A rainbow of bruises covers my stepfather’s leg. The brown, purple, green, and red marks are an indication of the injuries beneath. When he was heading home, he tried to step onto a sidewalk to get off of a busy street. He fell on the thick slippery ice, and because he was hidden behind a large snow bank, no one could see him. It took some time, but he was finally able to get up and attempt to cross the street. Unfortunately, he fell in front of his home on more ice. On one side of his body, from his groin down to his foot, his muscles are torn and he had internal bleeding. This was three weeks ago. He is still in pain, and the bruises remain.
Just this weekend, I saw a stubborn and proud senior with a cane take nearly five minutes to walk by one house because the ice was so bad he had to move at a snail’s pace. Last week, an elderly woman came into the clothing store my friend works at to buy a pair of pants because she had just slipped on an icy sidewalk on Spring Garden Road; she was bruised and her pants were torn.
These are not abnormal stories; they are unfortunately quite common. Yes, it is easy to fall in the wintertime, but the sidewalk conditions this winter have been worse than the normal, and it’s partially the fault of our elected officials.
This winter has been active, but we’ve had had bad winters before. I’m not talking about 50 years ago—I’m talking in the last ten years. Just because we had few milder winters around the start of this decade doesn’t mean the city should have been caught with its pants down. The snow isn’t even the problem—it’s the ice. The sidewalks are thick with ice, but if they had been taken care of properly earlier this winter, the problem wouldn’t have gotten so bad.
Two years ago, the city informed downtown residents that we wouldn’t have to take care of the sidewalks in front of our buildings anymore, that it would henceforth be the city’s responsibility. Well, the city hasn’t lived up to its responsibilities. In fact, many Haligonians are taking matters back into their own hands by going out and breaking down the ice themselves—paying the taxes for this new service, while simultaneously paying a backbreaking price for its accumulated failure.
I blame the majority of the Halifax City Council. They have mishandled and blundered their way through this winter, and like absentee parents whose child is now in trouble, they seem unwilling to take responsibility and accept their role in the problem. Recently, one citizen who filed an action against the city for slipping on an unplowed sidewalk was told that the city claims that it is under no obligation to plow the sidewalks at all—that the legislation “allows” the city to remove snow, but does not require it.
When Councilor Waye Mason brought forth a motion for the city to commission a report examining the implications of returning sidewalk-clearing responsibilities to downtown residents at a February 18th council meeting, he was told by Councilor Linda Mosher to “stop harping” on the issue, because he had brought this same issue up last year after poor reviews of the city’s sidewalk clean up.
Now, to me, harping means continuously nagging, not bringing up an important issue again after a year’s worth of damning evidence. For whatever reason, Mosher decided to adopt this condescending, obstructionist attitude, and watching the video it really, really rubs me the wrong way. People are getting injured and people with mobility issues are finding it almost impossible to leave their houses—it really isn’t the time to posture and play games.
I understand that snow and ice clean up costs money, and that we’re way over budget this year. The thing is, our planned snow removal budget was already $20 million for this winter, compared with $15.2 million in the winter of 2012, before the city committed to clearing the sidewalks. We have reportedly already spent millions of dollars more than a budget that was almost $5 million dollars bigger than our pre-clearing budget to begin with, and our sidewalks are still an absolute disaster. How many millions more will it cost to make this approach work? If we really can’t commit the necessary funds to doing this sidewalk clearing properly, council needs to acknowledge its mistake, and admit to property owners that it is going to need them to start cleaning their own sidewalks again.
If we are going to insist on continuing down our current path, maybe, as a symbolic gesture, those on council who support the new policy should take some of the money that they made after that sweet little pay bump they received in November (they’re up to $80,849 for councillors and $168,449 for the mayor) and put it towards clean up costs. It would be the least they could do if they insist on keeping us tied to this messy, expensive disaster of a situation.
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