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City to toughen up on snow emergencies
 Media Credit: Christine Johnson/Editor Hannah Mercer, a first-year SCSU student, pulls a ticket from her windshield Friday. Mercer had parked her car in a 30-minute zone along First Ave. for over an hour. Many SCSU students are ticketed on a daily basis near campus. With the new city ordinance, students will have to be more aware of where they park in order to avoid getting their vehicles towed.
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Students at SCSU should be on the lookout for snow.
A new city ordinance has been put into effect that allows cars parked on the street to be immediately towed if there has been a snowfall of three inches or more.
“If the cars are illegally parked they will be towed right away,” said St. Cloud Mayor John Ellenbecker. “If they are not illegally parked, they will be ticketed first and then towed four hours later if they haven’t moved.”
After a snowfall of three inches or more, a snow emergency will be declared by the city. The community will be notified by way of postings on the St. Cloud Times Web site and radio announcements. Announcements will also be made through SCSU campus media. In the case of a snow emergency, the notifications will be posted in the afternoon. Cars that have not been moved will begin to be towed around 1 a.m.
“Three inches isn’t a lot of snow so students should be watching the weather,” said St. Cloud Police Captain Sue Stoworski. “If it looks like snow, they should probably move their cars.”
Stoworski said students at SCSU are at a higher risk of getting their cars towed because of the restricted parking around the campus. There are always a number of cars that acquire tickets because they have parked in a spot too long or have parked on the wrong side of the street.
This is the first year in about 30 years that this ordinance has been used. The St. Cloud City Administration and the mayor recently put the policy into effect.
“This is the first time it has been used since about the 1960s,” Stoworski said. “The reason it wasn’t used before is because it was worded differently.”
The old ordinance required that signs be posted on specific streets that would be plowed. Then the city would have to wait 12 hours to plow.
“The old policy didn’t make any sense,” Stoworski said.
Previously, cars could be parked for up to 24 hours in the same spot after the streets were plowed before they would be towed. These cars are referred to as snowbirds. Now the wait to tow snowbirds has been reduced to four hours.
The message to students is to be aware. Pay attention to street signs and move your car when it snows.
Kelli Sandhurst can be reached at: [email protected]
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