Adi Astl's stairs made things much safer. That wasn't good enough for city government.

As a leader, what should you do when someone thinks outside the box, ignores the rules, and solves a pressing problem for $64,450 less than expected? However you respond, don't do what the City of Toronto just did.

Tom Riley Park is frequented daily by mothers with baby strollers, people practicing yoga, bike riders, dog walkers, and members of a community garden. Although the park has an official entrance, many people take the most direct path into the park from its parking lot, which means walking down a steep slope. Until recently, that path had only a yellow rope to hang onto to keep people from falling on their butts.

That seemed unsatisfactory to Adi Astl, a retired mechanic in the neighborhood who uses the community garden along with his wife. He contacted the city about installing a stairway in that spot and was told the estimated cost to the city of such a project would be between $65,000 and $150,000. For approximately eight steps.

That didn't seem very reasonable to Astl, and he decided there must be a better way. So he took up a collection around the neighborhood, hired a homeless man to help with the construction, and built a simple but serviceable wooden stairway for a grand total of $550. Cost to the city: $0.

Problem solved?

That seems like it should have been a happy ending, but the city promptly put up yellow tape around Astl's stairway and declared it unsafe. City officials also told Astl he had violated a bylaw by building it. It made plans to tear down the stairway, although people were still using it, tape or no tape.

Why did the city close down the stairway? "Liability issues," a local reporter was told by city officials. It's worth noting that many people had fallen down the path before the stairs were built and one community garden member broke her wrist there. It seems clear the stairs are a lot safer than the former path, even if they lack a foundation and were not built to code.

However that former path was safer for the city, in that if someone got hurt and filed a lawsuit, it could defend itself by saying the path was never meant to be used. It appears Toronto was indeed concerned about liability, and not at all concerned about actual safety.

But then something wonderful happened: A local TV station showed up, flew a chopper over the stairs, and made the whole story very public. After that the city changed its mind. It now says it is committed to working with Astl's stairway and will find ways to bring it up to city safety standards.

So the story does have a happy ending after all. But you have to wonder what would have happened if the TV cameras hadn't arrived.