It makes sense for the city to have a policy requiring people to shovel snow and ice from sidewalks. Though the city code says the city staff can shovel sidewalks 24 hours or more after snowfall, the city staff tends to do it when people fail to shovel walkways for weeks on end. The main offenders usually are snowbirds who don&8217;t hire people to clear the sidewalks when they go south for the winter.

It&8217;s a good policy, but we&8217;d like to point out a flaw: It punishes homeowners who have sidewalks.

Yes, there are benefits to having sidewalks &8212; safer neighborhoods for children to ride bikes and trikes and for families to get to playgrounds, to name the best two reasons.

But the Albert Lea City Council has for too long allowed new developments to be built without sidewalks. Only recently have new projects &8212; such as Wedgewood Cove &8212; thought about the needs of pedestrians.

If the city wants to be fair about sidewalk policies, all it needs to do is create a voluntary tax-incentive program for homeowners to install sidewalks. Many cities have such a program to make up for the years when they failed to think that people would want to walk around their neighborhoods without stomping through the gutters and dodging oncoming traffic.

The sidewalk programs take many forms, and city leaders probably know about them through trade publications and city associations.

Then at least the city, while enforcing snow ordinances, can say it is encouraging pedestrian mobility elsewhere &8212; not just in the places where sidewalks already exist.