Traditionally, the city relied on property owners to clear the sidewalks on their properties as outlined in what Corey Driscoll Dunham, the city’s chief operating officer, describes as a “vague ordinance.” Because of the consistent lake-effect snow Syracuse gets, it’s been hard for the city to determine and, therefore enforce, exactly when sidewalks are expected to be cleared. “Do we say sidewalks have to be clear six hours after it snows? What if it never stops snowing?” she says about the city that saw 66 continuous hours of snow in 2018. Driscoll Dunham spent several years working in code enforcement. She came out of it with an understanding of the time-intensive difficulties of enforcement — tracking violations, issuing and following up on tickets, and finally issuing fines. So when the city began discussing ramping up ticketing property owners who didn’t shovel their sidewalks, Driscoll Dunham disagreed. “Our goal from a removal standpoint was to get the sidewalks cleared,” she says. “What’s the easiest way to guarantee it will be cleared? If we do it ourselves.”