STREETS: Time now to plan

Let’s review the city of Coeur d’Alene winter street maintenance, particularly Christmas and all the holiday season. The Coeur d’Alene Resort, all the downtown stores, restaurants, bars and other businesses put forth tremendous effort to make downtown fabulous. Starting the day after Thanksgiving with a parade, fireworks and treats for kids. There are boat cruises all around the lake with shoreline Santa Claus, lights and music. People come from everywhere to see the sights and enjoy the season with all the festivities.

Now, the street maintenance problem! They plow the snow and leave a large bank of snow frozen in the middle of main street, Sherman Avenue, for almost a week several times a winter. Depending on the size of the dirty frozen berm, sometimes cars need to drive down the street with one side on the bank. This is at holiday time. Common sense tells us that it requires the same amount of equipment, qualified operators and funds to do the job in a timely manner. Arrange for a place to dump the snow ahead of time.

Now, to top this off, you need someone on call to take care of emergencies. Last winter, during the holiday, you left a full-sized dead deer laying on the main downtown street all weekend at Seventh and Sherman, between the street and the sidewalk. This was from Friday night until nearly noon on Monday. Children may have thought it was Rudolph.

P.S. Why do you allow vehicles to be parked on streets all winter? Put notices on them and charge a fee. I have already reported a problem at the corner of 18th and Lakeside.

JEAN COLEMAN

Coeur d’Alene