Oneida County public works committee conducts ‘after action review’ of storm response

Oneida County board chairman Scott Holewinski addresses snowplowing issues during a meeting of the Oneida County board’s public works committee on Dec. 4.
(Photo by Brian Jopek/Lakeland Times)

In the wake of what was not, by many accounts, a good showing by the Oneida County highway department in response to the season’s first major snowstorm on Nov. 27 and the days after which dumped at least a foot of snow in many places throughout the county, the Oneida County board’s public works committee discussed the matter for nearly 45 minutes at its Dec. 4 meeting.

“The problem was,” Lakeland Times reporter Richard Moore wrote in an article published in the Dec. 5 edition of The Lakeland Times and The Northwoods River News, “while most town roads across the county were plowed, much of that snow remained on county roads throughout Thursday and well into Friday – two of the busiest travel days of the year — creating dangerous road conditions and prompting widespread complaints from motorists.”

A lot of different issues

Oneida County highway commissioner Alex Hegeman, who cited for the newspaper article reasons such as equipment breakdowns, lack of training for new personnel and keeping an eye on overtime pay as reasons for the overall failure, also took responsibility “for not putting my staff in the best scenario to succeed and for the poor road conditions that our citizens and visitors had to endure,” opened the Dec. 4 public works committee discussion on the matter.

“We’ve acknowledged that we had some issues,” he told the committee. “We’re working on trying to change some things on what we’re doing internally to improve on.”

“Can you explain the problems?” committee member Dan Hess asked. 

Hegeman said county snowplow drivers weren’t out Thursday, Nov. 27 “specifically on (State) Highway 70.”

“There was a good amount of snow Thursday into Friday and we didn’t have a truck out,” he said. “We had the trucks out Friday morning. There’s concerns with lack of maintenance, lack of response.”

Hegeman summarized what he described as “a culmination of a lot of different issues” including lake effect snow “that wasn’t forecasted” as well as lack of training for new personnel and equipment breakdowns. 

“This has been a discussion every day this week,” he said. “What we can do to improve, how we’re going to improve and how we’re going to make adjustments so this doesn’t happen again.”

Committee member Billy Fried, who represents the Minocqua area on the county board, asked if there’s communication from law enforcement. 

“I know there were different conditions around the county that day or days,” he said.

Hegeman said the highway department will get calls from the Oneida County Sheriff’s Office, something that Hess, recently retired as chief deputy, confirmed and Hegeman also said the Minocqua police department will call if there are issues related to roads. 

“I don’t believe we got any calls from Minocqua that day or the sheriff’s department,” Hegeman said. “I know they’ve been calling ... they called us Tuesday night about one or two roads that had some ice. They called us this morning about some stretches of road that had some ice so they’re usually pretty good about communicating with us.” 

Highway cameras

Committee member Robb Jensen, representing the Crescent area on the county board, indicated there were some black ice issues on stretches of State Highway 8. 

“We can talk a lot about what got us here,” he said. “As I look at these situations, we’ve got some good information and some concerns and where can we go to make it better.”

He mentioned the possibility of greater use of cameras the Wisconsin Department of Transportation (DOT) has installed at various locations such as the intersection of Hwy. 8 and U.S. Highway 51 and the intersection of State Highway 47 and U.S. Highway 45 in Monico and the possibility of inquiring about getting access as a way to help monitor road conditions. 

“I don’t know if that helps ... the state’s not going to pay for everything,” Jensen said and added maybe it was time the county invest in some cameras to put “in key spots” and he agreed with Fried that conditions of roads can be different. 

“They may be helpful,” he said. “People that make the decisions can access from home. Maybe that’s something that will help. I’m looking for ways to make it better and that might be an option for us.”

Hegeman said he’s contacted the DOT about the cameras. 

“Those are new ... I’m trying to find out if there’s plans for more,” he said. 

Committee member Bob Almekinder, another Minocqua representative on the county board, suggested Hegeman contact the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians regarding possible access to cameras the tribe has along Hwy. 70. 

Hess, Newbold’s town chairman and its representative on the county board, agreed with the differences in snow totals during the first day of the storm. 

“I had one inch of snow and people on (County Highway) K had four inches,” he said. “So, it was different all over the county.”

He asked if the highway department has people on call. 

“We have a rotating call list,” Hegeman said. “Superintendents and foremen are on call.”

“Is the administrator always on call?” Hess asked. 

“Me?” Hegeman asked. 

“Yes,” Hess said. 

“No ... well, I’m always available, even if I don’t have my work phone,” Hegeman said. “Even if I don’t have my work phone, all my supervisors have my personal number so they can get a hold of me.”

Hess then made a comment based on his time with the Oneida County Sheriff’s Office and especially his years as chief deputy. 

“You know, I hated it a bunch when I had to carry two phones all the time, but I think it’s a really good practice for you as administrator to carry your work phone with you,” Hess said to Hegeman.

Damned if you do

Fried said he, Almekinder and committee chairman Ted Cushing all received complaints and criticism about the condition of Hwy. 70. in the immediate aftermath of the storm’s initial stages. 

“Reading your response you sent to the committee and the paper over the events that happened with equipment breakdowns ... I hope it would never happen again,” he said. “It was a holiday weekend, a lot of traffic.”

Fried said he and Hegeman talked prior to the Dec. 4 committee meeting and that Hegeman had sent out a list of priority for state and U.S. highways the county highway department is responsible for. 

