“We’re making a list and we’re checking it twice,” said Eyal Saad, village construction code officer at the Dec. 16 village trustees’ meeting.
The “we” he’s referring to are himself and DPW Superintendent Robert Ciarlante and the list they are making is the addresses of residences, businesses, and apartment houses where snow has not been removed from sidewalks or has been pushed into the street.
Village law requires property owners to shovel their sidewalks within 24 hours of the end of a snowfall, and state law prohibits property owners from pushing snow out into the roadway.
Property owners who don’t shovel their sidewalks will be seeing members of the DPW clearing those walkways at a cost of $50 plus $5 per linear foot of sidewalk.
“Property owners will find out that it would have been cheaper to hire some kids to shovel their sidewalks than to have the DPW show up to do the job,” Mayor William Murphy said.
Ciarlante said the act of pushing snow into the road is costly.
“When we have to go back and re-plow a road because someone pushed snow out, it costs taxpayers money,” Ciarlante said.
His list of property owners will be turned over to Saugerties police who will be issuing court appearance tickets with fines of at least $250.
Both Saad and Ciarlante were preparing their lists to go out this week as an early Christmas present to village scofflaws.