From the notebook of Steve Brandt:

Rick Orndorf's quest to change City Hall so Minneapolis property owners don't have to pay to replace a sidewalk twice has taken a first step.

Orndorf had to pay twice in seven years to replace his CARAG neighborhood sidewalk, first to rebuild a section of sidewalk apparently pushed up by an elm and then to replace the panels that had a tree cutout when the diseased elm died.

Sandra Colvin Roy, chair of the relevant City Council committee, Tuesday directed public works staff to determine how often cases like Orndorf's arise.

"I think it's a very unusual situation," she said.

Once she knows the number of such assessments (when a homeowner is asked to replace a panel where a tree has been removed), the next step would be to determine what the cost to the city would be if it ate the cost of replacing the treeless sidewalk.

Photo by Rick Orndorf

And while the topic of sidewalk repairs is front and center, Council Member Betsy Hodges said some of her constituents want to know why sidewalk panels that are in fairly good shape get replaced while worse panels linger in other areas.

----- One of the things I wasn't able to include in Sunday's article is that Minneapolis is experimenting with how to deal with growing tree roots and sidewalks.

As Colvin Roy told me last week, "Trees do have a natural conflict with sidewalks."

Sometimes when a sidewalk panel is replaced near a tree that looks like it might start pushing up against the panels, the contractor will form a joint in the shape of a ring so that possibly in the future, workers could simply knock out the ring and not have to replace the whole panel. A picture of what one looks like is above. Staff said that they haven't been back around to any of the panels to see if the concept works.