Mpls inspectors out looking at snowy and slippery sidewalks

MINNEAPOLIS -- There's been more than a mention about navigating the narrow streets of Minneapolis after a very snowy December. There has also been more recent talk about pedestrians having difficulty navigating the city sidewalks.

"They're not in the greatest condition that's for sure. Slippery, lots of snow, kind of hard to maneuver," Shanna Klingbile said while on a walk with her dog Spike.

"We've made about 22-hundred first inspections and issued about 14-hundred early warnings, or first warnings," Minneapolis Public Works Director Mike Kennedy said. Last year the city wrote 6,000 first warnings to people who didn't clear the snow and ice off their sidewalks.

About 250 people will soon be billed between $50 and $300 because the city has been forced to clear their walkways.

The issue of street corners has come up as well. "That big pile of snow that the plows leave, that is not the homeowners responsibility to clear, it's really nobody's responsibility," Kennedy explained.

"Sometimes there's a little path you have to walk through. If it's not a little path it's a big mound and you have to try to make sure you don't slip," Klingbile said.

The city is responsible for taking down that mound of snow, but Kennedy says right now it's a "second priority." Crews are still working on clearing out snow emergency routes.

"Been a difficult winter for everybody," Kennedy concluded.

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