The City and Borough of Juneau Public Works — Street Maintenance Division — is asking that residents provide assistance with clearing drains on or near their property. With the amount of snow that has fallen, and the forecast for rising temperatures, there is an increase in the risk of flooding due to blocked drains. Any assistance that can be provided in clearing drains and clearing fire hydrants would be appreciated.
For further questions please contact Streets Department at 586-5246 or visit www.Juneau.org/streets
Comments (18)
Add commentWhat do we pay taxes for?
First, it's little or no snow removal, just pushing it around, including burying the hydrants when we dig them out. Now they want us to dig them out?
The new director of Public Works is totally clueless, a true Peter Principle promotion beyond his ability.
Time for our new City Manager to get Joe Buck back. At least he returned phone calls, and would apologize instead of offering excuses.
I agree
How DARE the City expect me to lift one finger in making my neighborhood a little better/safer!
I pay my taxes and all that should be expected of me is to sit here and complain about the services I get for them. It's the American way.
No way
We have kept our sidewalk cleared, fire hydrant cleared and helped our neighbors do the same, usually in time for the CBJ to come by around 2 am and fill it all in again. This happens every winter. I would like to see the night crew supervised, many nights I have laid awake listening to the grader "clear" our intersection for over 1/2 an hour...back and forth, back and forth...you get the idea. Perhaps a little training or some sort of thought of plan of action would be a good idea. Oh, after reading what I just typed I guess I could add that one of the nights listening to the beep... beep... beep as the driver happily drove back and forth we had only had about a 2 inch snowfall.
nice job Juneau.....
Nice job Juneau.... you have been screwing up all winter season with your plowing, and now you want our help??
hilarious.....
...or else...!
...or else we'll raise your taxes or cut your plowing! Or BOTH! Eh, Swope? I hope Kieffer doesn't make the kind of threats Rod liked to make. However, I do shovel the hydrant and drain directly in front of the house. It's the only thing that is kept up on the street out there. Can't depend on CBJ to keep me from walking through water or insure the availability of a fire hydrant during the winter. Even if I haven't seen a break on the mil rate for this property.
The residents ask the city
For help in not leaving those big bleepin' berms in our driveways. They plow, so then my husband and I go shovel the berm only to have the plow come back through about 30-45 minutes later to leave another berm. Another thing I don't understand is that in our neighborhood, we pay roughly five grand a year each for our property taxes and then we are almost always the last to be plowed and when they do plow, we're left with a one lane road and then we have to dig out our hydrant because the city never does it. What really gets me is that there is a city employee on our street who uses the city plow truck he brings home for work to plow his drive. This city is messed up!!! Bring back Buck!!!!
Thank You, Public Works
I know that keeping up with this much snow is an enormous and (see above) thankless effort. I have no problem pitching in and helping to make sure the drains are clear.
All you whiners can always move south!
You whine because you can’t drive on a clean street. You whine because you have a berm.
Spend one night or day shift working with these guys! You better pack a big lunch... they have been working 12 hour shifts while you sit on the couch thinking up the next thing to whine about.
For everyone of you that leaves a car parked on the street or your precious landscaping on the right away... I wish you all the biggest berm the crews can deliver.
These crews get to deal with your nastiness through their whole shift and then go home and plow the berm they probably left in their own driveway!
If you don't like the snow or your berm, move, go south. They want you back we don't want or need inconsiderate selfish people here.
To all the crews out there plowing:
Thanks, I do appriciate being able to drive anywhere I want safely and it is a relief to know you are all willing to give up your family lives to make it safe for us.
Bull****
This is ridiculous.
Almost none of the sidewalks are plowed.
It took *days* for back valley streets to be plowed.
The other day I witnessed two city plowers take out a light pole at the Mendenhall Mall. Complete imbeciles.
As far as I am concerned, they have completely failed in their simple duties of moving snow in areas ALL people need to safely travel. Egan, Backloop, and Riverside are not enough.
Monday morning I witnessed a group of school children walking to school on the street because of a 3foot berm on the sidewalk. Not only did it create a huge traffic jam, but the combination of dark and icy mornings surely adds to an already potentially disastrous recipe.
I'm not sure what the solution is but I sure hope they are going to try to solve the problem, rather than just wait for it to 'melt' like past years.
Street Parkers
I agree, I love seeing a 30 inch berm right up next to cars whose drivers insist on parking in the street or on the sidewalks throughout winter.
Of course in some instances it's unavoidable - but in the cases where homeowners don't want to wreck their precious "gardens" or "lawns" by making room for their vehicles to park, plow 'em in! They make things difficult for everyone else, especially the snow removal crews, by parking in the streets.
