The city of Ishpeming is preparing for the upcoming winter season. Councilors met last week to discuss the city’s current snow control plan and prepare for the upcoming winter season. Improving communications with residents during emergencies in the winter was one major area of concern. (Photo courtesy of Metro Creative)

ISHPEMING — The city of Ishpeming is preparing for the upcoming winter season.

Councilors met last week to discuss the city’s current snow control plan and prepare for the upcoming winter season. Improving communications with residents during emergencies in the winter was one major area of concern.

Councilor Pat Scanlon brought up the city’s TextMyGov resource, which provides residents who opt in with text message notifications to find information, report issues and receive event alerts, and questioned if it was functional and being used.

City Manager Craig Cugini said the resource is functional, however the amount of residents who have opted into any kind of communication is limited.

“We can send messages through it and we do occasionally get reports on TextMyGov, but it’s not widely used,” Cugini said.

Cugini said one suggestion from residents that was received during the community listening session last month was the desire to have email communication from the city. He said the TextMyGov resource is “one of many tools in a toolkit.”

Mayor Pro Tem Elizabeth Firby said another area that should be looked at on the snow control plan is the prioritization of alleyways.

“I think there are some alleyways that need to be higher priority … because they are the only access point to people’s homes,” Firby said.

Because the city does not receive funding from the state to plow any unapproved alley type of road, Cugini said the council would have to make a budgetary decision to consider, which would be discussed further at Wednesday’s special council meeting.

Mayor Jason Chapman said one example is the alleyway between Third and Fourth streets.

“That is a primary entrance to people’s homes as they cannot park or even dream of having a driveway on Third Street,” Chapman said. “So I would say that should be treated as a road in many cases to make sure that people can actually get in and out of there. And I’m sure there are others throughout the city that are the same where people have only one access point to their homes.”

Scanlon said that while three out of the five council members agree that money needs to be spent in strategic areas, the council has to “bite the bullet and say these areas need to be plowed.”

“Joe Blow that would like to have his garage opened up but his house has a garage in the front to go to work has to be told the hard ‘no, we can’t plow every alley,’ we don’t have the funding,” Scanlon said.

Scanlon suggested reclassifying alleys in three categories to determine the priority of alleyways. Chapman said a “good compromise” would be classifying certain alleys by if it has residents who may or may not need to get in and out while another classification could be storing a boat or trailer.

Scanlon said he thinks it would be beneficial to have the Department of Public Works general foreman and Cugini have a preliminary discussion regarding reclassification of alleys.

“We know that the Third Street alley is one and this is one and then see if the council has any constituents that have said, ‘Well, I can’t get out in the morning’ or ‘I have a medical emergency and I’m plowed in’,” Scanlon said.

Anderson said one misunderstanding is the DPW’s involvement with plowing alleys.

“We don’t clear the entire alley. We plow the alley and snow goes to the sides,” Anderson said. “We don’t clear the alley so that’s where a lot of people get confused.”

He said the DPW tries to plow in the “most efficient way they can” but can’t clear the streets and alleys all the time.

On the topic of communication, Bean said communication with residents could be improved, “especially if there’s a water main break and it pulls people off of the plows.”

“I think that would likely cut down on misunderstandings about why roads aren’t plowed or aren’t plowed on time that people think they are,” Bean said. “But beyond that, I think there’s a level of understanding that everyone has to have that it snows (and) we got some weird storms.”

She said a lot of it comes back to letting people know what’s happening.

“I think if people know what’s happening they’re a lot less likely to be upset about it but also have some understanding and grace that it’s people who are working,” Bean said.

During the snow control plan discussion, no official votes were taken. Any discussions related to the budget such as reclassifying alleys will be further discussed at the next meeting.

To watch the full discussion, visit youtube.com/@cityofishpemingmi987.