Council OKs public meetings on proposed sidewalk snow removal program

Snow removal is a fact of life in a northern town but that doesn’t mean the concept of consistently clearing sidewalks in a timely manner has been mastered.

In an effort to improve walkability in the winter months, the City of Rhinelander administration wants to explore a new approach to this annual concern. During Monday’s meeting of the common council, city administrator Patrick Reagan introduced the idea of implementing a sidewalk snow removal program that would involve a special assessment. The idea was mentioned during the group’s Aug. 28 meeting but a full discussion did not take place until Sept. 11.

 “What staff proposes is to investigate the development of a program that would clear all sidewalks on the following streets: Lincoln Street, from the bypass to Oneida Avenue; Courtney/Thayer Street, from Oneida Avenue to Timber Drive; Pelham, from Courtney to Anderson; Stevens, from Pelham to Iverson; and Timber, from Stevens to Coolidge,” Reagan wrote in a memo to the council explaining the concept. “The idea that we are working on at this point is having city forces clear these sidewalks and funding this program using a special assessment, based on the amount of public sidewalk on each property in the aforementioned area. For example, if a property owner in this area has 60’ feet of public sidewalk abutting their property, and the Council were to set an assessment rate of $3 per foot, this property owner would be assessed $180 for snow removal for the entire year. This means that if it snows 3” or more ten times during the winter — and city forces must clear it 10 times, that property owner would ostensibly be paying $18 for each clearing of snow on public sidewalk abutting their property. This assessment would be necessary to cover the costs of hiring an individual to perform this work, maintenance on equipment used during this work, fuel for this equipment, and replacement of the equipment used in future years.”

Reagan stressed that the city intends to take the time necessary to determine whether this is a viable option or not.

“We want to just take and explore this idea,” he told the alderpersons. “We’re not asking you to pass a special assessment. We’re not asking you to really take any action tonight at all. We just want to let you know that we’d like to have public meetings on this, invite all the people that are going to be affected and talk with them and just see what their thoughts are, see if this is something they’d be interested in. If they are, great, we’ll move forward. If they’re not, we’ll go back to the drawing board or drop it all together.”

In his memo and in his remarks Monday evening, Reagan noted that the traditional thinking has been that municipalities are responsible for clearing streets and residents/business owners are responsible for clearing sidewalks. 

In many cases, this works out fine but there are always exceptions, he noted in his memo. 

This is a concern as “jobs, groceries, doctors’ visits, and school do not wait for nice weather only. Instead, they happen when both the sun is out and when the snow is falling. Snow covered sidewalks — which are not cleared in a timely fashion — are dangerous and force people to often walk into the street,” he wrote.

According to Reagan, the staff wishes to hold two public meetings on the proposed program. 

The city will send a letter to each property owner in the proposed area, inviting them to participate in the meetings, he explained in the memo. The meetings have been scheduled for 5 to 8 p.m. Sept. 28 and Oct. 5 at City Hall, according to a press release issued Wednesday.

“From there, I will report the outcomes of these two meetings back to the Council to determine if Council would like to move forward with this program,” Reagan wrote in the memo.

Gerald Anderson was the only alderperson to offer a comment on the proposal. He agreed the idea is worth exploring and noted that this may be an area where a special assessment might make sense. 

After the council offered its blessing, Mayor Kris Hanus noted the program would not be enacted until the winter of 2024 at the earliest.

“This wouldn’t be something that would happen this year,” he said. “We definitely will still have one more winter, no matter what, with the status quo.”

In his press release, Reagan again stressed the city is taking a “measured approach”.

“Rather than rushing right in and saying, ‘this is what is going to happen,’ we are taking the approach to start this out as a small program, focusing only on certain streets, to see where this might go,” Reagan said. “Our first step was having the initial conversation with the City Council, which we did on September 11. The next step is to hold public meetings to get the opinions, comments, and concerns of the property owners on the streets that we are initially considering for this pilot project.”

Heather Schaefer may be reached at [email protected].