Hands up those who think the City is doing an acceptable job cleaning our streets and sidewalks this winter. My hand isn’t going up. It is my impression that City crews work Monday to Friday but not on the weekend. As a result, the sidewalks this morning (Sunday, January 10) were a sheet of ice and extremely unforgiving. I found this out on a particularly treacherous section containing black ice resulting in a nasty fall. Luckily, no bones were broken. I hit my head and no doubt tomorrow there will be several bruises on various parts of my body. It could have been much worse if my head had cracked open.
Is it too much to expect that the City maintain the sidewalks in a safe condition for walking? Isn’t there a bylaw that requires businesses and homeowners to remove snow and ice from their sidewalks? If that is the case, why is the Voght St. sidewalk next to City Furniture not clear of ice and snow? That’s not the only section of sidewalk that hasn’t seen a shovel. The section where I fell was next to the Museum, and I assume that is the City’s responsibility.
I wonder if the state of the roads and sidewalks over the past few weeks had a bearing on the embarrassingly low number of votes – only 28 – Merritt received in the Gamestown 2010 competition?

Elizabeth Salomon-de-Friedberg
Merritt