SANDPOINT — After an overhaul of the city’s snow removal policy in 2017, staff is once again looking at changes to the document.

“When we are looking at ways to improve, potentially, our existing policy, it wasn’t on the mindset that anything was necessarily broken … It’s more on that overall mindset of continuous improvement and what could we do to further optimize and achieve some key goals,” said Sandpoint Public Works Director Amanda Wilson during a workshop-style City Council meeting on Nov. 7.

One of those goals is to enhance the city’s ability to proactively respond to snow events, Wilson said. Another is “near” continuous coverage, she said, as the city does not have the staff for coverage 24 hours a day. Also, she said, a goal is to increase predictability of employee schedules.

“Every single snow event is different,” she said. “... There’s really a lot of things at play there, and what that does is it puts additional challenges on our employees who are responding to, essentially, emergencies every time.”

To achieve those goals, city staff generated a comprehensive “Operations Plan” for snow removal, defining and communicating performance measures, resources, safety and training requirements, procedures and methods of communications. The planning process resulted in proposed changes to the city’s snow removal policy.

One of the proposed changes to the snow removal policy includes labeling streets as “priority” one, two and three. Priority one areas include arterials and major collector streets, as well as streets that serve emergency response facilities, schools, and streets with hills and sharp curves. Priority two includes streets generally located within the downtown business core. Priority three is all streets that do not fall under the first two priority areas.

If crews are in the middle of priority three areas and another major snow event occurs, priority one areas prevail, Wilson said. The proposed policy also prioritizes city sidewalks, pathways and parking lots.

On-street parking in the priority one and three areas, per the proposed policy revisions, would be restricted to “only the even side of the street, unless otherwise posted,” between Nov. 1 and March 1. The even side of the street refers to the side with even numbered addresses. As for priority two, on-street parking would be prohibited in the downtown business sector between 2-6 a.m. between Nov. 1 and March 1, unless otherwise posted.

City officials may also issue a “no parking order” if snowfall accumulates or is expected to accumulate in an amount that could pose a hazard to public health, safety or welfare.

The current policy was updated last year to include an even and odd regulation for on-street parking. During a snow emergency, vehicles on residential streets are supposed to park on the even or odd numbered addressed side of the street, depending on whether it is an even or odd calendar day.

“Frankly, nobody follows it,” Wilson said. “... We could either leave it as it is, or we could do something to improve it. We decided that potentially trying where we just park on one side of the street, such as all even, that keeping it simple and keeping it consistent for residents may help on the enforcement side and may help it improve.”

Sandpoint Police Chief Corey Coon agreed it would likely be more effective to educate people on only parking on the even side of the street during the winter season, rather than explaining how the odd and even days work.

“That takes away that question of is it an even day, is it an odd day, what day did the snow fall on?” Coon said. “... If we want to try something, this is I think something that keeps it simple.”

The proposed changes to the snow removal policy will go before City Council during tonight’s meeting, which is being held a day early due to the Thanksgiving holiday. The meeting is at 5:30 p.m. at City Hall, 1123 Lake St.

Mary Malone can be reached by email at [email protected] and follow her on Twitter @MaryDailyBee.