By Stephen Smoot
After the first winter in years to bring significant, and also lasting, snow accumulations to the Franklin era, an old issue popped back into focus.
Most municipalities, including Franklin, place the onus of maintaining sidewalks on property owners whose lots run adjacent to sidewalks. That includes snow removal.
That said, most municipalities also shy away from enforcing such laws.
The Franklin Town Council and mayor’s solution to this problem served as part of a busy regular meeting last week.
The subject of sidewalk safety returned in the next discussion, this time over the snow removal and maintenance ordinance proposed by the town.
Bruce Minor, town recorder, noted that regional municipalities such as Petersburg, Romney, and Moorefield experienced similar issues in the reluctance of some – and physical inability of some others – to clear sidewalks of snow. In other cases, properties have owners who live out of the area and cannot comply with the requirements of the law.
Franklin officials worked to update the stricter ordnance already on the books. Russ Sasso, council member, said that it “mirrors state policy.”
Should a property owner be unable to remove snow from the sidewalk, the town will dispatch workers to clear it and then charge the owner for the service.
One member of town council last winter volunteered to help those in need to clear snow on sidewalks they had responsibility to address.
Discussion also got in the weeds a bit when the subject of vegetation growing in sidewalk cracks came up. Sasso stated that “we’re not going to be proactively weeding the sidewalks.”
The ordinance will take what wording it can from the original law, but will operate in this way, as explained to the council. “If you don’t want to do it, or can’t do it, we’ll bill you.” If the bill goes unpaid long enough, the town will take legal steps to collect. The bill would come with the water and sewer bill.
Wehrle stated that introducing the proposed measure in the March meeting will serve as the legally required first reading. Between the March and April meeting, the town will publish the proposed ordinance in the newspaper, then conduct the second reading for public comment during the April meeting.
Council members additionally addressed a different sidewalk safety issue, this time in the form of misplaced power poles. Many poles along Main Street in Franklin come to the edge of the sidewalk or even come somewhat into the roadway.
Some of the most dangerous were placed on North Main Street just south of the US 220 and US 33 intersection. Council members cited three that pose a particular hazard. Mayor Bob Horan endorsed “getting rid of this hazard that has caused several accidents.”
With Potomac Edison agreeing to help, the next course of action lies in approaching the three affected landowners to get right of way permission to place the poles in safer locations farther from the traffic of US 220. Council members agreed to approach them individually to sound them out on getting the legal permission to act.
Sasso also suggested contacting all companies whose lines use the Potomac Edison poles to “get them to buy in.”
Should the town receive the proper permission, the project could be completed by the close of the summer.
