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Congratulations in Order as Gardner MA Wins Municipal Innovation Award!
Mayor went on to congratulate certain individuals in the city who have worked hard on a particular project. Once a year the Massachusetts Municipal Association selects one of the 351 cities and towns as a recipient of a “Municipal Innovation Award” for projects they believe used innovative thinking to help increase public awareness of what’s going on in their location and increase transparency efforts. This year Gardner is the winner! The award is for the new Interactive Map which shows details about the City’s projects over the last 12 months. For all the City of Gardner Interactive Maps, CLICK HERE.
Covid Still Striking Down Citizens
The Mayor remarked that “we did have 3 people in the City pass away this past week because of Covid 19, all cases of the Delta variant. So again, we’re asking people to just remember that the Covid pandemic is still a thing that’s ongoing here, and please do remember to just keep that in the back of your mind and be careful and stay safe as you go out and about and do what you need to do here in the City and around our area”
A regional distribution date for free Covid tests will be announced at next week’s Mayor’s update.
In other Covid related News: 9 additional National Guardsmen are assisting at Heywood Hospital for a total of 18.
Current Covid Storm Affected Winter Storm Response in City of Gardner MA
Mayor Nicholson made a statement regarding the recent snowstorm and the challenges of meeting the City’s needs while short staffed because some DPW employees were sick with Covid. The Mayor acknowledged storm clean up issues in the South Gardner area, explaining each truck’s plow route takes two to three hours to complete. 9 out of 30 individuals were down with Covid. Attempting to compensate, the City arranged for an outside contractor to try to fill the void. But the outside contractor also had Covid issues. Therefore the 2-3 hour plow route became a 4 to 5 hour plow route. Then, frozen water pipes struck in another area of Gardner, taking away the DPW employees who were assigned to South Gardner to handle the frozen pipes, thus delaying plowing service until about noon the next day.
The Mayor explained the recent Code Red confusion:
The City Parking ban went in effect 4 hours later than the timing of the weather advisory publicized through Code Red by the National Weather Service, explaining City of Gardner communications are clearly identified as such.
Cars off the Road
The Gardner MA Mayor suggested that folks proactively get cars off the road prior to a parking ban when the forecast calls for an impending storm. On Tuesday, January 25th there will be a parking ban in sections of the Downtown area to allow for snow removal. Timing for the same activity in South Gardner will be announced.
Brief reminder from both the DPW and the Health Department:
If your Christmas tree was not picked up, you can drop it off at the transfer station for free. In the meantime, the mayor has asked citizens to remove trees from the sidewalk so that damage is not caused to plows in the event of snowstorms.