Mayor hits at predecessor in apology for city’s snow removal performance
Mayor Justin Bibb on Thursday apologized to Cleveland for the city’s snow removal effort, which he said “wasn’t good enough.”
And Bibb took aim at former Mayor Frank Jackson’s administration for leaving him a snow removal system he described as “broken.”
“Monday’s snowstorm hit our city hard. We used every truck, snowplow and driver available. But it wasn’t good enough,” Bibb said in a video posted to Twitter and Facebook. “I inherited a broken system that needs significant overhaul and investment.”
Cleveland.com sought to contact Jackson but was unsuccessful.
The apology followed three days of snow removal after 15 inches fell on Cleveland overnight last Sunday and into Monday. It was the largest single snowfall in several years. The heaviest snowfall on a single day in 2021 was 4.5 inches on April 21.
When contacted Tuesday by cleveland.com, a city spokeswoman said the city was following the same system used under Jackson, had deployed all its plows, and was not dealing with a shortage of operators.
A progress update posted on the city’s Facebook page on Wednesday, the most current available, said more than 90% of the city’s road subsections had been plowed, some of them twice.
“We are salting as we plow on the side streets. Thanks for your continued patience,” the post said.
However, Bibb said in his video that he was responding to complaints from the public.
“I heard your comments, your concerns and your frustrations,” said Bibb, who was elected in November. “I’m frustrated too. For too long we’ve neglected to invest in delivering high-quality basic city services.”
He pledged to review the city’s snow removal plans with directors of public safety and public works and with his chief of operations and to update the public this week.
Cleveland.com sought comments from the Bibb administration on what prompted the posting.
A Cleveland City Council committee was preparing to grill public works Director Michael Cox about snow removal on Monday.
The Municipal Services and Properties Committee later canceled those plans after Bibb told the council he intended to hold a news conference on Monday to discuss snow removal, said Councilman Kevin Bishop, who chairs the committee.
“We got bombarded with calls,” Bishop said. “A lot of members want to address this as quickly as possible because we’re going to get another storm.”
City Council President Blaine Griffin, who represents Ward 6 on the East Side, said getting calls from people complaining about snow removal is normal.
“A lot of it was people who needed to get to work,” Griffin said.
Griffin said he drove around his ward to measure the progress.
“In my opinion, I think there were areas done well and areas that were behind,” he said.
Jackson came under fire for not addressing snow removal quickly enough. In 2015, the mayor demoted his streets commissioner upon determining that snow removal crews “did not perform our services well” during the squalls that dumped more than a foot of snow on the region.
The city adopted a systematic approach for clearing streets, beginning with major arteries, and then returning to tackle side streets.
In 2018, Cox said that for a storm with up to 4 inches of snow, the main streets could be cleared in eight hours or less and residential streets in 36 hours or less. For a larger storm, 6 inches or more, that job might take twice as long.
The last Cleveland storm to top 10 inches of snow in a day was Feb. 4, 2009, when 10.9 inches were recorded.