Tisbury’s select board learned on Feb. 16 that 335 properties failed to adhere to the town’s sidewalk snow removal bylaw. The board concluded the bylaw itself may be problematic, and opted to review it and send warning letters to violators in lieu of fines.
Tisbury building commissioner Ross Seavey told the board the town’s 19th century bylaw on sidewalks remained “antiquated,” despite being amended in 2011.
In order to help the bylaw work better, Seavey resolved to survey the town’s sidewalks, as there was no map of them. “Throughout the summer and fall we built out a map of where all the sidewalks are in Tisbury,” he said. The map revealed Tisbury has 10.4 miles of sidewalk.
After the blizzard, Seavey said the removal was extended 24 hours longer than the bylaw calls for. Dashcam video taken along the 10.4 miles was then used to compile a list of sidewalk violators. Following the dashcam survey, Seavey said the town concluded the total amount of properties with unshoveled sidewalks by Monday afternoon was 335.
“So if we were to present each one of those people a ticket, that would total $16,750 worth of tickets,” he said.
Seavey said it would be too tedious to handwrite that many tickets. He instead found a way to use carbonless paper to print the tickets out. Seavey said he estimated the overall administrative costs to produce the tickets at about $1,100.
At a post-storm department head meeting, Seavey said town officials asked whether or not the bylaw actually worked.
“Does having this bylaw get our sidewalks clean?” Seavey asked. “Because that’s really the intent of it. We want the sidewalks clean. I think the answer is a resounding no.”
Seavey recalled watching a lot of people walking in the street, and vehicles having to drive around them. “It’s clearly an issue we have here,” Seavey said.
Seavey said enforcing the bylaw created issues. DPW director Kirk Mettel was poised to clear “really important areas like around the school,” but Seavey called for a pause because he needed to give those responsible for those sidewalks the extended allotment of time to do the work. It wasn’t made clear whether the DPW did that work in the end.
Seavey also said it didn’t seem fair to ticket people who didn’t shovel save for those who lived near the Tisbury School, who might rely on the DPW to do the work for them.
Seavey suggested there may be some better plan or bylaw that could be put together. Alternatively, he said, the town could discard the bylaw and hand over the sidewalk work entirely to the DPW.
“This year the DPW has expended about $18,000 to remove snow from the sidewalks,” Mettel said. “So that’s very consistent with the numbers that Ross brought up here.”
“I think the bylaw is a vestige from a time when Tisbury didn’t have so many sidewalks,” Seavey said, “didn’t have plows plowing much larger mounds of snow on the sidewalks … and probably didn’t have as many seasonal residents.”
“We’re not going to solve this tonight,” select board chair Jeff Kristal said. He asked if anyone else thought, as he did, that the bylaw was “broken.”
Select board member Roy Cutrer said the DPW did an “outstanding job,” so he asked that nobody take his criticism “to heart” on snow removal.
“We had kids waiting for buses in the streets,” Cutrer said. He added that his own “personal peeve” was that after he cleaned the sidewalk, the town came and put more snow and ice on it.
“That’s been my peeve for 20-something years,” Cutrer said. He also said kids need to be able to get to school safely.
Town administrator Jay Grande said other Vineyard municipalities are responsible for sidewalk snow removal. Grande recommended taking the sidewalk issue back to town staff for further review.
“We have a responsibility as a town to keep the routes to school open,” Grande said, “not only the roads but the sidewalk, and I know we do that … but we do need to come to a final conclusion on the services we’re going to provide for snow removal.”
Kristal agreed, and noted Tisbury has the highest tax rate on the Vineyard, so it’s important to be aware of the impact of fines, especially on seniors.
“I think we need it to go back to staff, like Jay recommends, come up with some ideas, and then float some ideas back to the select board,” Kristal said.
Kristal recommended doubling the DPW snow removal budget.
Instead of authorizing the fines, the board voted unanimously to send warning letters to post-blizzard bylaw violators.
Seavey later told The Times exactly how old the snow removal bylaw was. It was adopted at Tisbury town meeting on March 7, 1883.
Mr. Seavey, when preparing the written warnings please consider that the notice of the 24 hour extension of the snow removal deadline to Monday at 11:00 am may have been received by property owners after the Sunday 11am deadline. The time stamp on my email was 3:07 pm Sunday. For me, and others I am sure, my sidewalk was cleared before 11am Sunday (sidewalk snow was not dumped into the road, btw.) At some point during Sunday afternoon or evening, town snow plows cleared more of Daggett Ave, resulting in my cleared sidewalk to be covered with what was now a mixture of snow, sand and ice. I suspect everyone is aware of the regulation. What is the purpose of spending tax dollars to issue a warning? Issues to be pondered…
Re snow removal from V.H. sidewalks…..I recall the good old days when after a substantial snowfall, and living on Main St, I would hear and see a small sidewalk size snowplough removing the offending snow from our town streets. With one third of our population comprised of the elderly, it is unrealistic to expect that particular age group to do as currently required.
I suggest a return of sidewalk sized snowploughs as recalled through the 70’s and 80’s. What changed??
Town Officials!
I did notice on a Sunday afternoon that every home on Spring Street between Franklin and Main had cleared sidewalks except for Tisbury Town offices.
