Proposed Snow Ordinance Clarifications

[somerville311.livejournal.com]

A recent story in the Somerville Journal summarized the proposed snow ordinance in ways that may have confused DSLJ readers about the actual provisions of the new law.

Some posters in that earlier thread have expressed a preference for a fine schedule that starts low and only escalates to high levels for repeat offenders. Except for the offense of shoveling snow and ice back into a cleared street, the proposed ordinance does, in fact, have an escalating fine structure. Here is a summary of the proposed fine structure:

Offense	Fine
Snow, Slush, and Ice on Sidewalks (Section 12-8 (a) or (b)) (Residential)	15t offense: $50.00 2nd offense: $100.00 3rd & subsequent offense: $150.00
Snow, Slush and Ice on Sidewalks (Section 12-8 (a) or (b)) (Commercial or Mixed Use)	1st offense: $100.00 2nd offense: $200.00 3rd & subsequent offense: $300.00
Snow, Slush and Ice on Sidewalks (Section 12-8 (c)) (Removal from privately-owned property onto street)	$300 per offense

Some posters have expressed a concern that the new time limits might force business owners to turn out in the middle of the night to clear snow and ice from walkways. This is not the case. The actual language reads as follows:
(b) Requirements for ice. No owner or manager of a (i) commercial building, estate, or land abutting on a sidewalk, (ii) residential building containing four (4) or more units, or (iii) mixed use building, estate, or land abutting on a sidewalk shall place or suffer to remain in place any ice upon such sidewalk for more than four (4) hours, except that no violation shall be deemed to have occurred before 9 a.m. or after 5 p.m., unless the business is open to the public during those hours. Removal of any ice shall be in a manner consistent with the requirements of the preceding sub-section, except that any such owner or manager shall be deemed to be in compliance with this paragraph if such ice is made level and completely covered with sand, or other appropriate material to prevent slipping. Each consecutive day that a violation exists shall be considered a separate offense. Unless otherwise provided herein, no owner or manager of a residential building, estate, or land abutting on a sidewalk shall place or suffer to remain in place any ice upon such sidewalk for more than twelve hours if the ice forms during the daytime, or after the next succeeding 1:00 p.m., if the ice forms during the night.

In other words, the clock starts running at 9 a.m. and owners of businesses and/or multi-unit residential buildings have at least four daylight hours to deal with ice or snow before any tickets can be issued.

Some posters have expressed the hope that special arrangements are made to provide support for senior or handicapped residents. Through the Council on Aging, the City already provides shoveling assistance to shut-ins and the elderly. For more information, please call 311.

Finally, some posters have suggested that this measure is part of a larger campaign to increase local revenues in the face of massive cutbacks in state aid. While the need for additional revenue has been an element in policy-making in other areas of municipal fee and fine enforcement, the proposed changes in the snow ordinance arise entirely from complaints made in the past (in some cases by the aldermen themselves) that current fines and enforcement policies have not ensured adequate levels of compliance. Some posters here seem to echo these concerns.

We hope this additional information is helpful.

Comments

[valadil.livejournal.com]

For comparison's sake, what's the current policy?

[wombatbanana.livejournal.com]

Somerville Municipal Ordinances, Part II sec. 12-8 (http://library.municode.com/HTML/11580/level3/PII_C12_AI.html#PII_C12_AI_s12-8) and Part II sec. 1-11 (http://library.municode.com/HTML/11580/level2/PII_C1.html#PII_C1_s1-11) has the scoop.

The important part:

(a) No owner, tenant, or occupant of land or a building abutting upon a sidewalk within the limits of any public way in this city, and no agent of such owner having the charge of such land or building shall place or suffer to remain on such sidewalk for more than six hours between sunrise and sunset on any day, any snow or any ice, unless such ice is made even and covered with sand or other suitable material to prevent slipping. Compliance with this section shall be deemed satisfied if there is cleared on such sidewalk, or such sand or other suitable material is covered on such sidewalk, a minimum swath of 42 inches in width, where possible.

And then the fines are $25, $50, and $100 for the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd and subsequent offenses respectively, to be enforced by "Police; commissioner of public works; inspectional services; health inspectors, traffic and parking".

(So, it looks like by law traffic and parking officers can issue these fines already, although there may be a policy in place that they don't...)

The new law definitely sounds like an improvement, both in terms of the levels of fines and the "clock" clarified in this post. (Also, I was pleasantly surprised by how clearly even the existing ordinances were written, and how easy the website was to navigate!)

[ron_newman]

Thanks. Now what will the city do to ensure that its own sidewalks are cleared promptly, such as the one on Day Street next to the metered parking lot? For years I've had to bother my alderman about this after each big storm -- first Jack Connolly, then Rebekah Gewirtz.