If you own a home that doesn't have adaquet parking for your vehicles that's your fault for buying it.
Clearing drains
This really takes the cake,its hilarious to the point of incompetence.The reason the drains are plugged up,is because the plow (persons) i have another name but anyway,plows 4 feet inside of the sidewalk,ripping up grass,mailboxes,garbage cans,fences etc,etc,I know this because of a missing 10x4 flower box that disappeared as well as the mailbox's along the street. No more wood boxes for me, thinking of reinforced concrete.l Let em try and plow that.
Already cleaned our drain, it
Already cleaned our drain, it was clean the gutter and drain or face a lake in our driveway. Because they don't like to get the plow within 2 feet of the curb.
I love how everyone defends the plow guys. I honestly don't think they do a bad job, I'd give them a B- but lets not forget that while we are feeling sorry for them, they are sitting in that nice warm cab, making time and a half or double-time while we shovel the berms.
My husband has spent every
My husband has spent every single snow day out in our driveway trying to keep it clear as well as the drainage areas clear only to have the plows come by and throw all of the snow into our driveway and drainage area again. We don't have a snow blower, he moves all of the snow using a shovel and it takes a major part of his day (fortunately he's retired). It takes the plow 10 seconds to undo all of his hard work. I just cannot bring up one ounce of sympathy for the plow guys. Oh, but thank you for not covering him with snow as he stands by and watches all of his hard work get covered up!
You moaners and complainers
You moaners and complainers ought to move someplace warm like the Gulf Coast in Alabama. Then you guys could have the fun of [filtered word]ing and moaning about tornadoes and hurricanes.
Heavy snowfall like we experienced in January is part of the charm and adventure of living in Alaska.
Easy there, AlaskanMom. Plow
Easy there, AlaskanMom. Plow drivers made a career choice - and they aren't "sacrificing family time." That would imply that their job is volunteering. They're being paid, and they made a conscious choice to be in that line of work. So, easy on the drama, mama.
Roofoverhead - Mendenhall Mall Road is private property and is not maintained by the city. So what you supposedly saw, wasn't the city plow workers. Also, Egan and Riverside are maintained by DOT (maybe Back Loop too?). Again, your rant loses some validity.
I'm not saying the snow removal crews do a good job or a bad job. They just do a job. Period.
Comment #2 Wins
Latitude58,
Made me laugh and it's oh so true.
@AlaskanMom: You of all
@AlaskanMom: You of all people should know the difference between someone who plows for 12 hours and a city manager. I mean really, I expected some basic level of reading comprehension from you ... Yet, you prove me wrong.
@J.E.Fume: A dictionary is a very handy tool. You should try to use one before using words you do not understand.
Haul snow !
I work for a local contractor that hauls snow for the cbj and I hope all of you bed pi&%sin juneauites are not talkin about the workers who have put in about 100 hrs in the last week on night shift because we have been working our butts off dealing with STUPID people who can't drive, who try to squeeze between a large truck and snow blower plus a retaining wall driving on the sidewalk not to mention the drunks stumbling around Frankin st and else where downtown plus old ladys with dogs, school teachers with a whole hurd of little kids crossing the street in front of a heavey loaded truck on a steep slick hill. I'm not defending the cbj managers at all far from it , they do a lot of stupid sh&^%$t , but most of the workers are good guys with families and there TAX PAYERS also.So don't shovel the drain, sit there an whine whine whine thats all your good at anyway.
Haul snow !
I work for a local contractor that hauls snow for the cbj and I hope all of you bed pi&%sin juneauites are not talkin about the workers who have put in about 100 hrs in the last week on night shift because we have been working our butts off dealing with STUPID people who can't drive, who try to squeeze between a large truck and snow blower plus a retaining wall driving on the sidewalk not to mention the drunks stumbling around Frankin st and else where downtown plus old ladys with dogs, school teachers with a whole hurd of little kids crossing the street in front of a heavey loaded truck on a steep slick hill. I'm not defending the cbj managers at all far from it , they do a lot of stupid sh&^%$t , but most of the workers are good guys with families and there TAX PAYERS also.So don't shovel the drain, sit there an whine whine whine thats all your good at anyway.
I'll just go and check those drains
You all can fight if you want...think I'll just go be a good citizen and property owner and get er done. No sense in allowing the situation to cause damage to my property while you all decide if the city's done a good job this winter. PS...its one of the heaviest snowfalls on record so its a little unusual. At least this is something I can do something about...unlike the American Health Care system. Why dont you all put those wonderful minds to work on that problem?