To the editor:

I have often subtly poked fun at people who begin their letters to the editor with “I am outraged that:,” especially when the issue doesn’t really merit outrage.

It is generally hard for me to get more than “mildly annoyed” by anything, but I have to confess that I am close to outrage about the lack of consideration apartment and rental-house owners show in removing snow and ice from the sidewalks adjacent to their properties.

Most of the stretch between 14th and Massachusetts streets and Tennessee hasn’t been cleaned once during the last snows.

The city enforcement is so lax and the fine so meager, there can’t be much financial incentive for the property owners to clear them. Removing ice and snow is hard work, and they’d probably have to pay someone more than the value of the fine to clear it, even if they did get fined.

I am puzzled, though, why they would risk liability lawsuits rather than to just do the right thing.

People do slip and break bones, leaving injuries that sometimes never completely heal.

Geoff Husic,

Lawrence