Shovel or Ticket

October, 2011 - Chicago

Recently an alderman in Chicago decided that to raise money to fill the city coffers, people must now clean their sidewalks and public property from snow.  There is no mention of what people are suppose to do with it nor what the cities plan is to remove it.

The photo you see to the left was taken on February 2, 2011.  It has not been doctored in any way or altered except for the size to fit on this web page.

Yes, the snow is piled more than six feet as people have tried to move the snow from one side of the alley to the other so that they can get their cars out of the garage.

Under this ordinance, this means that every person must clean the snow both on and around their property - including the public way.

Fact is it took two days for everyone to move the snow.  The City of Chicago command center took several days to clear the snow from the main streets; not downtown Chicago and the surround area (of course), but in the neck of the woods that I live.

There was no mention as to how the city is going to respond to elderly people trying to move the snow nor what the city is going to do to them.  A $100 fine for not cleaning is outrageous especially considering that taxes are collected by the city to maintain the public way, which by the way, they do very miserably.  Also, the snow that is on the sidewalk in front of your house is on public property!  Technically, the city should clean it for you.

Is there going to be a schedule for issuing a ticket?  For instance, is Streets and Sanitation going to send out their Gestapo and start issuing tickets 1 hour or 2 hours or ? after the snow begins to fall?  What precisely are the guidelines?

Again, it appears that the City of Chicago is trying to put the burden on the taxpayers, just as they did with the flow restrictor instituted by the Water Department (now labeled Water Management) after the Great Chicago Flood.

It is the responsibility of the City of Chicago to maintain its public property.  Why doesn’t someone in City Hall talk about a program that will clean snow from the public way to help the homeowners and especially our elderly who are living on fixed income, cannot afford to have someone shovel snow on the public way or their own property for that matter, or come up with some other plan beside trying to steal money from people under the auspices of a ticket for doing or not doing something? 

The Chicago Revenue Augmentation Program is still continuing under this Mayor, as it was created under the former.

It’s more of the Rham Ram coming at you. This joker said he wasn’t going to raise taxes.  He doesn’t, he just gets his mouthpieces to do it for him!

Here is a photo shoot to show some of the conditions residents had to deal with this year.