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Snow was the first point of discussion duirng Monday night’s City Council Workshop meeting’s.

Mayor John Moor began by addressing complaints posted via social media about the municipality’s  snow removal.

“Right now we are looking at a 26 inch snow storm staring us in the face,” Moor said. “I think we did a good job, great no but I don’t think there is any town in Monmouth County that did a great job. I think we have a lot to go. Once you get done with the snow there is a three to four day cleanup. We are probably 50 percent minimum through this storm [cleanup].”

Moor invited comment, constructive criticism and questions.

Two members of the public spoke.

Tracy Rogers of Monroe Avenue commented on the staging of the snow once plowed, saying that it increased a dangerous situation. He recognized the municipality’s limited resources.

Jim Henry of Sixth Avenue said there were residents throwing snow onto to the street instead of back onto the curb and said he witnessed vehicles blocking the snow plows.

“Why does the city put up with that,” Henry said. “You have a situation where you have ordinances…DPW can’t do their job. Why doesn’t the police department get out and issue summonses.”

Henry said the DPW should be commended for the number of hours they put in.

Moor said while the city made mistakes, “this was a lot of snow.”

He said the city does have to look at the enforcement.

“Mistakes were made, we are going to correct them,” Moor said.

Deputy Mayor Amy Quinn said, during a 2010 snow storm residents could not leave their homes for three to five days. She said the snow the weekend blizzard left behind was much more than the 2010 calculations.

“Our DPW workers were up to 36 hours straight,” Quinn said. “Do we still need plows going down the street – yeah.”

Quinn said the majority of city streets are passable. Quinn and Councilman Joe Woerner said the alternate side parking rules worked well on Third Avenue and Moor said it also was implement well on Fourth Avenue.

“Clearly we didn’t do a good job of communication but it worked on Third Avenue,” Quinn said. “I walked to Second Avenue today and it did not work well on Second Avenue. We either didn’t communicate well to the people on Second Avenue what to do or for whatever reason they couldn’t get their cars out.”

Quinn said there were many stranded cars during the snow storm, one contributing to the why it took so long for Heck Avenue to be cleared.

“I think we learned a lot from this storm,” Quinn said. “I think we learned how to do better.”

Councilwoman Yvonne Clayton said the set of circumstances lend to a Perfect Storm.

“In addition to the storm, our website was down,” Clayton said. “We weren’t able to communicate as we would like to give out information about alternate parking. There was so much that we could have done better, that we would like to do better.”

While the city’s website and e-mails are now back on line, officials said e-mails sent last week are more than likely lost.

Moor said they have hired two companies to bring in front-end loaders to help with the snow clearance.

Another hiccup was when the shared service agreement with Bradley Beach to apply liquid calcium to the city streets fell through because the vehicle was inoperable.

“We were very lucky that there were very few power outages,” Moor said. “We were very lucky that there were no major flooding whatsoever.”

Moor reminded the public to call DPW with their tips on roadways that still need clearing.

City Manager Michael Capabianco said the Main Street sign remains inoperable. While the sign has been fixed the issue now rests with city hall’s ability to communicate information to the billboard. The conflict lies with the IP address, he said. The matter should be resolved within the next week, Capabianco said.

And while temperatures are expected to reach over freezing degree weather, lending for an opportunity for the snow to melt, weather forecasters are predicting more snow this weekend.

The Asbury Park Police Department issued the following alert via Nixle:

There is a potential for a high impact winter storm to hit the region Friday night through Saturday. Snow, gusty winds and coastal flooding are all possible.  We are monitoring the forecast and will advise when more details become available.

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