Wakey, Wakey (With Apologies)

[tomchampion.livejournal.com]

So I had to call everybody early on what is a holiday for many residents. On the one hand, it gave me no pleasure to roust folks. On the other hand, it's good news that the snowfall was more moderate than forecast and appears likely to taper off through the morning. I spoke to the Mayor a few minutes ago: between supervising overnight snow operations and coping with three boys under four (and another child on the way), he sounded just a little tired.

Actually, DPW called me at 3 a.m. to report that the Mayor had decided to lift at 7 a.m. Joe was just following up to make sure I'd gotten the word out.

Here's the official notice:

MEDIA ADVISORY December 31, 2007


SOMERVILLE SNOW EMERGENCY LIFTED MONDAY, DEC. 31ST AT 7 A.M.


SOMERVILLE – The City of Somerville has lifted its snow emergency as of 7 a.m., Monday, December 31, 2007. Residents parked in municipal or school lots during the snow emergency have a two-hour window starting at that time in which to move their vehicles. Cars still parked in city lots at 9 a.m. may be subject to ticketing and towing. Residents, landlords and business owners are required by city regulations to shovel their sidewalks but may not shovel snow into the street. For more information, please dial 311 (627-666-3311 from outside Somerville) or visit the city’s website, www.somervillema.gov.

- END -

Comments

[cold-type.livejournal.com]

What if you've already parked in the city/school lots and left for work?

[cutieperson]

then you find a way to get back and move it before 9am or you're screwed.

[tomchampion.livejournal.com]

If you're in a metered city lot, you're risking a ticket. If you're in a school lot or other unmetered facility, you should be okay well beyond 9 a.m. However, I'd try to move your car as soon as you (reasonably) can.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

when the phone rang, i thought "oh shit! something bad has happened. why else would someone be calling me before 0700."

and then i heard the robocall start and i yelled "HI TOM" at the phone. just so you know.

[josephineave.livejournal.com]

Perhaps when you retire, "Wake-up Calls from Tom Champion" would be a killer business idea.

[cityofbeige.livejournal.com]

I kind of like the idea of putting Tom Champion on your voicemail for a small fee.

[starry83.livejournal.com]

Tom Champion is the new Carl Kasell!

[two-stabs.livejournal.com]

Was all the chest-beating really necessary? We get it, you're important.

[two-stabs.livejournal.com]

Oh, and thanks for the info.

[mattdm.livejournal.com]

Seemed necessary enough to me. *shrug*

[two-stabs.livejournal.com]

What did?

[mattdm.livejournal.com]

Chest beating!

[two-stabs.livejournal.com]

Ah, I see.

Sorry

[tomchampion.livejournal.com]

It certainly wasn't meant to be chest-beating: It was guilt, and a desire for expiation after calling 24,784 people between 6:45 and 7:10 a.m. on what was a day off for many.

The motto of the city's Communications Department is "we're sorry." And I AM -- sorry, that is -- that you thought I was self-aggrandizing. I only mentioned the mayor because several members of the group have written in to say they like to hear about the process.

So please forgive me -- I'll try to watch my tone.

Re: Sorry

[two-stabs.livejournal.com]

No hard feelings here; you're doing good work.

Re: Sorry

[mattdm.livejournal.com]

The tone was fine. Really.

Re: Sorry

[nalz.livejournal.com]

Your tone was fine and I liked all the info. Some people are just (too) sensitive and feel the need to snark needlessly.

[daft.livejournal.com]

Dear Tom,

Why do you only love davis_square? All of somervillemass needs you.

Love,

daft
Ward Two

[tomchampion.livejournal.com]

Got it. although it's the Davis Square that will drop everything to discuss the 20-foot rule or the 48-hour rule for hours on end. what's not to love?

[daft.livejournal.com]

All rhetorical questions must be off the streets by noon!

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

In a perfect world, "wakey wakey" is always followed by "eggs and bakey". Both the verbal assurance and the actual eggs and bacon, of course.

I may have to start writing Tom Champion fanfic now.

[somertricky.livejournal.com]

I'll stick with Tom Champion Haiku, thanks...

http://blogs.townonline.com/somerville/?p=26012

[frederic.livejournal.com]

^^ LOL

I just wrote my own -- it's awaiting moderation so here it is:

Which relative died?
Only death calls this early
(and Tom Champion).

