Ketchum Police Chief Steve Harkins is ready for summer.
He said that enforcing sidewalk snow removal has been a "huge headache" for his officers, who've had to deal with businesses flat-out refusing to honor the city ordinance.
And it's not because they're unaware of the law. Since the first snowfall, the City Council has been hearing an earful about people not shoveling sidewalks abutting their property. Council members hoped some gentle education of the ordinance's rules would encourage compliance. It decided, at the end of last month, to send letters to Ketchum businesses informing them of their legal responsibility to clear sidewalks between their property and the street.
However, Harkins said police were still struggling with violators last week, having to hand out four warnings to people refusing to clear their sidewalks. He said three of those four people eventually decided to grab a shovel and give in, but that building manager David Gnojek didn't budge.
Police cited Gnojek—manager of the building at the northeast corner of Fourth Street and East Avenue—for the offense, a misdemeanor under city law and punishable by a $300 maximum fine or up to six months jail time, or both.
Harkins said he then hired a company to clear the sidewalk.
Gnojek said in an interview that he has hired attorneys to fight the citation, claiming he shouldn't be responsible for maintaining a stretch of sidewalk that the city more than doubled in width.
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City planner Mark Goodman said the Fourth Street Heritage Corridor project of a couple of years ago expanded the sidewalk from about 8 feet wide to anywhere between 18 and 27 feet, depending on the location.
From now on, anyone cited for the offense won't see such harsh possible punishment or even the chance of jail time. The council approved a change to the ordinance Monday that reduces the charge to an infraction from a misdemeanor and decreases the fine from $300 to $100. Like before, people can be charged a separate fine for every day of the offense. And either the building owner or business manager can be held responsible.
City Attorney Stephanie Bonney said the reason for the change is not to back off enforcement but to expedite it so the city can actually punish—before the snow melts—those "flagrantly violating" the ordinance. She said misdemeanors entitle the violator to a jury trial, which is time consuming, and allows the judge to determine the penalty. She said infractions are resolved much faster and the fine is set by the city.
Bonney said the city also has the right to demand restitution for the cost of clearing a sidewalk, as it had to do in Gnojek's case.
But some of the problem properties are vacant and the owners out of state.
Bonney said those situations call for civil action to be taken to recover the cost of clearing the sidewalks, and it may come to that.
Trevon Milliard: tmilliard@mtexpress.com
