Deputy city manager: custom sidewalk attachments and salt buy aim to improve winter sidewalk service

Deputy City Manager Lefebvre told the East Grand Rapids City Commission on Aug. 18 that the Department of Public Works has developed a custom sidewalk snow/ice removal attachment to improve sidewalk clearing and better match departmental operations.

"We believe that we will be able to provide a much more enhanced level of service to the community," Lefebvre said, describing a design that lets the city operate one machine and one operator rather than three pieces of equipment in sequence.

Lefebvre told commissioners the three attachments total $43,650 and would be fabricated by ProSource Metal Works of Wyoming, Michigan. He said the custom nature of the attachment means there is no standard commercial warranty but that city staff have the skills to maintain and repair the equipment. Commissioners said their finance review covered questions about durability and warranty and that staff answers were satisfactory.

On the purchase of winter road salt, Lefebvre said the city participates in a multi-agency purchasing consortium (including 12 agencies and Grand Valley State University) to aggregate tonnage and obtain competitive pricing; the consortium price for the season is $71.82 per ton. He also said the city has reduced salt use in recent years by deploying sensors that measure pavement conditions and by refining operator application practices.

Lefebvre and commissioners described how the new attachments would be assigned first to school-priority routes and other high-pedestrian corridors, then redeployed depending on the weather event. He said the attachments are intended to provide a higher level of service than the city could with separate smaller machines that would require multiple operators.

Commissioners asked staff to clarify a proposed sentence in the Snow and Ice Guidelines that advised residents to remove residual snowpack and to use concrete-safe ice melt. Several commissioners expressed concern that the guideline wording could be read as creating a new legal obligation. City staff noted that the city ordinance does not require residents to clear sidewalks except where a city manager compels action during an emergency; commissioners voted to postpone adoption of the guideline language to give staff the opportunity to revise it and return it to the commission.

The commission approved the purchases and the revised sidewalk priority routes but postponed the guideline wording change; staff will return with revised language for consideration.