“My argument is Hwy. 51 may be a category three or four for the state but for up here, it’s a one,” he said. “Hwy. 70 is a main east/west (highway).”

Fried said one of the expectations from the DOT regarding road surface following a snowstorm is “that things don’t get packed down.”

“It seemed there was a lapse from when there was an initial pass through and a breakdown in when it got addressed again,” he said. “That’s not acceptable and I know in talking to you (Hegeman), it’s about ‘Hey, I’m damned if I do, damned if I don’t’ because you get complaints because you have guys out there doing pre-treatments and this or that and they’re mad that we’re spending money when they don’t think we should be.”

On the other hand, Fried said, things need to get done when conditions are bad. 

“My personal feeling is, and I think the county has shown this in the past, they’re willing to spend the money to make things as safe as possible,” he said. “I really think we need to have a priority for these state roads ... as a committee, we want to be able to say, ‘We’re doing a great job up here’ and we have safe roads for them to come.”

Fried said there are people who do tend to drive too fast for conditions but he said he felt the criticism the highway department received for its post-storm response “was fair.”

“I think you agree with that and I think you have acknowledged things that can be improved on and I wouldn’t expect it to happen again,” he said to Hegeman. “I know there’s circumstances but the public doesn’t want to hear excuses.”

Fried said there has been millions of dollars spent on equipment and acknowledged the current situation with the truck fleet, which includes no spare vehicles to fill gaps in the event of equipment breakdowns.

Hegeman also mentioned to county board chairman Scott Holewinski a few minutes later the highway department was still waiting on six trucks the county ordered in 2022. 

“So, the question is ‘When a truck breaks down and you don’t have any spares, what are you going to do?’” Fried asked. “I mean, we need to have a plan. We can’t just say ‘We have no spares’ or ‘ I’ve got no drivers.’ We need to have a plan. We need to be able to react because it looks like it’s going to be a pretty heavy snow season.”

Hegeman said with snow forecasted for the next week, preparations were being made and as the discussion progressed, Fried said it wasn’t a case of the county highway department getting “back to where we were” with respect to keeping roads clear in the winter. 

“We’ve been kind of fortunate that we’ve had two light winters,” he said. “This is showing to be a normal winter and it’s not just what happened on this holiday weekend ... I just want to make sure we’re putting our best foot forward because not only are you held accountable, we as a committee are held accountable.”

Fried said it was important for Hegeman to “feel support” from the committee “and also understand the direction.”

“I don’t want to speak for myself,” he said. “It needs to be a consensus of all of us. Are we going to give him an open checkbook? You need to tell us what you’d like to have in place and have our support financially and votewise.”

Fried urged Hegeman if he had any questions he needed to bring them to the committee for further direction.

Holewinski’s input

Holewinski had some comments regarding the issue, going over items such as the call list and adjustments to that which he felt would greatly improve communications. 

Almekinder said there should be a direct line for law enforcement, town and school officials to call if needed. 

With regard to extra compensation during winter storm events, Holewinski made the point with “everybody getting paid more,” what happened, or didn’t happen, on Nov. 27 and Nov. 28 shouldn’t have been an issue. 

He asked with different administrative personnel based in corners of Oneida County why it was one person “drives around and checks the roads?”

“When there’s totally different conditions in all corners of the county?” he asked, adding that with 172 miles of road, the conditions could change by the time the one person on call was able to accurately check conditions. 

Holewinski then inquired about the fleet itself. Hegeman had explained the turbochargers on two of the trucks had broken down and the transmission on another won’t shift into gear. 

“Did we know this all summer?” Holewinski asked. 

Hegeman said one of the broken turbos happened during the past week and the other “has been broken down for some time.”

Holewinski, a little frustrated, said the fleet “is much better than it was 25 years ago,” telling Hegeman half the plow truck fleet is in the four to five year-old range.

That’s when Hegeman told him about the six trucks the department is still waiting for that were ordered in 2022. 

“Six trucks?” Holewinski said. “They’re going to be outdated by the time you get them.”

Regardless, he said, there needed to be more people out checking conditions as opposed to just one member of the staff. 

With regard to new people needing training, Holewinski said what Hegeman needed to do was “create a formal training procedure for new hires.” 

“You can watch a video and you can take a test but I think the actual driving with an experienced snowplow driver is way more effective training than reading a book,” he said. “I think there should be documentation for these new hires, who went with them, what they did.” 

Having the highway department open five days a week in the winter months instead of four days and 10 hours each was also discussed.

Expectations clear 

Toward the end of the discussion, Fried reiterated Hegeman had taken “some of the bullets” in the aftermath of the highway department’s response to the first storm of the season and has an understanding of the situation and what needs to be done. 

“You’re clear that our expectations are those things will be improved and we shouldn’t have an incident again where a state road is ignored for the number of hours that it appeared to be,” he said to Hegeman.

Fried then made a sort of endorsement of Hegeman as Oneida County highway commissioner. 

“I’m still proud to have Alex as our guy,” he said. “The message is real clear. It’s just when it happens again, my confidence might wander ... I think with the challenges you have, we expect improvement and you tell me if it’s different but it looks like you’re ready to respond and be able to improve upon this and make this something that we all can be proud of moving forward.”

Brian Jopek may be reached via email at [email protected].