Perils of plowing are eased by teamwork

HAYDEN — When it comes to cleaning up one of Mother Nature’s messes, conscientious public servants don’t care who gets the credit.

Or the blame.

A story in Thursday’s Press showed a berm formed by a snowplow in front of a home on North Maple Street in Hayden. Hayden Public Works Director Alan Soderling said the berm might’ve been built by a city plow — or maybe not.

“As high as that berm is, it doesn’t look like something that would happen when we’re plowing down the road,” he said.

Technically speaking, Hayden officials said Thursday, the home in question isn’t even in Hayden; it’s in the county. That means plowing in front of the home isn’t Hayden’s responsibility.

Soderling explained it doesn’t really matter because of teamwork that works far more often than it falters.

The city plows North Maple Street from East Buckles Road to East Honeysuckle Avenue, said Soderling. Two lots on North Maple are in the county and Lakes Highway District’s responsibility, but the neighboring agencies take care of each other in those situations.

“In this case on Maple we plow it because the frontage that Lakes has is about two lots long. About 250 feet of that entire roadway stretch is in the county. It doesn’t make sense for them to come down. They don’t need to come down.”

Similarly, Lakes Highway District plows a little chunk on the end of Lancaster Road that’s in city limits, said Soderling.

Adhering strictly to boundary lines would create more problems than it would solve, he said. For example, the cities of Hayden, Coeur d’Alene, and the Lakes Highway District are each responsible for adjacent stretches of Prairie Avenue.

“If you were going to plow only your part it would be really problematic,” Soderling said. “You’d be spending more effort doing your part than doing the whole thing.”

The unofficial policy is, “Whoever gets there first does it,” he said.

When city residents have complaints about the snowplowing, Soderling encouraged them to call City Hall at 208-772-4411.

As a matter of fact, after Wednesday’s damp, snowy dumper, about 100 citizens did just that.