New Haven Independent

Yet another winter storm Wednesday pulled Mustakos from his usual gig piloting a street sweeper or driving a truck for the city’s public works department.

He returned (click on video) to Westville’s Fountain Terrace late in the morning after having already plowed it earlier in the day. He was making a last lap and making sure the street was clear enough to check off his to-do list.

That’s when he saw a man blowing the snow off his driveway into the street, in violation of city law. Mustakos had seen him doing that earlier.

Mustakos stopped. “Sir,” he asked the man, “please stop blowing snow into the street.” He asked him to blow it into his yard instead.

“I can’t,” the homeowner insisted. His voice was raised, his face flustered, his arms gesturing in protest.

Mustakos drove on, not wanting to provoke an incident. He called his supervisor, Rich “Big Daddy” Christensen.

Mustakos returned to the scene a few minutes later, as Christensen rolled up. They conferred. Then Christensen approached the man with the snowblower and repeated the request to stop blowing snow into the street. The man continued to argue.

Christensen issued a verbal warning, then left. “Next time,” Christensen reported afterward, “I’ll give him a $100 ticket.”

As the supervisor left, the resident was moving his car into the driveway. Mustakos drove on along the now-cleared street. The battle was over, until, perhaps, the next storm.

Wednesday’s was one of the dozen or so snowstorms that have brought New Haven’s fleet of 28 snowplows out this year. This season is among the busiest Mustakos, 40, remembers in this five years of driving a plow in the Elm City. (Click here to read about a ride-along with him in 2007; click here to read about his recent efforts to help the mayor solve the city’s budget crisis.)

The storms have already emptied the city’s $400,000 storms budget this year, said public works chief John Prokop.

That doesn’t mean we all will have to shovel the street in front of our residence.

“Obviously, we will plow the streets,” said Rob Smuts, the city’s chief administrative officer. “In any budget years some accounts have surpluses. We have a significant surplus due to a drop in cost of trash [disposal] and recycling. Whether it means moving money from one account to another or cutting a budget item, we will plow the streets.”

And plow the streets Mustakos did, at least in upper Westville.

Mustakos, an affable, articulate man who lives in Hamden with his wife, Sheri, worked in construction for about 20 years and drove a snowplow for a private contractor before coming to work for the city. Four hours away from finishing his 16-hour shift Wednesday, he looked remarkably fresh.

The cab of Mustakos’ snowplow was toasty warm, because, he said, he needed to keep the windshield clear. To the slap of windshield wipers, Mustakos drove his plow up one street and down the other from Forest Road to the Woodbridge line and from Fountain Street to the Yale golf course.

Mustakos had begun work at 11 p.m. Tuesday, laying down a layer of Magic Salt on the roads, which he credits with the ease in which the plow was able to get down to bare road. This is the first year the city used Magic Salt, which is more environmentally friendly and will keep the streets from refreezing down to 15 degrees below zero. The old combination of salt and sand only worked to 20 above.

Mustakos said he has had only one problem incident in his five years behind the plow, a brick thrown through his window on Valley Street, which was then in his plowing route. He was cut by flying glass and the brick missed his head by inches. Nobody was ever arrested in the incident, he said.

On Wednesday, there were no incidents. Mustakos drove the 10-ton truck at between 10 and 15 miles per hour up and down the streets of his route, sometimes generating a rooster tail of snow, more often not. The truck is modern, with an automatic transmission and a motor that moves the blade from one side to the other. There is even a gizmo to automatically wrap, and unwrap, chains from the truck’s rear wheels.

Mustakos said he drives that slowly for a number of reasons. Two reasons became evident quickly. The first is the fact that the truck’s ride is quite bumpy. The second is raised manhole covers, which the plow blade found with some regularity. You can feel the collision all the way to your teeth. Fountain Terrace and Knollwood Avenue are the worst hills, which drivers try to climb rather than go down because it is so slippery they might lose control.

Another bugaboo is parked cars. Especially on roads like Cooper Place, where the plow scribes a slalom course between the cars, piling snow alongside a car parked in the cul-de-sac. He hates to do that, Mustakos said, but “I have to put the snow somewhere.”

Re-Blocked Driveways

Perhaps the most frequent subject of conversation was the battle between residents and the plow drivers, who are required to plow from curb to curb. The plow comes along and throws snow back on your sidewalk and blocks up your driveway.

Mustakos said he tries hard not to do that to people. But he and his fellow plow drivers are under orders to plow curb to curb. If they didn’t, each subsequent snowstorm would narrow the streets until they were impassable. He said he tries hard not to make the residents’ lot more onerous, slowing or even moving the plow’s direction.

A number of times, he did slow or keep the snow from plugging up a driveway of sidewalk. He said he acted no differently with a reporter riding shotgun from the way he normally conducts his route.

As noon neared, the snow became wetter. The plow’s speed dropped to 10 mph. The plow had made its appointed four sweeps of narrow streets and eight sweeps of wide avenues. Mustakos drove down Curtis Drive with the blade up, a signal to the many shovelers that he has paid his last visit.

That’s the secret to not getting your sidewalk or driveway plugged up with snow after it’s been cleared. Patience. Don’t start clearing until the plow has done its thing from curb to curb.

Mustakos said he realizes not everybody could wait.

One of those who couldn’t was Verdia Petaway of Long Hill Terrace. The plow paid its visit after she had shoveled her driveway. She knew she shouldn’t shovel until the plow had cleaned the road. She also knew she needed to get to work, she said. She tried to turn her car around on the narrow street where the plow had taken only one swipe. She needed, and got, neighbors’ help in getting the car moving down the hill, followed by the snowplow.

This time, everybody was happy.