Dear Editor,
On January 16 at 10.45 a.m. my husband went to walk the dog.
When he got to the end of the driveway he took a couple of steps onto the sidewalk and saw the sidewalk was covered with black ice with water on top in both directions.
There was no sign of sand, gravel, salt or anything else on the sidewalk so he turned to come back to the house.
When he turned on the sidewalk his feet went from under him. To make a long story short, he ended up at the hospital and then the operating theatre with a fracture to the arm.
If it hadn’t been for two very kind people who stopped to help pick him up off the sidewalk I don’t know what he would have done. Today (January 19) at 9.45 a.m. he went to see if the sidewalk was OK and it again had patches of ice, so he came back into the house and phoned the district yard.
After listening for a couple of minutes to a message about ‘when they are there’ and ‘when they aren’t’ he was forced to leave a message. In the message, he asked if the district was going to put sand down and why on January 16 an obviously treacherous situation had not been addressed!
Within a short period of time a sand truck went down the sidewalk, followed shortly after by a district pickup truck driving down the street.
It appears to me they have the equipment and people to do the job but couldn’t organize a party in a brewery.
There has been NO response from the person in charge or anyone at the yard to say “sorry for the inconvenience”, “tough luck”,”we screwed up” or anything else!
In days gone by the previous person in charge always responded to phone calls.
I have been told by other people that they never get a response anymore when phoning with a problem.
We have been here since the 1950’s and are very aware of how mother nature can play games in the winter.
However, there is no believable reason why the sidewalk on a main street has not been properly sanded by 10.45 a.m. on a weekday.
“I speak my mind because it hurts to bite my tongue all the time”.
Can’t say I’m smiling right now but I am watching and listening!
Roma Burnett