Grove City Messenger - March 10th, 2024

PAGE 6 - GROVE CITY MESSENGER - March 10, 2024
Opinion Page
www.columbusmessenger.com
Deciphering the city code
I was out walking the dog, making my
way along the sidewalk following some
heavy showers. It was late autumn, and
city residential leaf collection was in full
gear. As I approached the crosswalk where
I’d normally cross, I noticed the gutter had
backed up with water for a good distance. I
had a choice, alter my route, or try to high
step over it.
Being Mr. Macho I chose the latter. Bad
choice! Halfway into my Mr. Bojangles,
daintily stepping over the water routine,
the dog decided he didn’t want to get his
paws wet and balked (and I thought golden
retrievers were supposed to be water dogs).
I ended up with both feet totally submerged.
My first reaction was embarrassment. I
quickly looked around to see if anyone saw
my clumsy two step line dance into the
water. My dignity was at stake. Luckily no
cars passed by. Satisfied I’d gone undetected,
I regrouped and continued down the
road intending to cross over farther down.
After passing a few houses and around a
car that’s always illegally parked and totally
blocking the sidewalk to the accompanying
squishy sounds from my water-logged
sneakers I saw the cause of the water backup.
Someone had raked their big pile of
yard leaves into the street gutter for city
collection and they’d clogged the storm
drain.
It was soothing to arrive home and get
out of my soaked sneakers. But I was still
upset and determined to research where I’d
read you aren’t supposed to pile your leaves
onto the road. Every year I’ve noticed most
homeowners abide and don’t rake their
leaves into the gutter, but there’s also
always a significant percentage that do. I
Who you gonna call?
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wanted to find out what the official guidance
is.
I went onto the city website and clicked
on the Public Service icon, then clicked
again on the Leaf Collection icon. There it
very plainly was: “Keep leaves out of the
street gutter. Rake leaves to the grassy
area (they won’t hurt your lawn) between
the street and sidewalk or to the edge of
your lawn for streets without sidewalks.
Keep leaves out of the street and away
from storm drains, ravines and streams.”
It’s obviously not an enforced edict because
I see leaves piled onto the street every year
from the same homes. Surely someone
would let them know not to do that?
I wondered if it was listed in the city
ordinance codes so I flipped to the Our
Government icon, then under City Council
I hit the City Code drilldown. Up came a
new world of code ordinances I suspect
most residents have never seen; some probably
don’t even know they exist (those are
the lucky ones). It’s sad because so many of
those codes are controlling and affecting
our daily lives, or at least they should be.
As I started cruising through all the
pages of codes my mind flashed back to my
school days when my civics teacher was
returning our graded term papers. He was
making his way around the classroom.
When he got to me, he had a big smirk on
his face as he stared at me. As he set it on
my desk, I saw a ‘B’ and had a sigh of relief.
But then he spoiled the moment. “Mr.
Burton, that’s the biggest piece of mishmashed
mush I’ve ever seen.” He must
have felt sorry for me since he gave me that
decent grade.
I couldn’t believe all the codes and how
precise and specific most of them are. A hit
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song from the tumultuous rebellion times
of 1971 by the Five Man Electrical Band
popped into my mind. The name of the song
was “Signs.” The chorus went: “Sign, sign,
everywhere a sign, blockin’ out the scenery,
breakin’ my mind, do this, don’t do that,
can’t you read the sign?” If you rename the
song Codes and then change every sign in
the song to code, you get the drift. So many
codes. It’s easier to navigate through the
mounds of IRS tax code pages and quickly
find answers to your questions.
I couldn’t find a code that directly
addressed the piling of leaves into the gutters.
But since I was there, I decided to
take a few more moments to satisfy my new
peaked interest and continue scanning
through the codes. I found it to be informative.
With many codes I’d find myself asking
if we really needed to clutter the books
with this or that, isn’t that one just using
common sense and being responsible, courteous
and respectful to the community?
I came upon a code, Unsolicited Written
Materials. I remembered reading about
that in the paper a few years ago when it
was added to the codes. I still have a hard
time understanding all the energy that
went into it. The gist of it was that a few
residents didn’t like taking a few seconds to
pick up their weekly ad packets from their
driveways. I still miss getting those.
Perhaps if they had included banning campaign
workers from putting election pamphlets
on doorsteps or jammed in homeowner
doors every election or calling me
during evenings every night for weeks
before local elections with their robo candidate
calls, or putting those ugly campaign
signs in yards for weeks across the city
every election I could have bought into it
more. I never understand
those campaign
yard signs. I
consider my voting
preference to be
sacred and the last
thing I want to do is
broadcast how I
vote, especially now
when there’s no tolerance
for opposing
opinions.
I had to chuckle
at code 521.06. I
devoted an entire
column to it in the
past. The owner,
occupant or person
having the care of
any building or lot of
land bordering on
any street with
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Puzzle Solution
page 16
Guest Column
Dave Burton
graded or paved
sidewalk, within the
first four hours after
daylight, following
or during a fall of
snow, shall cause
the snow to be
removed from such
walk. We recently
had measurable
snowfall and a huge percentage of resident
sidewalks remained untouched until the
snow finally melted days later. Sadly, even
the sidewalk of a prominent city official
was totally ignored, surely not setting a
good example. Being away is not an excuse.
It seems to be the same homeowners ignoring
the code every year. There’s obviously
been no city interest in dealing with the situation
to improve adherence to the code.
Trash is a big topic in the city code.
Some just can’t seem to grasp they don’t
pick up trash on Christmas, New Year’s
Day and some other National holidays
which means pickup is moved back a day.
Some routinely put containers out weekly
by the road days too early and others leave
the emptied containers at the curb for days
after pickups. I read another code,
Container Regulations. After collection,
containers shall be returned, by 11:59 p.m.
on the day of pickup, to the interior of the
garage of the residence or to a location at
the side or rear of the residence where they
are not visible from the street or adjacent
properties at ground level. When looking
down a nearby one cul-de-sac the thing
that captures your eyes are the ugly bright
recycle containers sitting outside a few
garages that face the road and blemish the
view.
Scanning the countless city code ordinances
was informative and well worth my
time. I wish space allowed me to discuss
more of them. The thing that really stood
out for me is how many codes are never
enforced. Too many get thrown onto the
books and that’s the end of it. If they’re not
important enough to follow through on and
enforce then perhaps they shouldn’t be
there cluttering up those perceived to have
greater importance. Maybe we need to create
a special city code compliance position
that concentrates on improving adherence
via programs and literature that educates
the public. Maybe a few warnings would
generate some interest.
Dave Burton is a guest columnist for the
Columbus Messenger Newspapers. He
lives in Grove City.