For many Port Townsend residents, a trip up or down the Haller Fountain stairs is part of their daily routine – walking to work, for exercise or for leisure as in the case of local resident Jerome Druen.

Druen walks the stairs almost every day and first noticed a problem with the top step, like many Port Townsend residents, in January after completion of the Jefferson Street improvement project.

He was approaching the stairs to descend on the right-hand side and slipped on the icy landing above the top step. Luckily, he said, he was able to grab the railing and prevent a fall down the stairs. That’s when he realized the grade of the slope leading to the top step was too steep and contributed to his potentially dangerous fall.

Today orange netting and a traffic cone prevent traffic on the very spot where Druen fell.

Shortly after completion of the Jefferson Street improvement project, Port Townsend City Engineer Laura Parsons said people began to notice and notify the city about the top step. The Jefferson Street project put a sidewalk in from the corner of Jefferson and Washington downtown up the hill to the top of the stairs. The design called for the landing between sidewalk and stairs to “match the existing slope.”

Laura Parsons was the manager of the Jefferson Street improvement project. She said the project has been otherwise well received, but the top of the stairs has just created more problems.

When the city identified the hazard they decided to try and fix it by putting in the sloped half-step, which is now currently in place. The step was designed by the city and built by Sound Concrete Solutions for close to $3,000.

Once that step was in place last spring, the city thought it had fixed the problem, but people then began to report the sloping half-step was a tripping hazard. Locals tried chalking the edge of the top step to mark the discrepancy, but the trip hazard remained despite the well-intentioned graffiti.

Druen, who is a retired building and fire code inspector believes the step and the original design of the stairs both do not meet international building code.

International building code states stair steps must be uniform, with no difference in height greater than 9.5 mm. On landings, it states they shall not be sloped more than a two percent grade.

Stairs which abut established construction are exempt in certain cases. Druen argues this does not excuse the Haller Fountain steps because the landing is brand new.

When the city received the feedback, Parsons said it was back to the drawing board. A center handrail was put in place and half of the step was sectioned off with hazard-orange plastic netting and a large traffic cone. The challenge is trying to fix the issue on a limited budget without having to redo the brand-new sidewalk put in place last year, she said.

One fix the city pursued was a redesign which included a seat wall at the top of the stairs, which Parsons said would help with the slope problem. But the cost quoted for that is more than the city could afford, she said, at $13,000. Now it’s back to the drawing board.

Another challenge she said is that the step is just one of many things on public work’s plate and the office recently lost one staff member who is not being replaced, creating more work for each individual.

“We want to make everyone happy, which is why this has gone through so many iterations,” she said. “Some people like what you do and some people don’t.”

Druen said he doesn’t see any way around the problem besides removing the new sidewalk and redoing it completely.

“They just have to bite the bullet and fix it,” he said. “It’s like putting a bad patch on a nice coat.”