January 2025
Welcome 2025! Last year the Kansas Department of Commerce began a new campaign to promote the joy of living and working in Kansas. Appropriately, this campaign was titled “Love, Kansas.” You may have seen the postcards CloudCorp produced to support the local Love, Kansas campaign. These cards include a beautiful artist’s rendition of a wintry downtown Concordia streetscape. What’s not to love?
Building on the momentum of the Love, Kansas campaign, the theme of the 2025 monthly Manager’s Minute articles is “Loving Our Community.” These articles endeavor to share the work of the City while reinforcing stated priorities of the City Commission. I hope you enjoy this monthly series.
Let’s talk snow. January’s blizzard brought 15 inches of snow to Concordia, covering a glaze of ice. Everything stopped. For the first time in many of our memories, KDOT closed all highways in North Central Kansas. Yet, certain functions needed to proceed: The snow plows and salt trucks ran, albeit slower than normal it seemed. Hospital workers were expected to report, though modifications were made to help ensure their safety were traveling. Law enforcement and EMS responded to calls, even if that meant sending a snow plow ahead of them. And our area farmers tended to their livestock. They did this because of their commitment to serve others.
Concordia’s Streets crews began salting on Saturday afternoon. The viaduct typically becomes slick first, which is our trigger to begin salting it, intersections, and snow routes. They also began snow removal on Sunday to get ahead of the predicted large amounts. These 12-hour shifts continued through the following Friday, beginning at midnight and working until noon to optimize times when traffic was low on both collector and residential streets. Eighty-two (82) tons of salt were spread. Three trucks, one grader, one skid steer, and one front end loader cleared the streets and hauled 393 loads of snow from the downtown area. Teamwork was in full force as City Streets, Parks, and Utilities staff worked together to ensure streets were traversable, public grounds and adjacent sidewalks were clear. They did this because of their commitment to our community.
Overall, I believe snow removal went very well, especially understanding the magnitude of this snow, and limitations of the City when providing this service with both lean staffing and equipment.
I also observed numerous occasions of people helping their friends, family and neighbors. Our residents proactively moved their vehicles off snow routes when snow was forecast. Our residents shoveled their sidewalks (sometimes twice) to ensure pedestrians could get to their destinations. Our residents cleared sidewalks and driveways for their neighbors, and they helped their friends dislodge their vehicles from the snow. They did this because they care about their friends, family and neighbors.
