Amid scrutiny, councilor suggests delaying Syracuse sidewalk program until 2022
Updated May 18, 2021;
Posted May 18, 2021
Snowfall makes a comeback in a fairly quiet January 2021. Clearing the sidewalk and steps at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Syracuse N.Y. JAN. 26, 2021. Dennis Nett | dnett@syracuse.com
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Syracuse, N.Y. As councilors probed details of Mayor Ben Walsh’s proposed sidewalk takeover plan Tuesday, one floated the idea of delaying its start until next year.
Councilor Khalid Bey suggested delaying the start of the program until Jan. 1 to allow more time to address concerns and to establish financial relief for people who can’t afford a proposed $100 annual fee.
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The city of Syracuse and the local police union will move forward with an agreement to impose residency requirements for newly hired officers and increase the Syracuse Police Department’s budget.
The city and the Syracuse Police Benevolent Association reached the agreement in 2019, but the Common Council rejected it due to its cost. The two parties are taking the contract to an arbitration hearing May 25, where city and union representatives will present their case to a third party who will determine the terms of the contract, which will last two years.
The tentative agreement would require new officers to live in the city for at least five years and will increase the police budget by $15 million over four years to include bonus payments for some officers.
Traditionally, the city relied on property owners to clear the sidewalks on their properties as outlined in what Corey Driscoll Dunham, the city’s chief operating officer, describes as a “vague ordinance.” Because of the consistent lake-effect snow Syracuse gets, it’s been hard for the city to determine and, therefore enforce, exactly when sidewalks are expected to be cleared. “Do we say sidewalks have to be clear six hours after it snows? What if it never stops snowing?” she says about the city that saw 66 continuous hours of snow in 2018.
Driscoll Dunham spent several years working in code enforcement. She came out of it with an understanding of the time-intensive difficulties of enforcement tracking violations, issuing and following up on tickets, and finally issuing fines. So when the city began discussing ramping up ticketing property owners who didn’t shovel their sidewalks, Driscoll Dunham disagreed. “Our goal from a removal standpoint was to get the sidewal
Meanwhile, impeccably plowed streets are usually just a hop over a snow bank away.
That stark contrast prompted discussion Tuesday among city councilors, who are considering the divides between the public attention pedestrian and vehicular traffic receive in post-storm dig-outs.
Spearheaded by Councilor Kenzie Bok, officials are considering what it would take for the city to plow out sidewalks, crosswalks, and other pedestrian right-of-ways the same way it does for its streets following a snow storm. Advertisement
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Bok, who represents Mission Hill, Fenway, Back Bay, Beacon Hill, and the West End, said the discussion is in response to constituent input she received following a December storm that dumped 13 inches of snow on Boston.