Aiding disabled people by clearing snow for them requires character

Wisconsin State Journal, Sept. 26, 2010
By CHRIS RICKERT | crickert@madison.com

I have a neighbor who does not mow her grass or shovel her snow. I'm not sure why because I've never asked.

She has very little lawn and only a short stretch of sidewalk, though, so occasionally I mow her terrace and a portion of her front yard in the summer and shovel her sidewalk in the winter.

I don't do this because I'm nice (or a sucker). In fact, last winter I ratted out a homeowner a couple blocks away who had not shoveled his walk all winter. But in general, it seems petty to object to another 15 or 30 minutes of work when my minor favors have been repaid many times over by others on my block who have shared their tools with me, fed our cats while we were on vacation, and driven our son home from school.

I'm sure my experience is not unique, and most people are happy to help the elderly woman next door, for instance, with any number of other small, unpaid, yet crucial chores to help make her life a little easier.

Madisonians are a good people, after all. And what comes around goes around.

But not when it comes to the city, judging by the almost entirely negative response to Ald. Chris Schmidt's proposal to force property owners living adjacent to several hundred concrete bus stop pads to make sure they are clear of snow and ice in the winter so that disabled people can use them.

"No one seems to like it," he said in a stroke of understatement.

Schmidt said the ordinance, which he has since abandoned, was always a less-than-ideal solution to a long-standing problem. He sponsored it because, in light of the city's budget crunch, he didn't feel the city council was likely to give the Streets Division the extra money or people it needs to get the job done better.

His approach today is "to have this discussion now in terms of the budget" — either by shifting priorities in Streets or by biting the bullet and spending more money.

That's fine, but I think his ordinance had merit.

Granted, forcing someone to clear a bus pad is not the same as being politely asked by a kindly old woman to do it, even if both go toward the same result: Helping someone who needs it simply because the need is there.

We're not only not complaining about helping a neighbor, though. We're also not up in arms over mowing the terrace, clearing snow from around fire hydrants, and shoveling our sidewalks and driveway aprons — all examples of the kinds of citizen maintenance of public property that Madison's ordinances currently require.

Predictably, Schmidt's detractors say that if the idea is to save money, they have plenty of their own ideas. But I believe Streets can be trusted to know what it needs; I have never lived in or heard of a city with a streets department better at getting rid of refuse or more responsive to the public. (Yes, Streets left local roads ice-covered and slick after 14.1 inches of snow fell last Dec. 8-9, but that was the result of policy decisions about salt use and plowing priorities made by the City Council.)

It seems that the bus pads problem needs to get personal. Perhaps those who use them but aren't physically able to clear them should ask those who can to do it. As good neighbors know, it's hard to turn down a request when it's staring you in the face.

Susan De Vos — who sits on a transit subcommittee with Schmidt, and uses a wheelchair and rides the bus — said this approach runs the risk of alienating the people being looked to for help. "I'd hate for this thing to have a backlash against disabled people."

It also wouldn't be fair to single out a specific group of property owners who already pay taxes for snow removal and just happen to live near bus stop pads, she said. In that, she shows a lot more sensitivity to the needs of others than I've seen so far in the response to Schmidt's ordinance.

My view is that life is never fair in the things it asks of us. Character is about accepting this fact and keeping one's complaints to a minimum. In this case, it's also about picking up a shovel.

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