The Way I See It!

Sidewalk Replacement

Posted by Randy Hollenbeck on Aug. 10, 2010

Cudahy, Sidewalk

(This Email has been edited with personal identification items taken out)

Hi Randy,

 Before we had a chance to get fired up about that, we received the notice Saturday about paying for the sidewalk replacements.  We have two stones marked for replacement, as do our neighbors to either side of us.  The sidewalks do not appear to even have cracks in them.

I contacted Dan Sebring about the issue and he recommended contacting our alderman and Fox 6 news.  Do you think it's even worth it?  Is there something we can do to fight this?  He mentioned that we had to have been notified before the vote on replacing the sidewalks.  I don't remember a notice about this, but if it was sent out and worded in a way that didn't make it clear we'd be paying, I wouldn't have paid much attention to it.  However, had I read a letter stating I'd have to pay for the replacements, I think that would have stood out in my memory.

Is it something we should look into fighting?  Basically, I'm looking for your thoughts on the issue.  I read your article on Cudahy NOW and I agree that the replacements are excessive, but is this just something we have to live with, or should we pursue the issue?  It's not entirely clear how much these charges will even cost.  As the shoveling incident showed, Cudahy fees are just randomly applied and they can reduce them any old time they please.  What is to stop them from assessing fee after fee after fee?

Dear Cudahy Resident,

You can try and fight it, but in the end, you will still pay to have the sidewalk redone.  As far as notice, the City can say this was at a Common Counsel or DPW meeting which is open to the public and the public is notified to what the meetings are about.  They are posted at City Hall (and the City Website) and the Cudahy Family Library and in the Milwaukee Journal.  I would like to see the City in the future offer email notifications as another way to entice the public to come to the meetings.

I am trying to find out where the criteria for sidewalk replacement and repair is located.  I remember reading it once, but couldn’t find it in the sidewalk ordinances.

Yes, the fees can keep coming and in years past it was easy to just say, “We will take out the sidewalk replacement program since we are taxing the residents of Cudahy so much, we don’t want to give them more to complain about!”

Do you want to know how to tell if the City paid for the road verse the homeowners?  If the City pays for the road, it is done with asphalt and if the homeowner pays for it, cement/concrete is used.  I was told that was the same for sidewalks.  Now this information was from the last City Engineer and the policy might have changed since the change of City Engineering.

Sidewalks to my knowledge don’t have out a rollout replacement schedule like the roads do, but someone surveys them in grid format or when someone complains about them, then they are looked at to be replaced on a segment by segment biases.

Sidewalks are a very touchy subject in the City of Cudahy with some citizens and City Officials wishing we would take them out or go against the City Ordnance and not to put them in when road improvements are done.  Some just don’t want their land taken away from them to put in sidewalks that they will be responsible to clear of snow & mow the grass on the parkway (the area between the road and the sidewalk) and have to pay to have them fixed or replaced in the future.

Some feel we should have more sidewalks and should stop raiding the ADA budgeted money for handicap assessable sidewalks.  Cudahy isn’t a rural area, but an Urban City.  Sidewalks increase the value of your property and keep people safer.  It isn’t the homeowners land in the first place that the sidewalks are going on, the City has that land.

Some people feel they don’t use the sidewalks so why should they personally have to help pay for them.  And corner lot homeowners feel they get the shaft on sidewalk replacements and repairs.

Some people use them all the time and see them as an investment.

To some people it is as touchy of a subject as is residency requirements for Cudahy jobs.