A new crackdown on cracked sidewalks is under way in Vallejo.
As a result, hundreds of property owners have gotten notices in recent months that they have two weeks to start fixing their sidewalks, or else, city officials said. In March, the City Council voted to begin enforcing in earnest provisions already on the books.
The city's assistant maintenance superintendent of streets, James Gajkowski, said the muni-cipal code has held property owners responsible for sidewalk maintenance for generations, though many people don't know it. That's partly because for many years Vallejo had money to fix tree-damaged sidewalks, he added.
"We had $100,000 annually to fix some sidewalks, and sometimes the Sanitation and Flood Control District repairs sidewalks under certain circumstances, so I can understand why people think it's the city's responsibility," Gajkowski said. "And I feel sorry for people who buy a house and the sidewalks are messed up and they don't know it's their responsibility."
Local Realtor Mark Rogers of Realty World said he thinks most property owners know the sidewalks fronting their property are their responsibility. "It's common knowledge," he said. "I don't remember it ever coming up."
But Susan Omara
is one local property owner who didn't know. "All my neighbors got notices to fix our sidewalks, but none of us knew it was our responsibility," Omara said. "The city was perfectly nice to us, but we didn't know until they showed us the code."
Vallejo not alone
Most California cities have some variation of a similar policy, Gajkowski said.
"In Solano County, Fairfield is the only city that pays for sidewalk repairs," Gajkowski said. "Benicia will pay to break the concrete, Vallejo, Vacaville and Napa pay for curbs and gutters."
The city's push to find and repair all its sidewalks has to do with Americans with Disabilities Act compliance, Gajkowski said.
The new program means city employees will eventually measure all city sidewalks to make sure they don't vary in height by more than 3Ž4 inch up or down, or have a crack 1Ž2 inch or wider, he said.
"It's a tedious job," Gajkowski said.
To replace a sidewalk in Vallejo typically costs $7.50 per square foot through a city-hired contractor, with two squares, or "flags" running about $300, he said. Property owners can do the work themselves if they can do so to city standards, he added.
"We're not trying to hammer the property owners." he said. "We're just trying to make the sidewalks safer."
Vallejo's Public Works Department has sent out about 300 such letters since May, Gajkowski said.
"We're concentrating on certain areas," he said. "We went through area 14 in East Vallejo first, and that area is now free of sidewalk hazards. We'll be doing part of Northwest Vallejo next."
While some sidewalk repair orders result from the new program, others are generated by complaints, said city engineer David Kleinschmidt. In those cases, the engineering department sends out letters demanding repairs.
Such letters threaten fines of up to $750 per day for failure to quickly "replace the sidewalk, curb and gutter, and crack seal the gutter and street pavement joints per city standards."
"It's completely different from the sidewalk replacement program," Kleinschmidt said. "When it's brought to our attention, we send a notice to the property owner that they need to bring their sidewalk into compliance in a certain amount of time."
Kleinschmidt said the municipal code permits "alternative enforcement" methods, including fines for non-compliance. Fine amounts are set by the City Council, he said.
"The threat part is somewhat misunderstood," he said. "It's an enforcement of something that's the property owner's responsibility."
Contact Rachel Raskin-Zrihen at 553-6824 or RachelZ@thnewsnet.com.
