The ice man cometh

I was so happy to see our mayor and her city street director in the paper discussing snow removal. Of particular interest was the comment that homeowners have 24 hours to remove snow from their sidewalks.

I would like to tell them a little story. During the last snow event, I used my snow blower to clean off 75 feet of my sidewalk and 75 feet of my neighbor’s as she is physically unable to do that work. The 150 feet of sidewalk was completely clear. A few days later when the city plows finally showed up, they plowed the street and pushed about 3 feet of frozen ice chunks onto the sidewalk. (It should not be called snow removal – it is really snow moval, as they do not remove snow; they just move it from the street onto the sidewalk.)

It took me over one hour using a pick just to clear my driveway. Everything was frozen and could not be removed with a snow shovel. The 150 feet of sidewalk was covered with 3 feet of ice chunks. NOW, why should I be responsible for clearing the sidewalk? I did it, and the city re-covered it.

Ronald Garrett

Spokane