MEXICO — Following a public hearing, selectmen Tuesday unanimously voted to place “no parking” signs during the winter in the area from South Main Street to Alder Street.
The hearing was requested by the board during the Feb. 10 meeting after the owner of a vehicle in that area refused requests by a snowplow operator and police to move his vehicle off the street during daytime hours.
Town Manager John Madigan described what happened.
“First, Andy (Gestaut, Highway Department) couldn’t get through,” Madigan said. “He tried to get the guy to move and he gave him a hard time, so Andy called the police, Dan Carrier, and then he gave Dan a hard time. The road, because of the snow, is narrow. He couldn’t plow around him. He’s got a big truck, with wings on it, and this guy was just unreasonable.”
To deal with the situation, John Blais of the Highway Department suggested the town place “no parking” signs on either side of that street during the winter because it is a narrow street.
During the public hearing, resident Randall Canwell said, “I think it should be from Pearl Street all the way up through because it is narrow … In the summertime, you’re going to have trouble getting an emergency vehicle through there.”
Madigan noted that the guardrails took a couple of feet off the width of the street.
Seth “Skeeter” Marshall said, “I plow that road with Andy, and you can’t even get by at all with a plow, even in a car, with that car parked there with the curb and snowbank, you can’t get by without hitting mirrors. With an ambulance or firetruck, you’re not getting nothing through there at all.
“When we went there, the guy gave us a hard time,” he said.
Madigan said a resident was in the Town Office asking what this was all about. “He had the same problem with the same guy.”
Toby Duguay said, “My mother lives at the end of that street, which is Alder Street. She’s quite old, and if an emergency vehicle like fire or Med-Care needed to get in to assist her in any such way before I could get up there, if I’m not working for the town, they would not be able to get in there. I go up there most every night to check up on her and I have a Geo Tracker and I have barely enough room to get by that van that was there.”
Board of SelectmenChairman Richie Philbrick suggested that signs be put up on both sides of the road that read “No Parking Winter Months, Nov. 1 to April 1.”
Those dates coincide with the town’s winter parking ban.
After the public hearing, Selectman Reggie Arsenault moved for the signs to read as Philbrick suggested. Selectman Albert Aniel seconded the motion and the board unanimously voted for the measure.
Arsenault noted that the parking ban will take affect immediately after the signs are posted.
bfarrin@sunmediagroup.net
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