As the seasons change in Siouxland there are colder temperatures and we are anticipating winter storms in the area.
In preparation information is available on the city’s website for residents relating to parking, snow removal, ticketing and towing. Dave Carney is the Public Works Director for the City of Sioux City. At a morning news conference, Carney referred to the change in the snow emergency code, which did away with the arbitrary requirement of having two inches of snowfall on the ground.
“That’s no longer going to be an issue, where the driver is going to have to determine if two inches of snow has fallen, we will only do snow emergencies when there is a declared snow emergency. And that’s either by the mayor, mayor-pro-tem or their designee. And that will put in the odd-even parking throughout the city, and then on our marked emergency snow route, with the white signs with the blue snowflakes, there will be no parking at all.”
Carney also talked about when the parking restrictions will come off.
“At the time when either the snow windrow has been removed from the street and snow has been removed from the parking stalls, or 2. The snow emergency is called off, whichever is earlier. I hope that clarifies things for drivers. We are also working with the Tyson Events Center and the Orpheum Theater that they will put that up on their marquees, when we are having it, so hopefully drivers that are coming into town will be alerted to the fact that we are in a snow emergency, and that they will abide by the snow emergency route signs.”
Additionally, citizens should park on the odd side of the street on odd days of the month after 7:00 a.m. until 7:00 a.m. the following day. Vehicles should be parked on the even street numbered side of the street on even days of the month.
The city will notify residents via website, press release to media outlets, e-notification and social media platforms when the snow emergency is declared and again once the snow emergency has ended.
And residents can sign up for snow emergency and other alerts via the CodeRED Emergency Alert System. You can sign up for the alerts via your cell phone by texting AlertSiouxCity to 99411. You can also go to Sioux-city.org/alerts to sign up.
Iowa’s unemployment rate dropped slightly in October to 3.9%, a state agency announced today.
The rate declined from 4% in September and was down from 4.2% a year ago, according to Iowa Workforce Development.
The lower rate came as the number of Iowa residents with jobs increased by 1,600 to nearly 1.6 million. The percentage of Iowans in the labor force was 66.8%.
Iowa’s unemployment rate was ranked 18th lowest, tied with two other states.
The national unemployment rate for October was 4.6%.