New Meadows Public Works: Steadfast Service
Jessie Wallace and Hunter Brown are the City of New Meadows’ full time Public Works employees. They put in focused effort weekly to ensure water systems, streets, and city facilities are operational, adjusting their hours and focus to match seasonal needs.
Wallace and Brown are both New Meadows natives with strong family ties in the area. Brown has worked for the city for three years. Wallace has worked for the city for 5 1/2 years. She said, “I love my job and this town. I take pride in the work I do. I have lived here my whole life and am raising my five kids here. I want to do what I can to help keep this town a place to be proud of.”
Daily, their assignments include parks, streets, and general maintenance of all the city’s facilities. They work to keep roads drivable and take care of snow removal. Although the employees’ regular hours are Monday through Friday 8:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m., when it snows they may start their days around 1:00 a.m. Recently they were called out at 8:00 p.m. to find a water meter under the snow and ice to assist with a home water leak. Even on days that Brown and Wallace start work in the middle of the night, they still have other important daily tasks to complete.
They work with Kirk Kundrick, the city’s licensed water/wastewater operator, on water management. Kundrick oversees all parts of the city’s drinking water systems and wastewater system and Wallace and Brown run support. City employees check well houses to make sure the water system is running properly, check wastewater pretreatment and secondary treatment to ensure everything is functioning properly, and do all they can to keep storm drains functioning.
Wallace and Brown repair water and sewer line breaks, follow protocol for all water and wastewater processes, keep daily work logs, do maintenance on vehicles and equipment, pick up stray dogs, and keep city facilities maintained. “Some days I know they are pulled in many different directions with a myriad of tasks requiring their attention,” said Mayor Good. She continued, “many communities that are larger than New Meadows have different departments within Public Works…The team in New Meadows is required to cover all the different aspects of infrastructure maintenance and they do an amazing job.”
Many of the jobs done by the Public Works team are easily visible, such as roads cleared of snow, but other tasks are easy to look over. Every weekday morning Brown or Wallace open the park restrooms and clean them. A local volunteer locks up at night. At the end of February, the city park’s public restrooms were vandalized with large items placed in the toilets, walls smeared with air freshener gel, and sinks clogged with toilet paper.
This was not the first time, as Wallace and Brown have also seen feces smeared on walls or toilets, mirrors broken, marking and carving on walls. Wallace reported that cleaning the restrooms usually takes around thirty minutes, but this recent clean up after the vandalism took her around two hours. This misconduct hurts the community and takes away from necessary daily tasks city employees need to complete.
Wallace and Brown press on despite many obstacles and seasonal changes. “The paving of the first 150 feet of North and South Heigho has been the biggest project that I’ve helped coordinate and complete. That section of road sees close to the most amount of traffic and it was very hard to keep the potholes out of it. Doug Buys, Devin Buys, and Johnny Brown worked with me to get that done quickly (before Labor Day weekend) and I would say that I’m proud of the work done,” said Wallace. As the city administration and the Roads & Streets Committee continue to work on plans, more infrastructure improvements like this may be in the future.
Even with such a wide variety of work on their daily checklists, Wallace and Brown add further by attending classes, seminars, and certification courses to grow their knowledge and skills. Mayor Good noted, “The City of New Meadows is fortunate to have such dedicated workers on the City’s Public Works team. They complete work and finish jobs that often go unnoticed…but the work they do is extremely important to the health and safety of our community.”