[jodi.livejournal.com]

that is excellent.
we can only aspire to have a haiku-inspiring career someday.

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

You see, that phrase, thanks to "Kill Bill", makes me think of this man:

(http://www.flickr.com/photos/16889258@N03/2152206534/)

I like him and all, but I don't want to wake up to him.

[bombardiette.livejournal.com]

That's my Sunday "Wake Up Husband" Call! Or any day we're off, really.

Usually, I pounce on him, scream, "WAKEY WAKEY EGGS AND BAKEY!!!" and then run out of the room. Sometimes I actually get eggs and bakey. Sometimes eggs and sausage and occasionally, eggs and bangers or eggs and Irish Pudding. But I do always get eggs.

Om nom nom...

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

You're just trying to make me jealous.

Trying AND SUCCEEDING.

[bombardiette.livejournal.com]

Not at all. I just find the whole phrase funny enough to elicit giggles.

But, either way, my work here is done. : D

[fanw.livejournal.com]

Thanks Tom! It's better safe than sorry, so I'm not worried about having a snow emergency called, but I'm glad it's been called off.

Drive safe tonight folks!

[sonofabish.livejournal.com]

I want to second the comment about only having 2 hours to move your vehicle at the risk of being ticketed/towed. I understand that vehicles shouldn't be left in municipal lots forever, but just 2 hours? What if someone is at work or for whatever reason unable to move their vehicle?

You're going to get ticketed. Or towed. And then you have to take time out of your day (or time off from work if you work 9-5) to go down to the parking office to appeal the ticket. And then it's a roll of a dice and you may end up still having to pay the fine and/or towing fees.

2 hours is very unreasonable. At least 12 hours, so one can be sure to have time to get home to move it without messing up their entire day. Most bosses are not going to grant someone time off just to avoid a ticket.

[pearlythebunny.livejournal.com]

On a Medford, MA group, a resident was upset because she went to sleep last night, and no snow emergency had been called. She woke up this morning, and her car had been towed. Apparently, Medford declared a snow emergency at 11 or 12 PM. Then they ticketed and towed in the middle of the night.

At least, we had more warning here in Somerville, although it does sound as if you are between a rock and a hard place when it comes to moving your car out of the city lot.

[somertricky.livejournal.com]

At the very least, the penalty for "over-parking" in a municpal lot (ticket and possible tow) should be less than violating the snow emergency (most likely, ticket only).

I don't think you'd want to make it worth people's while to stay parked on side streets during an emergency instead of moving to the muni lots and risking a tow after the emergency is lifted...

[tut21.livejournal.com]

Early morning call woke me up. Oh, my aching head.

Agreed. I wouldn't even consider parking in a lot because I usually can't drop everything and get to my car in time.

how much snow?

[bostonartist.livejournal.com]

How much snow did Somerville get? I'm out of town.

Re: how much snow?

[ron_newman]

Almost none, from what I can see outside.

Re: how much snow?

[tomchampion.livejournal.com]

Less than two inches of total precip, some of it in the form of sleet and freezing rain (now just plain rain).

Re: how much snow?

[somer-villains.livejournal.com]

speaking of which, i've been out of town since the 21st, shortly after the previous three storms, and am curious: how much of that has melted? there were still some huge mounds in the streets, taking up precious parking spots. are people still claiming their spots?

[ron_newman]

Schools are closed today, so I doubt that the city will care much about cars parked there. Tom?

[tomchampion.livejournal.com]

People should try to move their cars from school lots as soon as they can, but yes, we've held off on enforcing there (no ticket, no tow) until the end of the day. If folks leave their cars in school lots tonight, however, they may get a ticket.

[ron_newman]

Thanks. Though school is closed tomorrow, too...

[thespian.livejournal.com]

Oddly (considering all he people who posted about it), if someone in my family died, the survivors would never call to tell me about it at 7 am. They know enough about me to know that you can't actually get me coherent enough to *understand* them between 4am and about 9am. So they'd hold off.

So when the phone rang at 6:47 this morning, by the time it woke me up enough for me to go, 'hey. that's the phone.' the call was at voicemail, and I thought, sort of blearily, 'That must have been Tom Champion.'

BUT! The phone rang again about 7 minutes later! And I seriously thought to myself, 'Wow. it must be serious family stuff if they called again.' So I dragged myself up to answer, and it seems that the City of Somerville REALLY wanted to make sure I knew to move my non-existent car.

