NY, Syracuse – Syracuse is no stranger to bitter colds and heavy snow during its infamous winter seasons. Mike Riccardi, a native of Syracuse, hires a private snow plow every year to manage his driveway during the worst of the winter months.
“For the past couple of years, we have hired a private contractor to plow our driveway,” said Riccardi.
People hire private plows to take care of the areas not covered by the public snow plows, like home driveways and business parking lots. Riccardi said his family has used the service for years.
“The plow tends to leave snow on the sides of our drive way rather than the street,” said Riccardi. “But they do come very early in the morning, and nobody’s complained about that being disruptive.”
Syracuse requires private snow plowers to pay a licensing fee.
“The snow plow license ordinance has been around for a long time,” said Boyle. “And this administration sort of caught a problem – the fine for not having a license was actually less than the license fee. So people were not getting the license.”
Originally, the fee for operating as a private snow plow driver in Syracuse was $150, but the fine for operating without a license was $140. Boyle said plow drivers were confused by the prices, and were often not aware of the policies, leading to private drivers dumping snow on sidewalks, in the middle of the street, or piling the snow up too high on the sides of driveways.
At first, the Common Council raised both fees for private operators. The new licensing fee was raised to $250.
However, that change hurt seasonal jobs, and hurt the pocketbooks of Syracuse residents. Boyle said older residents who are physically unable to maintain their own driveway reached out to express their concerns about the fee change.
“I had a constituent reach out to me,” said Boyle. “She told me that her plow operator told her that her plow prices were going to go up this year because he was going to have to get this license.”
Several other private snow plow companies reached out to Boyle and said they too would be forced to either raise their prices or simply stop operating in Syracuse. Boyle decided to push for ending the snow plow policies. She said the licensing did little to prevent illegal snow dumping.
“The licensing didn’t give us any additional protections against illegal dumping,” said Boyle. “Basically, all we were getting was a list of people who had given us $150.”
Under a new policy approved in December, private snow drivers pay $50 for a license – but that price is slashed down to $10 for drivers who attend a city presentation about illegal snow dumping.
Susan Boyle said the changes in fee prices means Syracuse wnts to enforce the law, not raise revenue for government.
“The goal is is ultimately compliance to our illegal dumping laws,” she said. “The goal is to help our community, not to reap money.”
Still, despite the changes, Mike Riccardi is unsure anything good will happen soon. It’s not the laws that are problematic, said Riccardi.
“It’s really more about the enforcement,” he said. “And I think the city has an enforcement issue with a lot of their snow plow polices.”
Private snow plows aren’t only source source of problems in Syracuse though. The New York State Department of Transportation said they did not have enough drivers for their plows year. While the lack of drivers is a regular occurence, Dave Smith said it still affects how they manage their share of the winter snow.
“We’ll extend beats, we’ll help one another out, so we’ll shift trucks around and people if necessary to fill any gaps where we need to get trucks out on the road,” said Regional Director Dave Smith.
In Syracuse, there’s a shortage of mechanics too.
“They say it’s always been difficult to hire mechanics because you have to live in Syracuse,” said Ann Fordock, Deputy Commissioner of the Department of Public Works.
She said salary is also an issue: the city’s mechanics earn $17 to $19 an hour. Fordock said the city cannot compete with the salaries offered by private companies, or employers like the school district or Centro. She said the Public Works Department hopes to raise salaries for mechanics by at least 10 percent in 2019.
