Snow emergency

[easy-wind.livejournal.com]

If you are as outraged as me about the City of Somerville handing out $50 parking tickets for violating a snow emergency when... THERE WASN'T A FLAKE OF SNOW ON THE GROUND, I encourage you to write to Mayor Curtatone to express your views:

JCurtatone@ci.somerville.ma.us

Comments

[hauntmeister.livejournal.com]

Sorry to quibble...Your headline is misleading. It did snow. But I know what you meant to say, "Sorry, they knew last night it wasn't going to snow enough to justify an emergency"

Some cars were towed.
This is true. Coming home at 11:00 PM last night, I saw so many police cars and tow trucks in front of Somerville hospital that I thought some major disaster had happened.

Somerville has never before declared an emergency prior to a snowfall.
This is factually inaccurate. They certainly have declared snow emergencies before the snow starts coming down. Just earlier this winter, the police cars were driving around with their squawking loudspeakers before snow actually hit.

Yes, this may have made a lot of money for the city. Maybe declaring an emergency so far in advance of a snowfall is just a money-making ploy. If so, it's no less annoying than Cambridge dispatching metermaids on New Year's day to ticket people for newly-expired resident stickers. But given that the forecast at the time they announced the emergency was for six to twelve inches of snow, I consider it a reasonable decision.