poor snowplowing

With the first snow event of the season out of the way and a dismal showing of road clearing ability, I read the Times Union article stating that budget cuts had no effect on the snow removal. They quoted Albany County Public Works Commissioner, Michael Franchinni, as saying it was a fast moving storm of short duration that led to the early morning commuting problems. I don't doubt that the timing of the storm played a part of the problem, but if budget cuts become an issue, as he further stated some positions have been eliminated in the 2010 budget, perhaps they can follow the example of the fire service. Put a contingent of volunteers to work to augment the paid staff. In fact you could replace all the paid staff with volunteers. After all you know when a storm is scheduled, as we have highly paid T,V, meteorologists and their predictions. Simply page out the volunteers to drive the plows and sand trucks. Come on now, we all know someone and some have said ourselves, we could do a better job at plowing. Think of all the money you would save by not paying professionals to do the plowing and replace them with volunteers.