Through rain, shine, sleet or snow the City crews keep busy

For the City crews this time of year’s activities look a lot like things around your home. As the weather gets colder and wetter, the projects that can be performed around town become fewer. This is the time, the crews are starting to do more inside work. 

 One of the employees who is constantly doing inside work is Matt Johnson, your City mechanic. Matt’s mechanical skills are nothing short of amazing. I am a mental midget when it comes to mechanics so maybe I am just overawed by Matt’s skills, but I don’t think so. 

 Try to imagine all the types of equipment that the City needs to operate year-round. There is everything from dump trucks, to four-wheelers, graders, loaders, backhoes, boom-trucks, police cars, and much more. And then there are garbage trucks. Matt works on everything. And it isn’t just the motors that Matt repairs and maintains. It is the entire piece of equipment. 

 The reason I separated the garbage trucks is that you may not think of them this way, but they are very complex pieces of equipment. And parts break or get out of adjustment all the time. Even though the City has four garbage trucks, keeping two of them operating at the same time so that you can have twice a week garbage pickup is sometimes a major challenge. 

 And so, Matt Johnson is my hero of the week. Matt’s mechanical skills literally save the City tens of thousands of dollars a year on maintenance and repair costs. The City is not in a position to have the latest and greatest equipment and so being able to keep older equipment operating is essential to keeping the City operational. Thank you Matt. You are very much appreciated.

 In other City business this week, Ron McDaniel, your street department manager, would like to remind those who may still be raking leaves to be careful what you rake into the leaf pile at the curb for the City crew to vacuum up. Last week, the crew came to a pile where they were vacuuming up chains, rocks, and wire buried in the pile before they recognized the problem. 

 I’m sure it does not take too much mechanical acuity to realize what chain, rocks, and wire will do to a vacuum impeller. Even a mechanical little person like myself can understand that. So, please be aware of what you are raking and make sure that only leaves make it into the pile at the curb. Impellers are very expensive to replace. Replacing them also adds to the time it takes to complete the leaf pickup process. So please be careful with what ends up at the curb.

 Ron also wanted me to let you be aware to not distribute nuts in the park. Last week there were about five gallons of walnuts dumped in one of the parks apparently for the enjoyment of the squirrel population. We realize that this is probably the act of one well-intentioned person who loves squirrels. However, if the squirrels in the park are anything like the squirrels around our house (and there are plenty of squirrels and walnut trees in our neighborhood) those nuts get buried and the squirrels forget where they buried them. Every spring we find walnut trees growing in our yard. 

 We want to keep the walnuts out of the parks because walnut trees are not a variety of tree conducive to parks. You see, the other problem with walnuts is that those that do not get buried become projectiles when mowing commences in the spring. (This is also from personal experience.) 

 Like I said this was probably the project of one well intentioned person, but we would rather not have “nutting” the parks become a trend.

 Well, that’s it for this week. I hope you enjoy getting cozy inside and ready for the holidays! Have a wonderful week!