Count in that total all the State Road new sidewalks. They also were not cleared and forced people to walk in
The highway
If only so much effort could be put into finding the missing gun… Choke Bluffs ‘found’ their’s at least. Perhaps Tisbury should revisit the fact they have the highest taxes on the island, but, won’t clean the sidewalks for their citizens. Instead they will waste money fining them for a service they should provide. If they had their ‘hard working’ DPW with Kirk Motel out cleaning those sidewalks, maybe, just maybe they would find the police department’s missing gun, making the community safe from misguided bullets and slip and falls.
So Tisbury residents are responsible for shoveling what is basically town property? And of those 335 properties, how many are owned by seasonal residents?
Has the MV Times had a chance (under FOI) to review this list of 335 violators and determine how many are Selectmen and other Town officials?
Keep digging Rich! “Tisbury is broken”.
No sense in giving out fines. A quick example, my neighbor was in violation of several building violations. Illegally storing his illegal business equipment on his property in a residential district. They had also dug holes and destroyed my buried electrical lines! Killed the power to my home!
All of this was Immediately reported to all the proper town authorities and totally documented with dozens of pictures included.
I was out $1,000.00, my insurance company paid over $4,400.00 to get things repaired and at last count which was well over two plus years ago his fines `then totaled` over $7,000.00 and not one penny had been collected to my knowledge.
His business equipment was temporally removed then not long after he brought some equipment back, stored it differently and is still being stored on the property there to this day. I gave up hounding everyone for enforcement!
Keep digging Rich! “Tisbury is totally broken” and we deserve more for having highest tax rate on the Vineyard.
The DPW plows my street, Martin rd, all night long because the school is at the north end of the street. The plow diverts all the plowed snow onto the sidewalk which is only on the west side of the street (in front of my house). This is a frozen dense pile at least 3 or more times as much of the snow accumulated depth. It also plows my driveway in the the same tune of a heavy frozen pile. The task of shoveling it is extremely difficult for me as an active senior. I often takes more than a backbreaking hour to accomplish and has resulted, not rarely, in expensive trips to the chiropractor. Others on the street are even less equipped to do so. I’m offended at the sly inference that people living around the school are somehow freeloading off the DOW on this issue. If the town sends me a ticket for this expect a fight and a bill from me for my services and the consequences.
I’m sure a strongly worded letter will fix everything. Otherwise the town might have to take responsibility for their own property, and they certainly don’t want that now, do they? The good news is when someone is forced to walk in the street and gets hit by a cat and sues the town, they now have evidence of the town’s negligence, so that’s good, right?
Please provide a list of snow shovelers and/or mini plows; I have not been able to get anyone to shovel a path to our homes let alone the sidewalk. Thank you.
I looked at a lot of snowblowers– Amazingly enough, not a single one mentioned their speed — some have 6 speeds, but not a word about ft. per minute. But just looking at some of the videos, I estimate they are running at about 2 miles an hour.
Theoretically, one 30 inch wide snowblower could clear every sidewalk in V.H in about 5 hours.
Now, of course, that’s “theoretical”. But in reality, one town worker walking behind a snowblower, and another one or 2 with shovels to clean up the little stuff left behind and around obstacles could probably do it in an 8 hour shift. Homeowners could help clear around things like mailboxes etc. or shovel if they want.
It also could be a good “community service” project for fit people convicted of petty crimes.
I’m sure most of the “violators” in this last storm were not in good enough shape to take on a foot of wet snow. or perhaps they have jobs, or aren’t even here during the winter.
The town should without a doubt clear the sidewalks of seasonal residents, as they pay higher tax rates, and do not benefit from things like the school.
Not sure that’s a “benefit” though.
I wouldn’t send my kid to that school.
When I owned a building on Circuit Ave in Oak Bluffs I always shoveled the snow there early in the morning of the storm but at the same time Oak Bluffs did a terrific job – in those days – and was right there. In Vineyard Haven it is different. Shall we say. In the 80’s a private citizen – Geno Montessi – as part of the Tisbury Business Association – donated a snowblower to the town. It worked for a couple of years. But consider this – where is the snow supposed to go? Can you shovel it into the roads? On Beach Road for example, plows push the snow onto the sidewalk. This contaminates it with sale, ice, and guarantees a tremendous amount of work and then where to put it but on the sidewalk in piles. It is properly the job of the town to do. Now honestly, this is not Vermont – we do not get a lot of snow. Proper equipment and some overtime pay and designate the job either to the town or an outside contractor and do it properly.
Assigning this to individuals is horribly inefficient. Many owners may be away, making it impossible. Those who are there may not be physically capable. And people cannot realistically be expected to arrange for private contractors to come and clear what may be as little as 50′ of sidewalk, when those same contractors are busy plowing.
Tisbury should raise taxes marginally and buy a sidewalk plow or two. Then the town should have someone plow the sidewalks.
Zack Baird, it is always very, very bad when you “get hit by a cat” on the streets of Tisbury.
Almost as bad as possessing a “distinctive gait”, which gets you snatched off the streets then taken to jail by the 32 Water St mob.
Cats are far less caring of humans.
As one who survived the mother of all blizzards (Buffalo NY 1/28/77-2/1/77), I suggest we settle this dust-up before the real thing comes along.
The Plows dump a mixture of snow and slush back onto a shoveled sidewalk. Then it refreezes and we have to chip it out. The plow goes by again and again. The sidewalk has to be cleared of frozen ice again after each plowing. Better rethink the monetary cost of the town clearing the sidewalks vs the social cost of losing a friend, neighbor, or loved one to a heart attack.