ALLENTOWN, Pa. – Allentown Mayor Matt Tuerk on Wednesday night reported on the progress of snow removal in the wake of the Jan. 25 storm.

Tuerk said the city is continuing snow removal operations in District 9.

“So, there’s 30 trucks working around the clock to remove snow from streets from Fourth to 12th (streets) and from Union to Chew streets,” Tuerk said. “That includes a lot of our denser neighborhoods.”

During the public comment portion of the regular City Council meeting, Tilghman Street resident Betty Cauler criticized the city’s effort, calling the city a mess.

“There’s two streets that are cleaned: Fifth Street and Hamilton Street,” Cauler said. “You drive anywhere else, and it is a nightmare. I know that the mayor suspended the removal over the weekend; I don’t know why.”

“I live on Tilghman Street, which is an emergency route, and the snow is like 4 feet out from the sidewalk still,” she said. “This is two weeks after the storm.”

Tuerk said snow removal operations are challenging.

“When cars are parked in the street, it complicates our ability to remove snow from that side of the block, so getting residents to comply with the no-parking regulations on street cleaning sides is important,” Tuerk said.

Tuerk said the snow removal operations will continue.

“We do not have the equipment or the capacity to remove snow from the entire city when conditions persist like this,” he added.

Tuerk said council can expect Mark Shahda, public works director, to update council and provide a postmortem of the cleanup response to Storm Fern.

Tuerk said that report is scheduled for the first meeting in March.

Contract award

In other business, council voted to approve a contract with Michael Baker International Inc., in the amount of $215,733 to provide professional design and consulting services for the Safe Streets and Roads Project.

The scope of work will include designing the Jefferson Street traffic-calming project with temporary markings, lane changes, flexible delineators, high-visibility crosswalks and “no turn on red” signs.

Council President Santo Napoli also announced that the city has received a request for the transfer of a liquor license to The Felix Restaurant LLC at 395 S. Cedar Crest Boulevard.

A public hearing on the matter has been scheduled for March 4 at 6 p.m., which will be followed with a regular City Council meeting where a decision is expected.