Hackensack DPW getting more low marks for sloppy street clearing after snowstorm

By late Monday afternoon in Hackensack, Euclid Avenue between Summit and Prospect avenues had been cleared down to the pavement, but city plows returned after dark and blocked residents' driveways for at least the third time since snow started falling.

In this morning's deep freeze, my snowblower couldn't make a dent in the mound of snow and ice, but I managed to back out one of our cars so my wife could go to work, though the Toyota did bottom out and get hung up briefly.

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

From a purely selfish point of view, I can say emphatically that Hackensack's DPW workers did their usual sloppy job of clearing snow during Tuesday's big storm, blocking my driveway not once, not twice, but three times.

City officials didn't get any special treatment, according to a councilman I spoke with this morning. 

His driveway also was blockaded three times, and he said other council members fared just as badly.

A lawyer who tried to drive to his Hackensack office on Tuesday night had this to say:

"I tried to go to my office tonight.  The roads in Hackensack were terrible. 

"I live on a semi-court in River Edge, at best a third-priority road -- it was plowed far better than River Street [in Hackensack].

"At 8 p.m. there was a covering of snow on Main Street. River Edge and Paramus seem to have the streets cleared pretty well."

Euclid Avenue, where I live, is an unusually wide street, and I don't understand why after most of the street is cleared, plows can't be angled to push snow near the curb to the center of the street instead of back into driveways. 

Then, a following plow can clear the center of the street.

I haven't driven around Hackensack today, but I'm sure I'll find the same problems I've encountered after every big storm since my first winter here, in 2008, including:

Uncleared corners and crosswalks that endanger pedestrians; and uncleared bus stops and mounds of snow that riders have to climb over to step up into the bus.

The Record

The print edition wasn't delivered today or Tuesday, and the only digital edition I can access is Tuesday's.

But I wouldn't expect a report card in the The Record of Woodland Park on how well or how poorly municipal snow-clearing crews did after the nor'easter.

That's something that's important to readers who are homeowners and others who pay property taxes, but of no concern to the paper's lazy editors -- it's their version of, We don't do windows.

Meanwhile, last week, when the paper in my driveway was soaking wet from the rain, I called to get a dry copy delivered, but under Gannett, the new owner, I was only offered credit, not a re-delivery.