Butler officials should have done their homework before sending letters to Cleveland Street property owners, ordering them to repair a retaining wall within 90 days or face fines.

Residents of the street, whose road surface is in deplorable condition, also have grounds to argue that if the city can't or doesn't want to make improvements that are its responsibility, it shouldn't order others to do so.

Cleveland can be categorized as one of Butler's many "forgotten streets" in terms of maintenance and resurfacing. It hasn't had any notable improvements for decades, and none have been mentioned as a possibility for anytime soon.

Yet letters dated March 9 were received by six Cleveland Street households telling them to fix the retaining wall or else. Then, at a city council meeting on Thursday, when residents attended to complain about the letters and fix-up deadline, council members were unable to say for certain that the retaining wall is actually the residents' responsibility.

The wall might actually be the city's responsibility. Some residents said the city had made repairs to the wall in the past, including painting the railing.

Whether that work established a precedent in terms of who should fix the wall now will require legal interpretation.

However, that legal homework should have been completed prior to the mailing of the letters in question by the city's code enforcement officer. The city should have a legal basis on which to stand before it issues orders for anything.

Before threatening financial penalties, the city should ascertain whether what it is being ordered to be done would be consistent with improvements, if and when the city ever got around to repairing the street. There already is the question of whether the wall still is necessary.

Some of the residents at Thursday's meeting said they would tear it down to make room for driveways and parking spaces, if the wall was determined to be theirs.

The bottom line is that the retaining-wall situation wasn't given adequate thought before the city acted, presumably hoping that the residents, fearful of legal action, would spring into a repair mode that the city hasn't been capable of achieving on Cleveland Street's behalf.

This is not to imply that residents should not take pride in their properties and property frontage. However, the city government also must demonstrate a greater degree of pride - in all neighborhoods.

In this instance, Cleveland Street residents were right in challenging the city's edict, even if only on the basis of obtaining an interpretation about who is responsible for what.

The condition of Cleveland Street is a troubling flashback to the Great Depression, and that's not the fault of the people who live there.

- J.R.K.