Posted on by bunnyhugger

The City Code on Sidewalk Clearing

This wasn’t a good night to hunt sidewalk stamps because so many sidewalks were covered in snow and ice. The ice is the worst, but that’s inevitably what the snow becomes, left long enough. Last year I slipped on an icy walk and fell flat on my back without a chance to brace myself. I cracked my head so hard that my extremities went numb and I had to lie there for a few minutes, so I have gotten very gunshy about icy sidewalks and very judgmental of people who leave them that way.

So, today’s entry is the city code on sidewalk clearing.

1020.06. – Snow and ice.

(a) No person shall permit any snow or ice to remain on any public sidewalk adjacent to any house, building or lot owned or occupied by that person, or on the public sidewalk adjacent to any multifamily dwelling or unoccupied house, building or lot owned by that person, for more than 24 hours after the same has fallen or formed. The property owner, as used in this section, shall be the owner of record whose name appears on the City’s property assessment records.

(b) No person shall place or cause to be placed ice or snow upon a right-of-way so as to impair vehicular or pedestrian traffic.

Codified Ordinances of Lansing, Michigan, part 10, Street and Sidewalk Areas

Note the 24 hour rule in (a). They used to give you 24 hours after the snow had stopped falling, but several years ago this was changed to 24 hours after the snow starts. This is because we had a year so snowy that a few times it essentially fell continuously for days, leaving them unable to cite people who left it to pile up on the sidewalk.

Part (c) just gives the penalties for violations, and that’s long and dull, so I’ll skip to (d):

(d) It shall be the duty of the Public Service Department to give general notice to every owner, possessor or occupier of land and every person having charge of any land within the city by publication at least once in a newspaper of general circulation in the city of the requirements that (1) property owners must remove snow or ice from a public sidewalk as stated in subsection (a); (2) causing ice or snow to be placed upon a right-of-way so as to impair vehicular or pedestrian traffic is prohibited as stated in subsection (b); and (3) the city may remove or cause to be removed the snow or ice and the property owner will be assessed the City’s removal cost, including an administrative fee, as established by resolution from time to time as stated in subsection (c). In addition to this published notice, the Public Service Department shall give notice to every owner, possessor or occupier of land, and to every person having charge of any land within the city by placing a posting on the property at least 24 hours after snow or ice has fallen or formed. said posting shall include at minimum the following provisions: [recap of the rules and penalties, plus the date and time the snow violation notice was posted] … The failure of any person to receive the notice shall not affect the validity of any action taken under this section.

Codified Ordinances of Lansing, Michigan, part 10, Street and Sidewalk Areas

Part (d) is the part that the local alt-weekly the City Pulse probably loves, since they seem to have ended up as the paper of record for legal notices that have to be published in a general circulation newspaper. I guess they’re cheaper than the Lansing State Journal.

On to enforcement:

(e) Any person in violation of subsection (a) or (b) of this section shall also be responsible for a municipal civil infraction and may be fined in accordance with Section 203.06 of this Code. For purposes of establishing civil fines, all public sidewalks and rights-of-way shall be divided into two tiers, as follows:

(1) Tier one shall be every public sidewalk adjacent to a roadway with a speed limit of 30 mph or more.

(2) Tier two shall be all public sidewalks which are not tier one.

(f) A police officer or duly authorized agent of the City shall issue a snow violation citation to the occupant or owner of any property in violation of this section.

Codified Ordinances of Lansing, Michigan, part 10, Street and Sidewalk Areas

It’s interesting to note that failure to clear the sidewalk apparently results in a higher fine on a street with a speed limit at or above 30. I suppose that’s because the hazards to pedestrians from having to divert into the street become higher.

Finally, my favorite part:

The Director of Public Service shall designate personnel to be authorized to enforce this section. After such authorization, each designated person shall subscribe to an oath and place the same on file with the City Clerk. The oath shall be in substantially the following form:

“I do solemnly swear (to uphold the Constitution of the United States, and) that I will faithfully discharge my duties in enforcing the provisions of Section 1020.06 of the Codified Ordinances of the City of Lansing.”