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

there was some awesome video last year or so, of reporters going around and asking cops and city leaders "so, talk to us about the bad people that don't shovel their sidewalks, on time (or ever)", carefully setup so that an unshoveled sidewalk belong to say the boston police, was RIGHT BEHIND the interviewee as a lush backdrop, while the person goes on and on about the fines and civic responsibility and so on. snark :)

#

Just asking

[tt02144.livejournal.com]

Who do I fine when the city plows the street multiple times, and each time dumps huge amounts of snow and ice on my sidewalk and driveway????

Re: Just asking

[hrafn.livejournal.com]

As a resident on the even-numbered side of the street, I, too, would like to have this information.

Or, why can't we alternate, yearly, which side of the street gets the dumping, like other cities?

Re: Just asking

[boywonder.livejournal.com]

I inquired about this a year or two ago with the Mayor's office and got a reply that they were "thinking about it". Clearly, they were not.

Re: Just asking

[jamiesquared.livejournal.com]

I have as well...I live on the odd side and every year for 5 years now cars can only park on my side of the road and we end up with huge mountains of snow around each car parked in front that makes it super hard to get out of my driveway for weeks after. The answer I got was supposedly there is more parking on the odd side of all the streets in Somerville than on the even side. No idea if thats true.

[mrcairo.livejournal.com]

And no provision for fining motorists who clear off their car by shoveling it onto my freshly cleared sidewalk, as seemed to happen frequently in my area last year. :(

[fishkiss56.livejournal.com]

What about residential buildings with less than 4 units?

[wombatbanana.livejournal.com]

I think this applies to them: "no owner or manager of a residential building, estate, or land abutting on a sidewalk shall place or suffer to remain in place any ice upon such sidewalk for more than twelve hours if the ice forms during the daytime, or after the next succeeding 1:00 p.m., if the ice forms during the night."

[tequilamckngbrd.livejournal.com]

I can picture the people handing out the tickets now... carrying snow shovels to shovel snow onto a shoveled sidewalk and then handing out a ticket.

How can they expect to enforce someone to pay a fine if there's no evidence that you did or didn't shovel the snow, and to what acceptable levels?

This is ridiculous. I know I won't be paying any fines, and I hope anyone that gets fined fights it.

Confused

[wallacestreet.livejournal.com]

So now I'm confused. The revision doesn't seem to apply to 1- 2- or 3- family houses, only commercial and 4+ unit buildings, right? Where does that leave the majority of residences in Davis Square (i.e. 1- 2- and 3-family houses)? Am I reading this wrong?

Re: Confused

[wombatbanana.livejournal.com]

I think this applies to them: "no owner or manager of a residential building, estate, or land abutting on a sidewalk shall place or suffer to remain in place any ice upon such sidewalk for more than twelve hours if the ice forms during the daytime, or after the next succeeding 1:00 p.m., if the ice forms during the night."

Re: Confused

[wallacestreet.livejournal.com]

Aha. Thanks. So commercial and apartment buildings have four hours and smaller residential buildings have at least 12 hours to clear their sidewalks. Got it.

Re: Confused

[ethanfield.livejournal.com]

I think the assumption here is that businesses and large apartment buildings have property management resources to bring to bear to clear their sidewalks (i.e. they can pay folks to do it) but owners of small private homes will probably do it themselves.

[chumbolly.livejournal.com]

It's interesting that the fine for shoveling into the street is only if you shovel from private property. Of course, while homeowners are required to clear the sidewalk as if they owned it, sidewalks are not private property, so I guess that means I can shovel the sidewalk snow into the street with abandon. Sweet!

More seriously, I own a house on a street corner, and clearing the massive mound that gets plowed up onto the corner so that the sidewalk is passable is the hardest part of my shoveling. Since the city is revisiting the shoveling ordinance, it would be lovely if they would also revisit the practice of making sidewalks impassable by blocking each corner. And if I get fined as a result of a plow berm on my corner, I'm going to go completely mental.

Also, I predict that giving the Parking office the ability to issue snow tickets will result in some serious butt hurt. Their arbitrary enforcement of parking regulations (which are relatively clear-cut) suggests that any determinations on whether a sidewalk is properly cleared (which seems pretty subjective) is sure to cause frustration. I appreciate the effort to make the sidewalks more passable and safer, but the city really should proceed with caution and prepare for, and have a plan in place, to deal with lots of frustrated and confused taxpayers. Read: do not repeat the fiasco that happened when the city suddenly decided to issue trash citations. The scene down at the court house after that happened was pathetic and embarrassing for the city.

[squirrelitude]

This clears up a lot, thank you!

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

The current ordinance allows snow to be shoveled into the street in daylight hours when the temperature is above 40F.

This is incredibly useful to actually _MELT_ the snow during an extended period.

Does the new ordinance change that allowance?

[pekmez.livejournal.com]

I'd like to know this, too - does the new $300 fine cover all circumstances of shoveling snow into the street, or only those that violate the existing law?

