Next morning update: much better. See comment below.
In the short time I was in town today - including just now - I saw two people who'd fallen. One had a bloody face; one had hit the back of her head. Many downspouts drain directly onto the sidewalks, which - in the snow-thaw-freeze weather we're having now - means the sidewalks sport many rivers of ice. Unsalted, unsanded rivers of ice - the word at City Hall is "the sidewalks are the responsibility of the businesses, so we can't call Maintenance to do it" - and the merchants aren't prepared for this kind of weather, and may not realize it's their responsibility to make the sidewalks safe.
Result: Nevada City's a boomtown for personal injury lawyers today; but if you're not one and you don't want to hire one, get yourself a pair of YakTrax, or go out to dinner somewhere else tonight.
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Confidential to homeowners who shoveled plowed snow back into the street yesterday (where it turned to slush, melted, refroze): thank you, it's much more exciting to walk down the hill now.
As for the YakTrax - Mountain Recreation (where I got mine; 491 E. Main, GV) says they have 9 pairs left, but no Mediums.
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Next morning report: sidewalks are much better. The ice rivers have been sanded and a mini-dozer is clearing snow off the sidewalks.
I asked our ex-mayor about yesterday's sidewalk condition, & she said (as I recall; could be <100% accurate, I didn't take notes) that maintaining the sidewalks had been the job of the BID; but what with the 5-or-so business owners raising holy hell about having to fund this group, it got (recently) folded into the Nevada City Chamber of Commerce, but with no $$ for maintaining sidewalk safety.
I'll leave a msg at City Hall and at the Chamber of Commerce so they can clarify in a comment here, if I have this wrong. JeffP, this being ultra-local, it's more your bailiwick than mine; do you want to take it from here?
Or KVMR News could do so; I emailed them yesterday ~4pm alerting them to the situation, hoping they'd address it ASAP on air (did they?), or in the 6pm newscast (they didn't, at least not with the weather); but it's possible the email went astray, since I didn't get an acknowledgement.
The Chamber's line is busy, and the word from City Hall is they're too busy today to go online & explain/clarify. So, if anyone else wants to take this further, feel free...
From The Union (link):
"The [Nevada City] council meets at 7 p.m. today at City Hall, 317 Broad St., downtown Nevada City.
...items on the Nevada City Council agenda include:
...
• Reviewing a draft of a city ordinance to repeal the Business Improvement District. Through the BID, the city collected fees from downtown businesses for collective efforts such as tourism marketing and street cleaning. The BID and its administering organization, the Nevada City Downtown Association, were controversial for some business owners. The city has not collected funds through the BID this year."
re emailing KVMR news to alert them to the sidewalk hazards, to no avail - I checked, & it turns out my email (sent at 4pm, when prep for 6pm newscast was in progress) was [effectively] lost among the veritable flood of press releases etc that are sent to that address.
FWIW, it seems KVMR *did* mention the sidewalks, although not in the newscast proper - KVMR's webmaster tells me "by the 6pm newscast time, several mentions of the hazardous icy conditions had been made by broadcasters." Glad to hear this; didn't realize it.
From "Freeze leaves locals with headache at home, on the road" (The Union):
"The emergency room at Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital and the waiting room at Yuba Docs in Grass Valley saw a jump in injuries due to people slipping on the ice.
Between 25 percent and 30 percent of emergency room patients seen Tuesday had injured themselves in a fall, hospital staff reported. At Yuba Docs, staff saw more “bumps on the head” and even some fractures, they said."
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