Winter 2015 has proven to be quite a bear with its nonstop delivery of freezing temperatures, brutal wind chill factors and outpouring of snow our area has been getting pummeled by. Never mind the financial beating local merchants have been taking between revenues being down because customers don’t want to leave the house and the added expense of salt and resources needed to keep sidewalks cleared as a means of avoiding potential personal injury lawsuits and municipal fines. And while it was brought up at a recent board of trustees meeting that walking conditions had become rather treacherous on the village’s main commercial drag that is Seventh Street, a recent stroll following the March 5 snowstorm revealed that the village’s small business owners have been doing a bang-on job of making sure walkways are shoveled and ice is melted. Quite a number of merchants also made pathways through the large snow and ice mounds lining the Seventh Street curbs. The one consolation is that spring is set to return on March 20. We can only hope that ends up being a literal and not just a factual reality.
—Dave Gil de Rubio
