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Council moves $134,883 sidewalk settlement forward after staff acknowledge backlog and promise temporary fixes
Summary
Council advanced a recommended $134,883 settlement in a pedestrian injury case after city engineers and DPW officials acknowledged multi-year repair backlogs. Officials said the administration will reinstate temporary asphalt patching to make hazardous sidewalks safe while awaiting permanent repairs and contracts.
The Internal Operations Committee advanced a law-department recommendation on Feb. 25 to settle a sidewalk-injury claim for $134,883, and during discussion DPW officials acknowledged the location had been reported to the city in 2022 but remained unrepaired until the injury occurred.
"We first received notification of this location back in 2022," Ron Brundage, director of TWW, told the committee, adding that a backlog of locations has grown and the city will reinstate temporary repair measures such as cold-patch asphalt to reduce immediate hazards. City engineer Richard Doherty said inspectors assess reported defects and consult forestry when trees may be implicated, and that the department balances priorities based on available funding.
Council members pressed for the criteria used to classify a sidewalk report as an emergency and requested records of the reporting timeline for the specific location. The chair said she will send a formal memorandum requesting a list of pending sidewalk repairs, photos and the department's emergency-classification criteria.
Committee members welcomed DPW's pledge to restore temporary repairs. "If we could have just at least made a temporary patch with asphalt, then we could have made it safe until we got to the point where we can get a contract in and do repair," Brundage said.
The committee moved the settlement forward with the recommendation to approve.
Next steps: DPW agreed to provide the committee with the repair timeline and the department's emergency-classification policy; council will consider the settlement at formal session.
