Costs mount as cleanup continues from two storms

Another storm could punch city snow removal spending over the $1 million mark, Lynn DPW Commissioner Andrew Hall warned Wednesday as he urged drivers to use common sense negotiating local streets and parking.?Please use your head when you are parking: Even with legal on-street parking, you are in the way,” he said.Silsbee Street off Broad Street proved Hall?s point on Wednesday with cars parked along one side of the normally narrow street, leaving one lane of traffic for drivers to snake between a snow bank and parked cars.The Jan. 26-27 blizzard and Monday?s snowstorm dropped 40 inches of snow with drifts and piles towering several feet above the ground.?Another foot of snow would cripple us – there is nowhere to put it,” Hall said.An exhausted Hall oversaw Monday?s plowing operation and crisscrossed the city on Tuesday and Wednesday monitoring snow clearing work. A city snow removal operation got underway Tuesday night with heavy equipment hauling snow off Franklin Street, Hall said.He said the removal operation will shift to Exchange Street and then Chatham Street between Essex and Lewis streets in the next several days. Hall is not the only driver who cannot ignore snow-clogged streets this week. Public safety workers, heating oil and other delivery drivers and senior care workers picked their way down narrowed streets.United Parcel Service spokesman Dan Cardillo said UPS drivers learn defensive driving and safe walking techniques to help them avoid road accidents and falls.?We?re affected by heavy snowfall like any other business, but we are trained to negotiate slick streets and see the ?big picture? behind the wheel. We put in a lot of training time,” Atlanta-based Cardillo said.Lynn Housing Authority & Neighborhood Development Executive Director Charles Gaeta said employees who normally perform a variety of maintenance tasks on buildings and grounds across the city focused on snow removal during the last week.?Everyone was on hand. They are tired but committed to their jobs, and I am proud of the job they have done during these past two storms,” Gaeta said.Hall said last week?s storm cost the city $500,000 in costs, including payments to plowing contractors hired to help remove snow. This week?s storm added $300,000 to that amount. The city budget includes $785,000 for snow and ice removal.State law allows cities and towns to run “legal deficits” on snow removal spending with the costs pushed over to the next spending year. Actual costs for removal in Lynn last year totaled $2.3 million.In Marblehead, preliminary planning for the spending year that begins on July 1, 2015 includes an estimated $250,000 snow and ice deficit. The town budgeted $100,000 for snow removal this year and the amount spent, said Town Administrator John McGinn, is already $150,000.Lynnfield has spent $175,000 clearing both storms, said DPW Director Andrew Lafferty.?Our whole snow and ice appropriation for the whole year is $120,000,” he said.Revere has spent $500,000 on snow removal to date. Saugus acting Town Manager Robert Palleschi is calculating amounts spent to date on snow removal. Swampscott DPW Director Gino Cresta said the department spent $125,000 cleaning up after the two storms.