ESCANABA — Escanaba residents who have been parking on their lawns to comply with winter parking restrictions can move their vehicles back onto the street — unless it snows again.

At the request of Council Member Ron Beauchamp, the Escanaba City Council added a discussion on ending the city’s winter parking restrictions during Thursday’s meeting.

“I just noticed people still parking on their lawns, creating ruts. The forecast shows 50 degrees. I felt that we could suspend the parking restrictions for the remainder of the spring, winter, what have you,” said Beauchamp.

Winter parking restrictions are typically in place from the beginning of December through the end of March and restrict parking to only one side of the street in most areas.

According to City Manager Jim McNeil, the council could not repeal the winter parking restrictions Thursday because the rules are included in an ordinance, and ordinances must be passed and repealed following specific procedures. However, the council did have the authority to suspend the enforcement of the ordinance, either through the end of the month when the restrictions would normally expire or conditionally as long as there wasn’t snow to plow.

The council opted to leave the question of enforcement up to the Escanaba Public Safety Department in the case of snow.

“We will not be enforcing (the) winter parking ordinance at this time, but if the snow does come, we will be enforcing the ordinance, if we get the snowfall,” clarified Public Safety Director John Gudwer, who noted that parking on the street during heavy snows can hinder both plowing and emergency vehicles.

In other business the council

≤ Rejected a request from the city’s planning commission to deny a zoning change for a small area on Lakeshore Drive near Lincoln Road because the city determined the properties were already zoned commercial as requested. While the properties appeared as residential on copies of the zoning map, the city did not have any ordinances on file changing the property from the commercial zoning it was initially given in the 1950s, all permits issued for the properties indicated the commercial zoning, and the properties had been used for commercial purposes at least since the commercial zoning was put in place.

The property history, lack of ordinance, and lack of permits was not known to the planning commission when their recommendation was made to deny the request and leave the property as residential. Because the city later determined the property was still legally commercial, the request from the property owners to rezone it to commercial was moot. As there was no standing for the planning commission’s recommendation, rejection was the recommended action.

≤ Approved retaining Dombrowski Tree Service for the removal and grinding of 45 stumps and all necessary restoration work at a cost of $31.50 per stump. This was a budgeted item.

≤ Contracted with Bugle Contracting for the cutting and removal of approximately 4.5 acres of trees. The work will be done at no cost to the city.

≤ Approved retaining the services of MPower of Iron Mountain for water system map cleanup for the city’s water treatment plant. The map work will cost the city not more than $4,800 and is a budgeted item.

≤ Approved retaining the services of Master Electric of Escanaba to automate the response to the backup generator system being activated at the wastewater treatment plant. This will allow the plant to come back online faster than would be possible if city staff had to go and restart critical plant equipment.

The automation will cost the city no more than $35,953, including $5,000 of contingency. Money is available for the project.

≤ Approved the purchase of water distribution inventory materials from ETNA of Marquette and Core and Main of DePere, Wis. In total, the purchase will not exceed $350,000.

≤ Approved a traffic control order to install yield signs on a number of previously unmarked intersections. The signs have already been put in place, but Escanaba Public Safety was unable to enforce them without the order.

The order also included a “Caution Autism Child” sign to be placed in the 900 block of S. 17th Street. At the request of Beauchamp, the family of the child will be asked to notify the city if they change residences so the sign can be removed.