Snow and potholes

Snow berms are a seasonal problem on certain Baker City streets, but potholes and cracks bother us year round.

Which is why we urge the City Council to be cautious as it considers a proposal to spend more money to remove berms.

We don’t oppose the concept in general. We don’t like the berms, either. Most worrisome, they can block drivers’ views of oncoming traffic.

But the city should deal with berms on a case-by-case basis rather than revamp the current policy and require public works crews to haul away snow berms as soon as possible after every storm.

City officials estimate that doing so would cost the city an extra $20,000 to $25,000 during an average winter.

That’s a significant increase over the approximately $70,000 the city sets aside for snow and ice control each year.

The bigger problem, though, is that if the city spends more money moving snow, then it’s likely to have less money to maintain its paved streets — and those have been deteriorating for more than a decade.

In 2008, just 78 percent of streets were rated as good or very good.

And that downward trend almost certainly will continue, and probably accelerate, because the city is spending less than half what it needs to spend each year just to stay even.

The city has in the past couple of years tried to reduce the hazards posed by snow berms by trimming them, especially at intersections.

Officials estimate that work costs $2,000 to $2,500 per storm, considerably less than the tab for getting rid of the berms.

Fortunately, the city has options, if the berms get too big, that don’t require officials to plunder the already insufficient street-maintenance budget.

The City Council could, for instance, tap the contingency fund, which is set aside for emergencies.

Or the city could create a new reserve account specifically for berm removal. The city could put money into that account after mild winters, when the city doesn’t spend its entire allotment for snow and ice control.