Jamie wrote:

wait a minute, our local government is trying to push through side walk
tax. if it goes through, every resident in this city will be getting a
tax bill for side walk maintenance except those that are the on local
local assistant programs. ( and they're many!)

Some of the earliest documents surviving from colonial America are the
Book(s) of Roads, some dating back nearly 400 years. These were records
of road maintenance responsibility assigned to various land owners by
whose property the roads passed. The labor was not compensated, it was
considered a civic responsibility at the time.