MILWAUKEE— Members of the city of Milwaukee Public Works Committee were not pleased with the Department of Public Works on Wednesday morning following DPW’s poor response to December’s snow storm.
Alderman Lamont Westmoreland was frustrated by the DPW for getting back to his emails after multiple constituents complained that their neighborhood streets had not been plowed back during the December 19th snowstorm.
“I’ve made phone calls. Phone calls have not been answered. Calls have not been returned. Emails have not been responded to,” said Westmoreland. “So your answer to my emails not being responded to is you didn’t want to respond or didn’t have time to respond.”
Public Works Department Commissioner Jerrel Kruschke admitted that there were multiple calls coming from hundreds of residents the night and day after the snowstorm and admitted that there was not enough effective enough communication being done between DPW, residents and Alders.
“The service level that expect is to have traffic moving safely out of neighborhoods,” said Kruschke. “So it’s not to have it cleaned down to the bare pavement. It’s not going to match a main street in the city. If we go about that process, you’ll see triple the amount of cost to do a snow operation which, for the three times it happens in a year, is not fiscally responsible.”
Another action that was discussed by members of the board was the potential of refunds to residents for the lack of snow removal in certain neighborhoods within the city.
But according to city budget director Nik Kovac, the implementation of a refund to taxpayers would not be wise for the city’s fiscal 2025 budget.
“I as budget director, I do not recommend changing the 2025 budget right now when we haven’t changed,” said Kovac. “We’re still going to have expenses, so I’m not recommending it. As to how you would do refunds and go against our recommendation, I don’t know exactly how you would do it. There might be multiple options on doing some sort of refund, but I just want to say on record, the administration would be against that.
Heading into the colder months of the 2024-2025 winter season, more snow storms could head towards Milwaukee, but as Alders and the DPW both recognize, more needs to be done to ensure that snow removal gets down without a hitch for the rest of this winter.
