Council votes to transfer liability to homeowners
The new sidewalk liability law passed by our representatives on the City Council is great protection for the city. But it’s a really lousy deal for residents.
In one of the boldest moves from a Council that more often seems concerned with city bureaucracy than with the welfare of the community, the heaving sidewalks have become, by Council fiat, the sole responsibility of the homeowner.
If someone trips and falls on the sidewalk in front of your home because of buckling sidewalks caused by trees that the city dictated be planted, it’s your fault. The legal liability has been transferred.
It’s a wholesale abrogation of local government responsibility passed by a City Council unwilling to stand up to a cadre of lawyers and city staff which tell them when to jump and how high.
Only a public backlash of significant proportion will change the direction – that or a wholesale overhaul in the November election.
Our mayor, Al Pinheiro, lobbied the City Council to hold property owners accountable for unkempt sidewalks resulting in accidents, according to LeeAnn McPhillips, the city’s human resources director.
And our city attorney reports, “This bill has teeth in it to transfer liability from the city to residents,” said Linda Callon. “It creates a big incentive for people to really maintain their sidewalks.”
Right there in writing is the yawning gap in logic and honest assessment that plagues the reasoning – or lack thereof – of this City Council and mayor.
First, where is the “incentive” for the city which created the problem? Second, the “incentive” for the homeowner is no such thing. Calling it such is pure doublespeak, The “incentive” in the law is this: If you don’t fix the sidewalk, the city will notice you and bill you for repairs and if you don’t pay and try and sell your home, look out. In that case, Gilroy will put a lien on your escrow funds and steal the money to pay for fixing the sidewalks.
Meanwhile, the city barely funds the 50-50 (you pay half, the city pays half) sidewalk repair program each year, allocating just $250,000 against an estimated $6.5 million in outstanding repairs.
So, residents are left to fight over table scraps.
Money for sidewalk repair is not a priority because the mayor and the Council will not make it so. The staff’s priorities – like the raises for top-level employees – have become the priorities for the elected representatives.
By protest and by ballot, it is up to Gilroyans to restore the checks and balances that this Council refuses to provide.
