Mercer Street landlord wants Butler to fix crumbling sidewalk
People walking north on the western side of the Mercer Street in Butler will go up a slight incline on the path before approaching a sidewalk block crumbling away from a crooked staircase.
The house at the top of the more than a dozen steps is owned by David Gold, who said that while the sidewalk is his responsibility, he can’t repair it until the city of Butler rebuilds a wall that upholds the sidewalk.
“What's going to happen is someone is going to trip and fall and get killed,” said Gold, who uses the property on the 400 block of Mercer Street as a rental.
He contends the homeowner is responsible for the sidewalk up and to the curb.
“I don't have a curb to put the sidewalk in,” Gold said.
Butler councilman Don Shearer said Wednesday, Feb. 28, that the responsibility falls elsewhere.
“It is the city's opinion that we are not responsible for that section of retaining wall,” Shearer said. “However, we are investigating possible solutions.”
He said a string of road work projects over years is in part what led the sidewalk to be in the condition it’s in now. Shearer added that the maintenance is in Gold’s hands, but he may have some meetings regarding the block now that he has been alerted to the issue.
There is a drop off of a few feet from the sidewalk to the road directly in front of Gold’s property. A concrete barrier exists along the shoulder of the road, but that isn’t enough to allow for sidewalk repairs, and Gold said trash accumulates in the gap between the barrier and the sidewalk.
Gold said the path has been that way since he purchased the property in 2011.
Gold owns a few houses on that side of the block, and he said Feb. 21 that the gap between the wall and sidewalk, as well as the sidewalk itself, is a “big time health and safety issue.”
Gold said he has contacted the city offices several times over the years in an effort to first have the wall fixed so he can get moving on the sidewalk.
Gold said the house at 428 Mercer St. has been vacant for a few months. People who live at that address and others on the block typically enter the houses from the back, via a driveway a few yards up the road, near the entrance to Butler Memorial Park, he added.
Although the sidewalk ends a few yards up from 428 Mercer St., Gold said some people come out of Butler Memorial Park onto that side of the sidewalk. The people who do come through every once in a while could trip and fall from the crooked sidewalk, Gold said.
“A lot of kids come through here,” Gold said. “I’m not allowed to build a railway. It’s a hazard.”
