Sidewalk Politics Enters Into the City Controller’s Race

"Zine's neglect of the problem for 12 years is shameful," Brazeman said. "The fact is money should have been allocated to fix West Valley sidewalks long ago, instead of being hoarded by the councilman until a month before the election."

Brazeman accented his point by circulating pictures of the sidewalk in front of Zine's residence in the West Valley from five years ago both before and after the sidewalk was fixed by the city. During a recession, Zine's block got new sidewalks even as the city fell further and further behind in its sidewalk maintenance.

For Livable Streets advocates, unless they have a strong preference in the Controller's race, yesterday's announcement by Zine is good news, regardless of whether or not it was a political stunt.

If the timing is a coincidence, then the good news is simply that one community is going to get better sidewalks. The pedestrian experience is so miserable, especially in parts of the Valley. A $1 million one-time investment is a drop in the bucket compared to the city's massive sidewalk repair bill, but every little bit helps.

If it was a political stunt, the news is even better. The City Council Member who less than two years ago declared on television that "we are a car culture here in Southern California...I don't think we're ever going to change that," the Councilman that spends his 4th of July singing jingles from car commercials, the Council Member who's most famous for helping get Justin Bieber a speeding ticket is scoring political points by fixing sidewalks. That's progress.

Zine has previously opposed both the attempt to require sidewalk repair before adjacent properties could be sold and the attempt to place a road repair bond on the May 21 ballot that would have also repaired sidewalks on adjacent streets.

Note: Streetsblog reached out to Dennis Zine's office twice to try and get a list of locations that will be fixed with the new proposal. They never even responded to our requests. However, while doing research we were able to confirm that yesterday was the first time the word "sidewalk" appeared in one of Zine's press releases.