City officials are discussing whether to make an exception to the city's historic refusal to pay for mailbox damage after city snowplows toppled mailboxes along a 20-block stretch of Normal Boulevard last weekend.
About 30 mailboxes were hit intermittently at houses between 40th and 63rd streets along the north side of Normal, according to city officials.
Transportation and Utility staff reached out to property owners Sunday, giving them information about filing a claim, according to Holley Salmi, with the city's Transportation and Utilities department.
However, the city traditionally does not pay for mailboxes damaged or destroyed by city snowplows.
City code releases the city from liability for that kind of damage to mailboxes, said Chris Connolly, acting city attorney.
And the policy is explained on the city’s website, under snowplow operations.
Under that policy, property owners are allowed to place objects in the right of way, between the sidewalk and street, that is owned by the city. But property owners are “responsible for maintenance, replacement or any damages to the objects on this city property caused by, but not limited to snow removal, street sweeping or other city activities.”
Historically, the City Council, on advice of the city Law Department, has denied all snowplow vs. mailbox claims.
“That has been the history,” Connolly said.
But the attorneys and the city transportation staff are taking another look at the city’s responsibility in light of the weekend's mailbox massacre.
Earlier in the week, in an email response to reporter questions, Salmi said the city would likely pay to replace the mailboxes.
And Lincoln Transportation and Utilities officials said during a Wednesday news conference they had hoped the claims process could be expedited for those affected.
But that may not be the final answer from the city.
“The nature of how this happened is bothersome to us all,” Connolly said. “We are sympathetic to what happened. But we also have to be careful about what it (paying for these mailboxes) means to the city" in the future.
Mailbox claims are generally in the $100 range, Connolly said. He said he doesn’t know how many mailbox-related claims a year there might be and it's probably dependent on how much snow the city gets.
In this incident, some of the mailboxes were knocked backward and weren’t actually destroyed, so they simply had to be straightened.
The two snowplow drivers on the affected route hadn't been interviewed yet, Assistant City Transportation Director Lonnie Burklund said Wednesday, so details explaining why so many mailboxes were hit weren't available.
The two drivers have been busy working, but Burklund said training may be held to avoid future issues.
Plow drivers do their best to avoid hitting cars, mailboxes and curbs, but incidents such as these happen with crews driving the equivalent of five round-trips between New York City and San Francisco, he said.
A combination of darkness, snow drifts, blowing snow and the complexity of driving while controlling the plow with a joystick and spreading material may lead to accidents, Burklund said.
"We're always trying to avoid those types of mishaps, (and) we're doing the best we can," he said.
Snow scenes in Lincoln, across Nebraska
Photos: Recent snow scenes in Lincoln, across Nebraska