We spoke to Steve Calla, Director of the Winthrop Department of Public Works, and he wanted to make it clear that he never denied using the Winthrop High baseball field as a snow dump for the snow removed from the town’s streets during the past winter.
This controversy may stem from a simple lack of communications between the WHS athletic department and Director Calla. This was a historic winter for snow accumulation in our town and there is no doubt that Director Calla and his staff did a tremendous job working through a succession of snowstorms that resulted in our streets and sidewalks being packed with mounds of snow. Our DPW was in the streets working through the most hazardous, snowy conditions imaginable, often with very low visibility. The DPW deserves commendation for its efforts and it’s unfortunate that there seems to be a dispute between our athletic program and our DPW Department.
However, we believe it is abundantly clear that In the future, the town should look to other available means for removing and dumping such vast amounts of snow. The lack of a playing field for our high school teams simply is not acceptable going forward and our town officials must come up with a way that makes the important job of snow removal manageable for our hard-working DPW employees.