whole thing didn’t make a lot of sense. He paid taxes to have the state plow the highway in front of his place and then paid again to have the sidewalk cleared of the state’s snow.

Councilman Doug Karper, said he thought that ultimately if the city wanted the sidewalks cleared, then the city would end up having to do it.

That could prove expensive — the equipment alone costs tens of thousands of dollars.