Call it an exercise in democracy.

A crowd estimated at nearly 100 came to Tuesday’s City Council meeting to raise objections to the recently enacted Pedestrian Walkway Program, which would require some Ames property owners to build sidewalks or bike paths on their property at their own expense. Although the council had been planning the ordinance for years, the first wave of notifications had only reached some property owners by June 7, after the council’s formal information meeting on the subject had been held.

Owners of those eight properties were told in a letter they were to build sidewalks on their property — in several cases in a section of their backyards facing Grand Avenue — by Sept. 7. Many of the residents said that was too soon and that they weren’t given appropriate notice.

Many in the crowd won’t be affected in the coming year by the program but said they remained suspicious of the council’s claim that not every property in Ames would be required to construct pathways. With only the first round of 75 notices distributed, and 200 more one- to three-block segments planned, the plan is still in its infancy. Paul Wiegand, director of public works, said he estimated a few thousand dollars would be asked to add sidewalks to their property in coming years.

The open forum on the matter was ripe with angry statements by citizens, with one, Joe Viles, associate professor of genetics, development and cell biology, suggesting a class-action lawsuit against the city if the program continued.

As citizens flung barbs at the council at the podium, and some murmured and mocked Wiegand as he went through an overview of the plan, council members say they weren’t surprised at the reaction, given the concerned e-mails and calls they’d received since the issue came to light earlier this month.

Andrew Tugan, the Government of the Student Body ex-officio member of the council, was the exception. Tugan had been out of the country until recently, and hadn’t known about the outcry over the program.

“It was a bit of a surprise,” he said. “I didn’t really know to what extent people were concerned about it.”

The extent, apparently, is wide-ranging, with some, like Dave Funk, 624 18th St., currently unaffected but still weary of the council’s actions.

“In principle, this whole thing is a sham, and the council is out of their minds if they thought this was ever going to happen,” Funk said. “I don’t trust them, and after seeing what they’re capable of tonight, and in speaking with several of them over the phone, the level of arrogance they display is stunning to me. Their ability to spend other people’s money, seemingly on their whim, as evidenced by their actual proposal in ’02, is stunning to me, and I wanted to find out more information before I really let go.”

The council said not every property in Ames without a sidewalk would be affected, but Funk said he wasn’t sure about that and resented Mayor Ted Tedesco’s announcement that many of the attendees, those that were not immediately affected, had perhaps misunderstood the council’s plans.

“I noticed them trying to split the crowd up, and that’s when people got seriously upset,” he said. “Only a few people this year are going to get it done. Well, that’s this year, isn’t it? What about next year, and the year after that?”

But council members and city officials described the outrage from the assembled homeowners as simply a product of miscommunication and, in some cases, misinformation.

“I think the fact that there was such a large contingency of people here tonight is representative of the fact that there is some miscommunication on this issue,” Councilman Steve Goodhue said. “There’s no doubt that there’s some education we need to pursue.”