Plowing through

It really was the storm of the century. In fact, according to the weather bureau, whose statistics go back into the mid-1800s, the storm that began here Friday night was the fourth biggest ever recorded. So it was a huge challenge for our road crews as well as for the people who live here.

But I’ve got to say that I’ve never been prouder of our Public Works department – and neither have our residents. Report after report came back from our snow plow operators about the enthusiastic cheering and waves they received as they pushed through the heaviest snow that many of our residents have ever seen.

A two-foot snow event is not just a two-inch snowfall on steroids; it requires different tools and strategies. Tiny little plows on the front of pickup trucks just aren’t up to the job. Instead, Public Works had to rely on its biggest, heaviest, and most powerful snow moving equipment to push through the 23-inches of wet, heavy snow that blanketed our local roads. One operator told me that he thought he could hear one group of neighbors chanting the rhyme of the little engine: “I think you can, I think you can,” as he and his truck clawed through the snow banks and opened up their street.

However, to deal with the massive volume of snow, we needed more and different equipment. So we declared a local disaster emergency to make use of the community’s emergency operations plan which allowed us to bypass normal administrative procedures and bring in a number of front-end loaders right away. Kids and their parents smiled and watched in amazement as this assortment of grown-up Tonka toys cleared the huge accumulation of snow from our 289 neighborhood cul-de-sacs. And, as they did, neighbor after neighbor would help one another to clear their sidewalks and driveways.

Saturday night, after being up for well over 24 hours, I settled into a solid rest knowing that I am working with a great group of municipal employees who have a passion to serve our community, and for a community that consistently shows its very best whenever we need to come together.

Wow!

Reality vs. Reality TV: What do I get for my money?

I recently got a letter from my cable company saying that my bill was going up. It’s a notice I’ve received every January for as long as I can remember. My monthly cable bill will now hover around $130 including a few little extras and the Internet. So now we can watch CSI, Parks & Recreation, and other dramatizations of what I see at work every day, only now in high definition. It’s a service my family likes and, I suppose, it adds to our quality of life.

I can sympathize with the cable company; I am currently in the middle of implementing a rate increase for our own sewer and water customers. Cable operators are paying more for programming and Cranberry is paying more for water. So rate increases are inevitable. Except in our case, the last increase in sewer rates happened eight years ago and four years ago for water. At the new rate, my sewer and water bill will now be around $60 a month. If you add in trash service, it’s about $75.

Municipal sewer and water systems are among the most regulated industries in the nation. We’re regulated by both the state and federal governments, and those regulations are getting tighter. As the person charged by our Board of Supervisors with maintaining the two systems, I probably understand more than most the challenges we face in keeping up with clean water and sanitary sewer regulations. Sewage on TV, however, hardly seems to be regulated at all.

So when I compare the two, I am paying nearly $1,560 a year for cable and just $900 for sewer, water and trash combined. Even if you add in the Township income and property taxes I pay, it only amounts to $1,750. And that includes the live drama of 24-hour police and fire services, a library, three parks, a municipal center and street maintenance in addition to sewer, water and trash service. It’s almost a tie between Cable on Demand and Municipal Services on Demand.

If you look at it that way, Cranberry’s public services are the best bargain around, and there are never any reruns.