Business owners around the courthouse square will get some help from the city with snow removal if supervisor Guy Richardson has his way. Richardson broached the subject with city administrator Mike Palmer as Palmer provided his monthly update on Monday.
Richardson was on the Jefferson city council prior to becoming a county supervisor. He told Palmer he had suggested as a council person that the city clear snow from sidewalks on the business side of the square before the streets are plowed. “One of the big things the council has been dealing with for years is encouraging retail sales in Jefferson,” he said. “In my way of thinking, when you don’t clear the snow from the sidewalks first, and you push everything to the middle of the street, and people come out and do their sidewalks and just throw it back in the parking, you’re not helping make it accessible for people. That’s just a stumbling block for people.”
“It seems it would really be a help to retail around the square,” he said.
“With everything we’ve done to make the downtown more attractive, to make it more vibrant and get more people down here… it makes sense you’d accord people the courtesy of trying to get that snow out of there so they don’t have to wade through it when they get out of their car,” Richardson said.
Richardson has an office just two doors south of the square on Wilson. He said it would not bother him as a business owner to know that others were having their sidewalk cleared while he was not. He suggested that if money was an issue, business owners could be charged a nominal fee to help cover the cost.
Palmer said he would revisit the question with the city council’s streets committee. Since Richardson was on the city council, the city purchased a large brush that it attaches to a skid loader to remove snow from the sidewalk on the N. Elm overpass.
