Watertown exploring changes to snow removal procedures (Audio)

April 10, 2023
Mike Tanner

WATERTOWN, S.D.–As the snow melts away from another challenging winter in South Dakota, snow removal was on the minds of the Watertown City Council Monday.

They discussed potential changes in Watertown’s current snow removal ordinance.

Some of the ideas discussed were eliminating the minimum two inch snowfall for parking restrictions to go into effect, and giving the city manager the authority to declare a snow emergency.

As for plowing, there was talk of doing away with the current system of plowing Avenues on certain days of the week, and Streets on other days.

The change could potentially involve going to a “grid system” where all streets and avenues in a certain quadrant of the city would be plowed at one time, before moving onto another zone.

Councilman Mike Danforth sees problems with that scenario….

There was also talk of allowing parking on boulevards, if needed, during a snow emergency. Because the discussion was part of a work session, it was for discussion purposes only, and no action was taken.