City leaders demand answers over unplowed streets – News 8 at 11 INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — A contentious City-County Council committee on Thursday night had councilors demanding answers from the Department of Public Works for its recent response to snowstorms. The committee called Public Works leaders to its meeting to understand policy changes that led to the January snow response. Sam Beres, the interim Public Works director, said the city did away with its “6-inch” policy in 2020, which stated that plows would go onto secondary roads, connector roads and neighborhood roads only after the city saw 6 inches of snow. Now, the city operates on the “Connector Policy,” which utilizes a “holistic assessment of roadways” before calling out plows. Also, the new policy includes connector roads in the plow routes, something the old 6-inch policy did not include in the initial callout. Those details and others were outlined in a presentation from Public Works. Councilors and residents at the meeting were upset that the residential streets were not plowed after the city saw 11 inches of snow this month. News 8 first reported about growing concerns on Jan. 10, and one city councilor, Democrat Ron Gibson, said the snow removal response was “possibly unlikely to budget and operational constraints.” Public Works says it’s not a budgetary issue, but rather high-ranking Public Works officials opted not to call on contract plow drivers who use smaller equipment that can manage side streets. Republican Councilor Joshua Bain said at Thursday’s meeting, “It’s the fact that we admit defeat from the beginning. We have all these residential streets in Indianapolis that we guarantee will never see a snowplow, and all of our surrounding communities that we compete with as a city are doing things that we don’t do.” The Public Works representatives cited issues with varying plow and salt quality from contract plowers as an issue that’s holding them back, as well as the liability of using contractors’ plows. Democrat Councilor Andy Nielsen passionately questioned the Public Works leaders, eventually yelling at them and asking what they would do with a budget of $100 million. “You say it’s not a budgetary issue!” Nielsen yelled. “So if I gave you $100 million dollars!” His line of questioning trailed off before he resumed asking what the city would do with more funding for snow removal. Later in the meeting, Beres acknowledged financial needs always exist for the department but reiterated the decision not to call out contract plows was unrelated to finances. Beres said he thinks the recentv snow response was successful. Democrat Councilor Jesse Brown disagreed. “Anger. Embarrassment at our city. Frustration. It’s palpable in all my conversations with constituents over the last couple of weeks. People just cannot understand how badly this was bungled, and then for me to sit there tonight and listen to the administration pretend like this was a successful response?” Public Works says its snowplows could not go onto side streets because of a risk of creating black ice by removing the top layer of snow. Many councilors said they had not heard of that ever happening. They also pointed out that the snow that was not removed was compacted into a thick sheet of ice. Councilors said change is coming. Democrat Councilor Jared Evans says he is working on an ordinance to mandate a better response to snowstorms. Bain says he would join Evans in the effort.