Trying to ensure the safety of city sidewalks during winter weather without placing an unfair burden on property owners is a difficult balancing act for city officials.

As has been illustrated this winter, the city’s current snow removal ordinance falls short of that goal. It requires property owners to clear their sidewalks within 24 hours after the end of a snowfall, but it also gives anyone cited for not clearing their sidewalks a five-day grace period to complete the chore. If they don’t comply within five days, the fine is a piddling $20. In this part of the country, the snow often is melted away before the end of the grace period, so even if a shovel is never employed, city warnings on snow removal seldom turn into tickets. The ordinance also is enforced on a complaint basis, which lacks consistency.

So what’s the city to do? It makes sense to try to put some teeth into the snow removal ordinance, but some of the measures employed by cities similar to Lawrence seem a little too tough. In Ames, Iowa, for instance, if snow isn’t removed within 24 hours of a warning, the city does the job and bills the resident a fee of $90 to $150.

This issue seems like a good target for some creative thinking on the part of city officials. The city and Douglas County Senior Services offer a program that matches volunteers with residents unable to shovel snow. That’s a good start, but it doesn’t seem to be getting the job done.

How about sending teams of people ordered by local courts to perform community service out to help with snow removal? Perhaps the city could try to match up people needing shoveling done with private people who would be paid, but substantially less than it would cost the city to provide the service. Shoveling sidewalks also would be a wonderful fundraising activity for school or church groups. Even if they were physically able to do it themselves, many people would be happy to pay a young person $15 or $20 to shovel their walk.

Most local residents comply with the current 24-hour shoveling limit because it is the right and neighborly thing to do. For the others, the city needs to come up with a more enforceable policy. It also wouldn’t hurt to try to come up with some ways to help people who, for whatever reason, have difficulty getting their sidewalks cleared.