Sidewalks paved with (your) gold

Down at the bottom of a article in the Monroe Snooze the other day was a proposal from Monroe's city engineer to approve a new tax to pay for sidewalk improvements. The way Pat Lewis explained it, the city would save a lot of money, time and paperwork if it just designated about a tenth of a mill, maybe more, for sidewalk repair. Basically this means the city wouldn't have to send out nasty reminder letters to homeowners that they have to repair the cracked block of sidewalk in front of their house or else their car will be booted.
Actually, the city just will go ahead and pave it and attach it to your property tax bill. This always has been a time consuming process and a bone of contention because homeowners -- even if they agree the sidewalk needs repaired -- then have to hustle up a contractor or try the do-it-yourself route -- and hope the repair meets city standards.
Lewis' plan makes some sense. He basically wants to spread the cost of each sidewalk repair across the whole group of homeowners to eliminate all the hassling and quibbling.
I got a better idea. Why not stop pretending that homeowners have some inborn responsibility for keeping up their sidewalks? Most had nothing to do with wanting a sidewalk, installing it or even using it. Besides that, it's a divider between the property that the homeowner owns and the right of way or boulevard that the city contends it owns.
Why don't we just all bill the city for upkeep for the boulevard -- all the gas and trimming we do on that godforsaken no man's land?
I didn't think the idea of saving money was simply to shift costs to millages to be paid by all. Why not just cut out the sidewalk repair program totally and save everybody a lot of cost and hassle. After all, if it's the homeowner's responsibility, they will be the ones sued if someone trips, not the city, right?
What headcase is going to back a tax increase right now anyway?