Snow ruts on residential streets, snow proclamation needed before plowing

If you’re wondering why many residential streets haven’t been plowed yet in Idaho Falls, it’s because there needs to be a snow proclamation to do that.

The department directors meet with elected officials who then make the decision to issue a proclamation.

When that happens, there are city-wide parking restrictions to make plowing easier.

Public Works Director Chris Fredericksen says it costs about $250,000 every time a snow proclamation is issued.

“The worst event that we would have, is we go out and issue a snow removal proclamation and the weather actually warms up immediately after that and perhaps would have melted that snow,” he said.