Local students navigating through winter wonderland

LYNN – Harrington School student Samuel Sanabria has slipped and fallen twice on the way to school so far this winter but, like all kids, he bounced back on his feet with a smile and looked forward to the fun parts of the cold season.”I like building snow forts,” he said.Not everyone negotiating local ice-clogged sidewalks shares Sanabria’s good attitude. Harrington parents Colleen Sewell and Yubelkis Contreras said icy sidewalks abutting Harrington and other schools are an injury and a lawsuit waiting to happen. The solution, they said Friday morning as they negotiated Friend Street sidewalks, is a better effort by the city and property owners to lay down salt and sand.”The landlords should be ashamed,” Contreras said.Paul Ambrogio walks all over Lynn and said some walks are safer than others.”I think the city does a pretty good job,” he said.For Somali native Adam Omar, every winter step is treacherous. Wearing one lightweight coat over another, the student is enduring his first New England winter, including learning to gingerly walk along ice-coated sidewalks like the Union Street one bordering the commuter garage.City Inspectional Services Director Michael Donovan said city workers cleared school yards and sidewalks in front of schools at 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. Thursday. But he said the combination of snow and rain followed by freezing temperatures confronted the city with its toughest winter challenge.”You’ve got to give the sun time to work with the salt and melt. We did the best we could with the weather,” Donovan said.He said the city issued 330 citations to property owners in December for failing to clear sidewalks and another 386 between Jan. 1 and 24. He singled out Lynnway businesses, in particular Wendy’s, as bad offenders.”Lynnway businesses did not shovel sidewalks at all in December and people use those walks,” he said.Donovan also said Silsbee Street is a continual problem when it comes to ice-covered sidewalks. The walk leading to Friend Street and Harrington was ice covered Friday for half a block. Donovan blames absentee owners for not clearing the walks in front of their buildings.”Frankly, the owners don’t care,” he said.