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'Not good enough': Cleveland City Council expresses concern over city's winter storm response

The meeting came less than a week after several complaints regarding the city's response to the winter storm.

CLEVELAND — Editor's note: the video in the player above is from a previous story.

During a three-hour meeting on Monday morning, Cleveland City Council’s Municipal Services and Properties Committee, as well as members of Mayor Justin Bibb's cabinet, made it clear they were unsatisfied with the city's response to winter storms that have taken place over the course of the past month.

"Is that good enough? Doesn’t sound like it is,” Cleveland's Chief Operating Officer Bonnie Teeuwen said of the city's goal to plow and salt every street in the city within 72 hours.

In addition to the delays, council members expressed concerns regarding various snow cleanup issues, including Mayor Bibb's snowplow live tracker map, which they said wasn't always accurate and led to confusion among residents. Multiple council members also took issue with a tweet from the City of Cleveland's official Twitter account, which stated that 94 percent of the city's residential plowing services had been completed by 10 a.m. on Saturday, Feb. 5 -- more than two days after last week's storm had begun.

“We are not campaigning anymore," Councilman Brian Mooney of Ward 11 said of the tweet.

Additionally, council members expressed concerns regarding the city's call center, which they say was understaffed due to unplowed roads. The call center should have seven employees, but only had two make it in. A supervisor later helped answer calls.

Ahead of last week's storm, Mayor Bibb revealed the city’s updated snow removal plan following criticism that plowing progress was slow amid the winter storm that struck on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

"I inherited a broken system that needs significant overhaul and investment. I heard you,” Mayor Bibb said after that storm.

The consensus at Monday's meeting, however, was that when it comes to snow removal in Cleveland, more improvements are still needed.

“That’s not the expectation of the residents,” Councilman Mooney said of last week's response

You can watch the full meeting in the YouTube player below.

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