Letters to the Editor: Making homeowners fix L.A.’s awful sidewalks is a bad idea

To the editor: It seems simple — a homeowner gets a loan, hires a contractor and fixes the sidewalk. However, looking deeper, it is really quite complicated. (“How L.A. can fix our scary sidewalks for the Olympics,” Opinion, Sept. 10)
The picture with UCLA professor Donald Shoup’s op-ed article shows the need to remove a large tree; that could require a street closure. Utilities must be protected and street damage repaired. There is extensive excavation needed to remove the roots. I can just imagine the permitting nightmare.
There are reasons why the city of Los Angeles is so far behind on repairing sidewalks, and these and other issues are among them. Dumping this issue on the homeowner is not a good solution.
We need to find out what tools the city needs to fix its sidewalks and why the tools it has seem to be under-utilized.
Patrick Randall, Newbury Park
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To the editor: Maybe I’m just too much of a simpleton when it comes to taking care of the issues set before me, a business owner of more than 50 years. My life has been spent making plans to solve problems, resolving those problems and then moving on. The city of Los Angeles is not capable of this thought process, apparently.
I’ll give a case in point: A few months ago, crews were dispatched to my neighborhood for yet another copper cable theft repair. Part of the exercise was to “fortify” the existing underground pull boxes against vandalism.
I’m not sure how many hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent on not just fortifying the boxes (which meant marking their location in the new concrete), but the utter stupidity of installing hundreds of feet of new sidewalk and leaving the buckled, ski jump-like portions intact.
In his op-ed article, Shoup mentions a 2016 lawsuit that resulted in a $1.4-billion judgment requiring L.A. to repair its sidewalks. He notes that since then, $35 million has been paid out for sidewalk-related injuries.
The fact that California law makes private homeowners responsible for public works maintenance issues on public sidewalks adjacent to private property is hideous.
And don’t get me started on switching street lights to solar, where possible. I’ve been stonewalled for years on that issue.
Ricc Bieber, Northridge