Why Can't City Hall Maintain Their Sidewalks?

[Lori Allen _]

Most of the sidewalks abutting city property are in atrocious condition, quite frankly. Even though city hall knows that these sidewalks are in bad shape and are dangerous, they apparently outright refuse to replace them. City Hall Annex, the south side of Madison Park, fire station #2, Celeste Park, and Lakewood Park are just a few of the city-owned properties with bad sidewalks.

Last fall, my son's foot got stuck in a hole in the sidewalk outside of City Hall Annex and he fell. Luckily, he did not sustain any internal head injury since he landed on the side of his head in order to avoid breaking his glasses upon impact. The side of his head was all scraped up, as well as his knees and side. City Hall has had all spring and summer to fix this, yet they outright refuse. No money?

I also seem to recall the police being called out to the area around City Hall Annex for an elderly man wheeling his wheelchair in the street. He told the police that he was in the street because the holes and bumps in the sidewalks around City Hall Annex hurt his stomach. Nice.

If you fall or otherwise injure yourself on a city-owned sidewalk (or even fall but don't think you're injured), I encourage you to file a police report to document what happened. If your injury results in financial loss to you, please file a legal claim with city hall's law department. They have known about the condition of these sidewalks for at least a year. This is called gross negligence and I don't think there is any excuse for it.