[xuth.livejournal.com]

So Somerville Municipal Ordinances Chapter 12, Article I, Sec 12-9 which is not referenced in the above table is what covers shoveling snow onto the streets and does have a provision for doing so if "said snow or ice is broken up and spread evenly, to a thickness of no more than three inches, during daylight hours, when the mean temperature for that day is above 40 degrees Fahrenheit." I presume this is unchanged?

Also, I read the new ordinance very differently from the way the OP is posting regarding when "the clock starts running". It says that no one listed "shall place or suffer to remain in place any ice upon such sidewalk for more than four (4) hours" but it's only a "violation" if during the hours of 9 and 5. Thus if snow fell at 3am, at 7am you've still let the snow remain on the ground for 4 hours but you're not yet in violation. At 9am you've let the snow sit for 6 hours and it's between 9 and 5 thus I read it as you are in violation.

Maybe the OP is in agreement with the intent of the rule but it's certainly not what is written as I parse it. This is very different from the previous wording which says that you can't have snow/ice on the sidewalk for more than six hours between sunrise and sunset on any given day.

As to plows dumping snow on the sidewalk on the corners, one year I carved a tunnel through the plowed snow on the sidewalk on the corner of my street that I could walk through while standing up straight (I'm 6' tall). Snow was packed to 7.5' deep on my neighbors sidewalk. Is it reasonable to be expected to clear this?
Where should the snow be put?

[squonk.livejournal.com]

Some posters have expressed the hope that special arrangements are made to provide support for senior or handicapped residents. Through the Council on Aging, the City already provides shoveling assistance to shut-ins and the elderly.

I am sure you meant to say "residents with disabilities," and I am ABSOLUTELY POSITIVE that you did not mean to say "shut-ins" AT ALL.

God, I have never been so grateful to have moved to Cambridge.

[totient]

Not all shut-ins are disabled. Flame if you will, but the term connotes someone who is (possibly temporarily) ill, not someone disabled.

[squonk.livejournal.com]

The structure of the writing strongly implies that people with disabilities are exactly to whom they were referring. The subject of the preceding sentence is posters' concerns about providing assistance to "senior or handicapped residents." The next sentence is set up to address that concern: the city "already provides shoveling assistance to shut-ins and the elderly." If shut-ins were not the same as people with disabilities, why was this proposed as the answer to posters' concerns?

Now, this might have been a deft attempt to avoid the fact that the city really doesn't provide assistance to people with disabilities--only people who are, as you suggested, temporarily ill. If so, that makes the offense even worse: The fact that the city would duck the issue, and that they used a false and damaging parallelism to do so. There's zero excuse for such outdated and oppressive language in any form of city publication. (I don't really think that temporarily ill people would be thrilled about being referred to as "shut-ins," either.)

What's especially ironic here is that people with disabilities who live in Somerville often become stuck in their homes because the snow removal is so atrocious. An ADA complaint really needs to be organized.

[totient]

In fact all the city provides is a referral service which seems to be intended for seniors. There's no reference to anyone else being eligible, though they also don't look like they're checking IDs or anything, nor does the program appear to be subsidized. And since the city doesn't refer to people who can't shovel, they manage to avoid using a term you find offensive.

That said: referring to the class of people who can't shovel their own walks as "disabled" is incorrect. Someone attempting to reply to a question about x and y people who can't shovel by including z people who also can't shovel is trying to be inclusive, even if they got their facts wrong doing it. Howling at them for that is just going to land you in a lot of killfiles.

[squonk.livejournal.com]

The question was not framed as "assistance for people who can't shovel." It was framed as assistance for x and y, and it was repeated precisely that way. I still maintain that the writing strongly suggests that z=y. But answering for x, ignoring y, and choosing instead to use the z term "shut-in" to encompass both y and whoever else, would also be irresponsible, and certainly not properly "inclusive." It's preposterous to either suggest that it is or (as I think you were arguing) that the fact that such may have been the writer's intent means that addressing the issue is pointless. If people with disabilities only advocated for themselves in situations where intent was clearly malicious, we would be nowhere. This ostensibly small stuff is deeply, deeply important, and the links between what is casually said in a widely read, officially sanctioned text and how PWD are treated in the world in ways both large and small are very, very real. If you're employed as a communicator on behalf of the city, it is part of your job to actually convey respect for all your residents in everything you write, and to be extremely careful not to contribute to already deeply entrenched attitudes of oppression toward minority residents. It's patently obvious that no such care was taken here, and yes, it absolutely does make a difference.

[tt02144.livejournal.com]

This would make a lot more sense if the city actually KNEW what their own regulations were. I live on a street which only allows parking on one side all of the time. It is the even side of the street. In such cases, parking on this street is supposed to remain on the even side, as opposed to suddenly moving all cars to the odd side just for a snow storm. More than once, the city came down the street and ticketed every single car for being parked on the wrong side of the street. The height of idiocy!