City Of Lincoln Renews Contract With The Sun For Snow Removal Services

Story by Erik Mellgren 

| Published Jan 26, 2010

Mayor of Lincoln Chris Beutler announced yesterday that the city will be “going green” by retaining the services of the sun for snow removal in all city streets for another three years. The mayor cited that he was perfectly content with how the sun had been managing its duties as the primary source of snow removal in Lincoln.

“I think that the sun has done an outstanding job cleaning our streets of snow and ice by April every year. There is no reason whatsoever to switch to a completely untested salt and snowplow method of snow removal,” said Beutler during the announcement.

Members of the City Council have revealed that the decision was also dependent on financial considerations. Councilman Adam Hornung stated, “It was a very simple decision on our part. The sun is willing to clean our streets for free. We shopped around for several possibilities, but no one was willing or able to outbid free.”

“The thing you need to remember,” said councilwoman Jayne Snyder, “is that this contract does not limit the duties of snow removal to the sun. The exhaust fumes of every car on our roads is going to be working hard to clear those streets during the wintertime.”

At the most recent City Council meeting, several citizens attempted to address their grievances with the proposed contract, as well as the severe pothole problem facing Lincoln.

“It seems to me that the whole pothole problem is a direct result of not plowing the streets,” said upset Lincoln resident James Wilmont. “The money you spend fixing all the potholes every spring could be used to plow the roads, and then we could have clean streets all winter long with no potholes to deal with.”

“You people don’t seem to get the fact that the pothole fund is reserved for potholes," said councilman Jon Camp in response this complaint. "You can’t just spend it on something else all willy-nilly. We can’t spend the pothole money on snowplowing because there is no money for snowplowing in the budget. The funds are already allocated; you can’t just un-allocate them on a whim.”

The sun could not be reached for comment about the extended contract.