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By JOE SYLVESTER jsylvester@leader.net
Tuesday, February 01, 2000 Page: 1A
Al Miller was up at 4:30 a.m. Monday, clearing the snow from his fiancee’s
parking space.
After all that work, he didn’t want anybody else taking the curbside
opening in front of his Division Street home in Wilkes-Barre while she was at
work.
Even though he knows there is a city ordinance against doing so, Miller set
up a couple of plastic chairs to deter anyone who might want to take the rare
parking space on the narrow street. “I’ll take my chances,” he said. A few
North Main Street residents also decided it was worth chancing a ticket or
fine and placed chairs from their porches onto the newly cleared spaces. One
couple, who asked that their names not be used, said they try to reserve the
spot in front of their home when it snows, not to stop their neighbors from
parking there, but because Wilkes-Barre General Hospital employees take the
spots. “We know it’s illegal,” the woman said. “But, where are you going to
park?” Her husband said it took him a couple hours to shovel the snow. And,
he said, “I pay $1,500 to $1,600 a year in taxes, I think the city owes us
something.”
The National Weather Service said 11 inches of snow fell on Sunday – the
largest accumulation since the 21-inch dumping on Jan. 8, 1996 – in addition
to last week’s snow. The mass accumulation is causing area residents to break
rules by saving parking spots with items such as cones, garbage cans and
chairs in addition to pushing snow into streets, and other small nuisances.
“We had one complaint about someone taking snow off the road and piling it
on the curb on the other side of the road,” said a woman who answered the
phone at the Nanticoke Police Department, but would not give her name.
In an earlier complaint, at 4:30 a.m., someone called the police to gripe
about the noise from a snow blower, she said.
“You gotta be able to do your sidewalks whenever you can,” said the
spokeswoman. “The poor fellow probably had to go to work.”
Hanover Township had one complaint from a resident who said someone pulled
into the parking space he had cleared, said township manager Ed Mera. But
there is nothing anybody can do about that.
“As long as he has a license plate and pays his fee, he can park on a
public street,” Mera said.
Pittston Police Chief Edward Doran said his department received a number of
complaints about people parking in spaces that were just shoveled out. It’s
not illegal, Doran said, “but the people should be neighborly.”
Edwardsville Borough Administrator David Hines said there was a dangerous
situation when dozens of four-wheelers, which are not legal on public streets,
drove around the borough in the snowstorm.
“We almost hit them with the plow,” he said. “Unfortunately, it’ll take
somebody to get killed to draw attention to it.”
Staff writer Jolyn Resnick contributed to this story.
Call Sylvester at 829-7219.