To the editor:

In response to the Journal-World’s recent editorial urging enforcement of the city’s sidewalk snow ordinance, let me just say: May the city’s law enforcement officials and courts find this ordinance as big a nuisance as the homeowners who are also stuck with it.

This is not to deny the virtues of good sidewalks; our family loves to walk. But the real problem with the city’s sidewalks isn’t occasional snow, which usually melts off in less than a week (this year being exceptional). It is the general condition of the walks themselves: broken and missing patches, wayward bricks, invasive trees and brush, brick walks overgrown with weeds. We avoid the sidewalks at night for these reasons.

Maintaining our own sidewalk was already a burden. Our home sits on a large corner lot and the combined length of both walks is about the length of a football field and a half. Recently, the city repaved the longer section of it with brick. Just keeping the overgrowth off the brick is a constant, time-consuming problem.

Now, as if we didn’t already have enough to do, there’s the snow-shoveling ordinance. In the case of my sidewalk, especially the brick portion, the additional physical demands are not minor. I suspect that this law and this paper’s apparent obsession with its enforcement are product of neither the city nor the paper having enough to do by way of real problem-solving or real news reporting.