City snow inspector cracks down on university neighborhood sidewalks

Nick Fitzmaurice, an Industrial Engineering Senior, was excited to warm up from a day-long ice climbing excursion when his plans were interrupted by a concerning red tag hanging from his front door.

“I was coming home and saw someone swinging a big pickaxe-thing at their sidewalk,” he said. “I thought ‘Wow, that looks awful, why are they doing that?’ Then I got home and saw that on the door.”

Fitzmaurice — and the packed stretch of snow on his sidewalk — were paid a visit by the City of Bozeman’s newly hired snow-removal compliance officer. Fitzmaurice wasn’t alone. Like many MSU students, he rents a house in the residential neighborhood just north of College Ave, where a flurry of snow removal citations was issued over winter break

Mark Carpenter oversees the City of Bozeman's Code Compliance Program administered by the Community Development Department. Carpenter’s office is responsible for enforcing residential snow removal, among other property nuisances.

“Within 24 hours of any snow event ending, all the sidewalks are supposed to be cleared,” said Carpenter.

Fitzmaurice’s violation carried no monetary penalty, however, it did entail a laborious evening for the weary climber. “It was like, 5 p.m., and it said the snow had to be cleared by 8 a.m. the next morning,” Fitzmaurice said. “There was an inch of hardpack snow and an inch of ice. I thought I’d be able to do it in an hour or two. I went out with a shovel and started hacking and it would not go through at all.”

The slew of citations this January was the first to be issued this winter, catching many residents by surprise. “I thought the sidewalk was passable at the time we got the notice. It felt a little bit out of nowhere,” said Fitzmaurice, whose sentiment was shared by many other residents, according to Carpenter.

If the enforcement seemed sudden, that’s because it was. Carpenter said the snow-removal compliance officer was hired in the first week of January, coinciding almost perfectly with the recent rash of citations.

“We have one person that tags the whole city,” said Carpenter. “He probably averages 300-350 tags per day.”

The snow removal ordinance is as old as Bozeman itself. In Carpenter’s office, there is a copy of a hand-written ordinance dated 1883, the same year of the city’s incorporation. In a delicate cursive script, the 140-year-old document outlines the “duty of the occupant” to “with all meaningful dispatch, remove, snow, ice, slush or any other impediment to safe and convenient foot travel.”

Snow removal was not the only practical consideration of Bozeman’s founding fathers. The ordinance includes several other obligations related to rural 19th-century living, such as the “duty of the owner of any animal dying within the city limits forthwith or with all reasonable dispatch and before the sources become offensive from decomposition to remove the source beyond city limits.”

According to Carpenter, the document is “just too cool not to pull out.”

The contemporary iteration of the ordinance states that non-compliant sidewalks will be cleared by a contractor at the homeowner’s expense, but Carpenter advised residents against going down that route.

“This isn’t a money-making project for the city, nor is it an affordable way to get your sidewalk done. Some of these properties end up getting $200-$400 bills,” he said.

Hopeful to avoid such a scenario, Fitzmaurice called the code compliance office to ask for extra time. “I called the city and was like ‘Yo, there is no way I can get this done by 8 a.m. tomorrow,’” he said.

Much to his relief, the code compliance office had no problem granting him some extra time.

Carpenter said the code compliance office is happy to make reasonable accommodations for MSU renters.

“If you call, we will give you extra time or whatever you need. You just need to reach out.”

To inquire about your residential violation notice or other property nuisance ordinances, contact the City of Bozeman code compliance office: https://www.bozeman.net/departments/community-development/code-compliance.