Codified Ordinances of Lansing, Michigan, part 10, Street and Sidewalk Areas

That’s right, anyone deputized to post a snow violation notice on your door is supposed to be made to swear to uphold the Constitution of the United States. That same language appears in other places in the ordinances that deal with people being deputized for property code enforcement. Fealty to the Constitution really seems to be above the pay grade of a code compliance officer. I do wonder what the meaning of the parenthetical clause is. Is that part optional? If so, why is it here at all?

Posted on by bunnyhugger

The Saga of the “Bum Walks”

I discovered this article a week or so ago, after my husband showed me the Schneeberger & Koort stamp he found, and I immediately bubbled over with absurd delight. Most likely, I will never again find an article about sidewalks that will cause me to giggle and wring my hands excitedly every time I re-read it, as this one has done. I knew this one was too good to leave to the OCR version I turned up at Newspapers.com, but the university where I work has the State Journal on microfilm, so I took the unusual step of frivolously using my library privileges to get a PDF of it delivered to my account. It only adds to my delight that some student worker at my university library had to crank through microfilm finding this for me.

The article is an August 11, 1914, State Journal account of a Lansing city council dust-up. One reason it is such a gem is that it references names that have previously appeared here in the blog: not just the newly-discovered Schneeberger & Koort, but my familiar old favorite V.D. Minnis. The drama also involves John Sovey, described as “a former cement contractor.” I find John Sovey’s name suspiciously similar to that of J.F. (John Fred) Sowa. I know that Sowa’s family later changed its surname to Sova, probably because it was already pronoucned that way and they wanted it to be phonetic in English. The Sowa stamp I know of is dated 1908 which would make the dates plausible for Sowa to be a “former cement contractor” by 1914. I wonder if John Sovey is the same person as John Sowa/Sova.

I could have sworn that I had referenced brick sellers Young Brothers and Daley in the blog before, but a search shows me to be mistaken. I know I did some research on them, perhaps with the intention of photographing a stamp in front of their business at some point. They are still around and in the same location near the railroad tracks in downtown Lansing.

The city council dispute described in the report involves, in the Journal reporter’s words, “a wordy tilt between Aldermen Young and McKinley over the sidewalk construction contract.” The sparring apparently started with Alderman McKinley bringing out photographs of broken sidewalks, following up on a charge he laid the previous week that “both Young Brothers and Daley and Alderman McKale had laid a lot of ‘bum’ walk in the city” (emphasis and delight all mine). Alderman Young is described as having an interest in Young Brothers Realty, which I assume is somehow connected to Young Brothers and Daley. McKale accuses Young Brothers Realty of being the cause of 87 broken sections of sidewalk in just two blocks of a subdivision they developed. These bum sidewalks were built by Schneeberger and Koort, so Alderman Young tries to shift the blame to the contractors.

Young then tries for a turnabout. The story gets a little confusing here, but if I am understanding Young correctly, McKinley has previously stated that sidewalk-fan-favorite V.D. Minnis is the only capable sidewalk contractor, yet the city has allowed Minnis to subcontract his city-contracted sidewalk work to less reputable contractors at a profit of two cents per foot. Say it ain’t so, Verner!

The entire article is a delight from beginning to end, including some wonderful verbatim banter between the aldermen. I can’t do justice to all of it in summary, so I am just going to reproduce it below under the sincere belief that it is no longer under copyright protection. I’ll end by giving a well-deserved spotlight to one more quotation, then please, go read the rest of the article.

“You violated the ordinance, undoubtedly, and failed to put your name upon the walks,” replied Alderman McKinley. “Your name is not upon the walk in the photograph.”

Alderman McKale did not deny the charge.

For shame!