Snow Job

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Service Director, Ed Gallagher discusses the policy should an emergency occur on a furlough day. Referring to the snowstorm of Friday, February 25th, Ruth Gray can be heard saying, “It happened!” Immediately, Assistant Service Director, Jim Anderson is heard exclaiming, “No it didn’t!” The dual Service Directors continued to reiterate how all staff members were on duty. “Every truck was on the road,” they proclaimed several times. “It was bad press,” they all agreed.

Some interesting things to ponder:

Furlough days for the Administration and non union employees were in effect on February 25th. Furlough days for the union employees such as the Service Department have not yet been instituted. Consequently, all the regular snow plow crews were out plowing streets.

Now, that brings us back to the local news channel report of furlough days being the cause for poor road conditions in South Euclid on that day. Curiously, Council President David Miller is shown on that news report stating, “Unfortunately, with the furlough days, with city workers being off, our streets were unplowed.”

There are only two reasonable explanations for Council President Miller’s statement. Either he was uninformed of the employee furlough days, or, he knew that road crews were out plowing, but had ulterior reasons for wanting the public to think otherwise. How is it the news reporter happened upon the Council President while filming his story in South Euclid? Who contacted the media? Was it an impromptu interview with Miller, or prearranged?

Statements to consider when watching the videos:

Ed Gallagher: “We had established a program for replacement of trucks from the time I came in (2004), but unfortunately because of funding and everything we had to not go along with that program.”… “It’s a tough situation like I said, we had a program but unfortunately because of funding aspects we couldn’t rotate the trucks and purchase the new trucks as we had proposed.”

Jim Anderson: “We only have 6 salt trucks to cover 5 square miles in our city. Lyndhurst has 12 salt trucks.”… “We have a hard time keeping up with the snow.”

“Every truck was on the road.”
Not quite.
The Service Director and the Assistant Service Director were indeed on a furlough day that Friday when the snowstorm hit. Interestingly, both positions are graced with the use of city vehicles which are driven home. One of those vehicles is a pickup truck with a plow. That vehicle sat in Mr. Anderson’s driveway not plowing city streets. Reliable SEO sources have confirmed those reports.

• time: 1 min. 20 sec.

• time: 9 min. 14 sec.

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