The city has better ways of wasting its time. But mainstream media, always hungry for a new Scrooge story, picked up on the alleged controversy. While the Merry Mayor of Plattsburgh has scored many points for dropping the Xmas decoration contest, he wins only one or two points at best in other areas. One key area is pedestrian safety. Go to Sherbrooke, Canada, or even St. Albans, Vermont, and see how pedestrians are treated.
Real cities have zebra-striped crosswalks that give a pedestrian the right of way over traffic.
Stand by a curb and cars will stop for you, letting you cross the street without worry. So Plattsburgh's new mayor wanted to bring some civilization here to this hinterland outpost. He had a few crosswalks in the city painted with zebra-stripes so that a pedestrian wouldn't have to wait all day for a gap in the traffic to get across the street. For a while we were amazed. Now and then a car would stop as required by law and let us proceed to the other side.