Illustration by Tabitha Walters
“Public Works is always looking for opportunities to improve services,” emails Ann Arbor public works manager Paul Matthews, “and this was an opportunity to try something new.” In December, city council approved a contract with Saline’s KBK Landscaping for up to $500,000 worth of “supplemental plowing” whenever four or more inches of snow are predicted.
KBK owner Kris Krause, forty, says he’s been plowing since he was thirteen. He was one of several contractors the city contacted for input before putting out the request for bids and the only one who responded. He bid on and got fourteen of the twenty-three routes posted.
Why not all of them?
“We didn’t want to overwork ourselves,” Krause says pragmatically. “We tried to bid on the sections that are close by to accounts we currently have.” He’ll commit eight plows to Ann Arbor initially, and once other jobs are completed, he can add more. He figures they’ll have no problem clearing all fourteen sections within twenty-four hours, as the contract stipulates.
Public services spokesperson Robert Kellar emails that west of State St., KBK will be responsible for local streets south of Huron/Jackson. East of State they’ll handle everything south of the river, except for “a section bound by S. State, Hill St., Washtenaw and E. Stadium.”
City crews will take care of the rest. Matthews writes that his drivers “will plow the remaining local roads in residential neighborhoods and apply salt to all hills, intersections and bridges including sections that are plowed by the contractor.”
That could change down the road. “If this goes well, then we wouldn’t mind adding on” more routes, Krause says. “It’s a trial run for both of us.”
This article has been edited since it was published in the January 2025 Ann Arbor Observer. The error described below has been corrected.
Calls & Letters: Plowing the Neighborhoods
In January’s Up Front on the city’s supplemental snow plowing contract (“Plowing the Neighborhoods”), we wrote that “In recent years, public works has cleared only ‘major’ streets.” City public services spokesperson Robert Kellar emailed to correct that—he called it “wildly untrue.”
It was.
Observer editor John Hilton introduced the error based on a misreading of the motion approving the contract. The city’s policy was and is to plow residential streets when more than four inches of snow fall.
As the resolution notes, public works “staff members are also tasked with collecting solid waste, urban forest management, water distribution, sanitary collection and stormwater conveyance system maintenance. Often, these competing interests reduce the number of staff available to perform snow removal.”
Contractor KBK Landscaping will expedite that by taking on fourteen of the city’s twenty-one plow routes.
Our apologies to public works manager Paul Matthews and to writer Jan Schlain for the error.
