It says something about a city when its Charter demands that the mayor submit an annual snow-fighting plan for Common Council review.

But, in Buffalo, it would say something a lot worse if it didn’t.

Kudos, then, for Mayor Byron W. Brown and the snow-removal plan he submitted to the Common Council last week, on a day when the temperature reached 64 degrees and it might be forgiven if nobody wanted to even think about the whiteouts to come.

The 77-page document shows some useful thought and anticipates the expenditure of a bit of money that, if all goes according to plan, would be well-spent.

Most notable is the plan to spend a $350,000 state efficiency grant to equip some 80 Public Works Department vehicles with global positioning system gadgets. Those will allow supervisors to keep track of their snow-plowing and support vehicle fleet during deployments, moving them to the areas of greatest need while keeping everyone up to date on bottlenecks and stalls.

Planners are also changing parking rules for some areas, hoping to make it smoother going for plows moving through residential streets—the perennial winter problem. The city also has moved toward a smaller-gauge plow, in some cases, for the same reason.

Buffalo will never be able to shed the image of a place that gets more than its fair share of snow. It isn’t entirely fair, as you know, exaggerated somewhat by the fact that weather reports about other spots in the region’s snow belt come out of the Weather Service office here.

The best we can do, and the least we can expect of our city leaders, is that our city also cultivate a reputation as being ready for its snowfall and able to clear it away, get through it and be about our business.

It will now be up to the Common Council, properly, to re-view the plan and make suggestions. It’s a good time for members of the public to do so, too. While we still have time to think about it.