Seriously, since I like the calls just to get an idea of what's going on, and have no need to know about snow emergencies when I won't be getting out of bed for 3 more hours, could I put my number on radio silence between 3am and 10am, my usual sleep times? That would be a really great option.

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

You could do what I do, and not keep a phone in the bedroom. :-} Or if it's a mobile, put it on mute or vibrate.

[thespian.livejournal.com]

except that I really do want people who need to contact me (diabetic mother with some memory issues, father who has angina and heart attacks for a hobby) to be able to reach me when it's essential. But I don't ever need to be called about parking issues, even in an emergency. I wouldn't mind if it had been one call, even, but two convinced me the person wouldn't be calling unless it was vitally important. And this, to me, just wasn't.

The Uses and Limits of Technology

[tomchampion.livejournal.com]

I, too, sometimes wish we had an info field in the Connect CTY user interface that allowed us to specify the hours when particular numbers should not be called. But if a call is urgent, then the city would have to override such a feature -- and if a snow emergency isn't urgent, what is?

Despite its gratifying sophistication and efficiency, Connect CTY only lets me make three kinds of calls:

1. An "Outreach" call makes a single pass through the selected households and businesses, calling only the primary number and leaving voice mail if it doesn't get a live response on the first try. Most calls I make are "outreach" calls, and I would never make them at dawn.
2. A "Priority" call tries every number for a household (up to three)looking for a live response. If it doesn't get one, only then does it go back to the primary number to leave a voice mail message. (This is almost certainly what happened to thespian.)Priority calls are presumed to be sufficiently urgent that every number should be tried.
3. A "Survey" call tries the primary number only and calls it once only. The difference is that it then poses a question that respondents can answer using their phone keypads. ("Press 'one' if you loathe and despise these calls, and want Tom Champion painfully executed. Press 'two' if you are utterly indifferent to his fate, but don't want any more calls - ever.") I have never made this type of call, but our Council on Aging is adapting it for their RUOK program.

The real problem here is that we had to make a legitimately urgent call on a morning when so many people were sleeping in. I set up the call to go out at 7 -- the latest I dared schedule it -- but Connect CTY uses the specified call time more as a guideline than as a rule, so people got called as early as 6:45 and as late as 7:15.

In the current state of the technology, we do have the ability to let people be assigned to a "do not call before 9 a.m." group -- but then, incases like today, their notice comes too late to do them any good. So we'd have to call them anyway, preferences be damned.

If we can avoid calling people too early or too late in the day, please rest assured that we will. If we can avoid calling at all during holidays, please rest assured that we will. But the timing and urgency are weather driven, and we don't always control that.

The one sure thing you can always do is opt out entirely by calling 311 and giving us your phone info so we can drop you from the system. Two residents left me messages this morning asking that I do just that -- and they'll never get another call.

For Tom Champion: What about the Caller ID?

[m-b-w.livejournal.com]

When we get the snow emergency calls, our caller ID says "CITY-SUMMERVILL." I used 311 to request that this be corrected and got this response: "Verizon determines the title that appears on the caller ID. We are aware of the error and have asked Verizon several times to make the correction in their system with out success. Please accept our apologies for any confusion this may have caused you."

It doesn't confuse me, I just think that an official call from a city should have the correct spelling!

The CallerID string is definitely able to be modified by the customer (of any phone company). The calls come from the phone# 617-628-7669; assuming this is a Verizon line, then whoever is the technical contact for the city with Verizon should be able to get it fixed (I have many times as the technical contact for businesses with Verizon and other phone services). It typically will take a week or so. If the phone-blast system uses lines other than Verizon, then the same is true; you just need to contact the phone company that owns the lines.

Re: For Tom Champion: What about the Caller ID?

[tomchampion.livejournal.com]

Once I heard from our Constituent Services folks that Verizon wouldn't respond, I gave up on fixing this. But your post convinces me I should revisit this problem in the new year. I'll keep you posted.

Re: For Tom Champion: What about the Caller ID?

[m-b-w.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Verizon is not always easy to deal with, but it is possible.

from Laurinda

[shortandhappier.livejournal.com]

Hi Tom,

...being Mayor is a piece of cake compared to his other job (i.e. the 3.5 kids).

Re: from Laurinda

[ron_newman]

Hi, Laurinda! Didn't know you had an LJ account.