Pittsburgh City Councilwoman Natalia Rudiak will lead a council task force on the city's snow removal performance, her office announced today.

The effort may include an offer from Carnegie Mellon President Jared Cohon to design a snow operations system for the city, Council's Finance Chair William Peduto said.

Council's task force -- called by Council President Darlene Harris -- will meet later this week and be "tasked with investigating, reporting key findings, and making recommendations on how the city can better administer its emergency operations systems in the future, with a specific eye toward snow emergencies," Ms. Rudiak's office said in a news release.

"Four days after the storm there are still thousands of people across our city who are snowed in," Ms. Rudiak said in the statement. "People are angry that is is taking so long to get power restored and streets cleared, and there needs to be accountability."

The full review will not begin until the snow emergency is deemed over. In the meantime council will cooperate with the mayor's office to respond to constituent snow needs.

Mr. Peduto said CMU has offered to marshal faculty, staff and and students to create a "state of the art" snow removal tracking system that identifies priority areas for snow removal, maximizes the use of city equipment and follows through after emergencies with studies to guide budget decisions. It could also include geo-tracking of snow plows and treated streets, which is used in Maryland and elsewhere, he said.

The offer includes help from "the department of engineering and of computer science, the Heinz School" and other CMU departments, said Mr. Peduto, whose district includes the Oakland campus. "They've offered the full services of the university to create a better system."

He said he is working on the offer with Ms. Rudiak and council's public works chair, Bruce Kraus, and plans to reach out to the Department of Public Works and the Ravenstahl administration too.

Mayor Luke Ravenstahl is holding a press conference on the city's snow removal plans at 2 p.m.

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