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This site was born of what I see as the City of Park Ridge's general indifference to the needs and safety of people who walk the sidewalks of this town. The initial impetus to create the site came when I got fed up with the way the city permitted businesses to plow snow onto sidewalks, creating difficult and dangerous conditions. Then other areas seemed to need attention as well, and I started to expand the site to include them. I have other sections I plan to add, and please email me if you have suggestions, comments, or corrections. Especially corrections: I do not want to leave anything up here that is factually incorrect. My opinions, on the other hand, are formed from my unique, often contrarian, unconventional view of things, and you probably shouldn't be taking them seriously anyway.
In my experience the city seems to prefer what I call a Government by Ratting Out (GRO) system, in which some kinds of highly visible problems are treated as if they simply don't exist. Until someone calls in about a specific situation, that is, after which there may well be a flurry of effort. In my experience, City Hall seems to be quite used to these kinds of calls: it seems that most times when I call in to simply find out information about some situation or regulation, the person I'm talking to assumes I'm wanting to get someone fined. (I've never wanted to get anyone in Park Ridge fined before, and I don't now.)
So, if city workers didn't seem to want to notice problems on their own as they drove by, I figured I'd post some pictures, to try to make my case to people visiting this site. And it wouldn't hurt if it spurred the government(s) to make some improvements independently.
That's probably just my megalomania talking: I doubt this page can effect much change. Still, site attendance has been climbing faster than I expected, and I'm having a lot of fun creating it. And if, for example, plowing snow onto hills on sidewalks is still accepted next year, I'll have fun pointing that out as well.
I have a short discussion of some of my experiences with Government by Ratting Out here. If you read that, you may forgive me if I sound a little irritable sometimes on the rest of the site.