Agenda Text
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Kate Wheeler and David Guss submitting comments re: the snow removal ordinance.
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Official Text
To the Honorable Board:
Thank you for requesting input for the hearing. This blizzard is quite a good moment to review the new regulations. I feel they are cruel and unrealistic for homeowners, especially in a major storm. Please extend the deadline and reduce the fines.
What were the priorities when drafting the ordinance. Was this just an 'enrich the city' or simply an overzealous idea?
As it stands the current fine is too high and deadlines are too short, outrageously so. Yes, I also think it is outrageous when a building or a home doesn't make any effort whatsoever to shovel and you have to go into the street, the sidewalk remains icy and dangerous. But ... an overnight deadline with a huge fine is not reasonable, it's cruel, and it's unfair.
Somerville homeowners are the same people as the pedestrians this ordinance is protecting. Homeowners, too, may be disabled, getting older, or simply female and smaller so that we have issues contending with the snow. For nearly 20 years I have shoveled our driveway and sidewalk by myself, with a shovel, a machine --and now a service. So I know the ordinance is unreasonable in all cases.
A snow blowing machine can cost $1,000 and snow removal service costs several hundred dollars per snowfall. Not all Somerville citizens are able to pay those sums. We need to look out for people who shovel manually. (Even if we have a machine or a service there is always some need to clear snow manually.)
The fining deadline should not be overnight, that is for sure. Why write a law and then enforce it unevenly? Right now on Properzi Way about half the walks are cleared and there is six inches of snow in the street itself. I feel this is reasonable in the aftermath of a major storm because there is snow as high as the hedges with nowhere to put more residue. Please give homeowners three or four days instead of an overnight deadline. This could be pegged to the depth of the snowfall.
If a homeowner is clearing by hand, it can take all day simply to clear a path to get in and out of the front door/open the driveway. Then they can address the sidewalk over the next few days. If a homeowner works at a job and must shovel all night in order to meet a deadline the next morning that is horrible too.
If a homeowner actually does have enough resources to hire a snow removal service, in a snow emergency, the service sometimes can't even get their trucks out until the next morning. Every service has many clients and not all services are based in Somerville. They may not be able to get around to a particular Somerville homeowner's sidewalk until the following afternoon or evening, even if it isn't a snow emergency. You see these guys exhausting themselves. It is not reasonable to expect the snow to be cleared that fast.
Yes, snowplows are another huge issue as Mark mentioned I have experienced it many times. I will clear our walk and the plows come by and throw even more snow back. It's more snow than what I originally cleared, because it is the snow from the entire street. Often this will happen multiple times. Each time the snow plows pass, the snow gets icier and chunkier and slushier and heavier and wetter -- hundreds of pounds of lumpy frozen ice hurled onto my just-cleared walk and driveway. When all my work is for nothing it's so discouraging sometimes I have literally wept. If I were to be fined as well I would perhaps wish to throw myself down in front of the plow the next time. I have written City Hall multiple times asking for alternate side plowing and am super relieved that this will finally happen. Although I am sorry for people who will need to move their cars, it has felt sooo unfair that plow residue has always always fallen on our even side.
Another issue is neighbors. Our next door neighbors' snow removal service tends to come with a Snow Cat and push a giant wall of snow right onto our sidewalk, as if this were the solution to getting all the snow off of their sidewalk. Does the city ordinance contain language about this?
Personally I will try to help clear our neighbors walks, not throw my snow onto their walks. But their service doesn't care. So when the snow wall appears, I might take a few days before I have enough time and energy to bust through it -- removing their snow. But if I am going to get fined for someone else throwing their snow onto my sidewalk, that will be a completely different process and I won't be able to calmly remove it. It will add a lot of stress and pressure to my relationship with those neighbors. So far I have been able to just deal with the problem quietly and not confront the neighbors, preserving harmony. But if there are hundreds of dollars in fines at stake I will definitely mention the issue to them, and I know it may be a sticky moment that challenges goodwill. I might prefer to report them to the city or have a city inspector notice the problem, rather than confronting the neighbors myself. But how will the fines be adjudicated? Will the inspectors be looking closely? What if I leave my house in the morning thinking the walk is cleared, then get a fine for someone else's snow?
Would I be able to report the neighbors to 311 if this happens? Seems like a lot more work for the city, but it will surely become necessary if we start to get fined and inspected energetically.
Finally when there is a lot of snow, often there is nowhere to put it, so it is good to be able to shovel in stages over the course of several days.
Please consider the amount of work it takes to clear heavy snow by hand and extend the deadlines and reduce the fines.
Sincerely
Kate Wheeler/David Guss