When it comes to the cost of cleaning up the remnants of the recent blizzard, it’s been a case of “snow news is good news” for Hoboken city officials. While many state municipalities have been digging deep into their pockets to clean up the mess, Hoboken has been able to keep the cleanup costs to a minimum.
“We’ve been able to do most of the work in-house,” said City Business Administrator Robert Drasheff Thursday. “We haven’t brought in contractors from outside the city, so we’ve been able to save a lot of money.”
According to Drasheff, 13 employees in the public works department, six workers from the new Parking Utility (because the city wasn’t writing tickets, the Parking Utility employees were available to help shovel), and a “handful” of employees from the parks department were responsible for the bulk of the cleanup effort.
“The only cost that the city had to assume was overtime and about $7,000 of rock salt,” Drasheff said. He added that, although the final numbers are not in, he expects the overtime number to be around $30,000 for the week. This puts the total cost for the blizzard at only around $40,000, much less than other New Jersey towns. In Newark, that city budgeted $1.5 million for snow removal for the winter but is already over $400,000 over budget.
“We have really tried to avoid costs that the city has incurred in past years,” Drasheff said.
He said that between Wednesday and Friday “a couple cars,” which he defined as being three or four per block, were moved across the street on Washingtion Street so that the city’s main thoroughfare could be cleaned. The cars were then towed back without cost to the residents.
Drasheff added that after Friday morning there are no further plans to move any cars on any of the other city streets.
More mellow attitude
Hoboken has always been aggressive regarding snow cleanup. In the January blizzard of 1996, a comparatively sized storm, Hoboken made national headlines when Mayor Anthony Russo closed Hoboken’s borders to non-residents and non-employees for four days, saying the streets were too crowded and the additional cars could block emergency vehicles.
The former mayor was even featured on World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, whose camera crews followed him around for an hour and a half.
But this time around, the administration’s mood toward snow removal was more mellow. “We’ve taken a more conservative approach,” said Drasheff. “We could have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, but all that money would have bought is quicker removal. Instead of Saturday, everything could be removed by Tuesday. We felt the savings warranted taking the conservative approach.”
Drasheff added that this efficient policy has saved the city thousands of dollars. In 1996, according to published reports, the city spent $190,000 on the snow removal effort for just the one storm.
Mayor David Roberts said Tuesday that saving money never put residents’ safety at risk. “I’m proud of the city’s efforts,” said Roberts. “The streets were cleared quickly and the main streets were open at all times.” He added that the city’s streets were accessible to emergency vehicles at all times. He also said that notices were sent around to senior buildings to make sure that any shut-ins could get their medications and “Meals-on-Wheels” deliveries.
Massive cost statewide
After the salting and plowing, cleaning up the leftover snow is going to cost the state of New Jersey a small fortune. According to Gov. James McGreevey, the blizzard could cost more than $8 million, while local municipalities pay more to clear local roads.
The state Department of Transportation expects to pay between $4 million and $6 million for overtime and leased equipment to clear routes 78, 80, 280, 287 and other major state roads. It will cost another $1.5 million to plow and salt the New Jersey Turnpike, according to early tallies. The storm kept New Jersey in a stranglehold for two days, as the state deployed about 1,800 snowplows, and sand and salt spreaders to keep pace.
On the Garden State Parkway, officials estimated they had already spent $1.3 million on the cleanup long before the snow had stopped Monday night.
For more photos of Hoboken in the snow, pick up this past Thursday’s Hudson Current around town or check it out online: www.hudsoncurrent.com.