The Ypsilanti Courier
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
DPW doing a lot with very little this winter
Department of Public Works has 24 employees who work hard to keep the city clean
By Kathleen Conat, Special Writer
PUBLISHED: January 18, 2007
How can so few people get so much done?
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Just ask the Ypsilanti Department of Public Works, which is responsible for keeping the city clean and inviting.
Quietly, almost like background noise, 24 workers put in a hard day's work maintaining the city's clean appearance. The only time residents really pay attention is when something goes wrong.
Take Ypsilanti's 14 city parks, for example. They constitute 93 acres of grass to mow and weed-whip, with trees that require planting, trimming and removal if they die — not to mention the annual removal of leaves.
The three DPW workers assigned to parks also clean the bathrooms, maintain playground equipment, the track at Frog Island and the ball fields. They clean parking lots, empty trash and pick up litter. In addition, they provide support for special events, of which Ypsilanti has a lot.
"It used to be the city subsidized the events through the general fund," said DPW Director Bill Bohlen. "This past year, though, the events paid 50 percent of the costs. In 2007, they have to pay for all of it."
Four workers used to handle this load. Now, budget cuts have required only three handle the responsibility. In the winter, the parks people move over to work on any of the city's 21 buildings that might need repair and/or maintenance.
"We have Honeywell coming in to do an energy audit on all city buildings," said Bohlen. Honeywell is doing the audit for free. The company will then propose improvements for energy savings. "I think it's going to pose some challenges," Bohlen said.
Bohlen said it would have been impossible to continue maintaining buildings without the help the department gets. The Ypsilanti Fire Department takes care of maintenance in its own building. The Senior Center, Rutherford Pool, Ypsilanti Freighthouse, Ypsilanti Historical Museum and city apartments are now maintained by private groups.
The department also maintains 61 miles of streets, including local, major and state trunklines. Seven field employees and one supervisor are responsible for sweeping, patching and plowing the streets, repairing the bridges and guard rails, grading and maintaining the alleys, caring for the parking lots and closing the streets for special events.
"Ypsilanti has a reputation among regional professional drivers of having cleared streets even under really bad weather situations," Bohlen said. "We take a lot of pride in that."
In addition, the DPW takes care of all traffic lights, of which 21 are locally owned and 21 belong to the state. The two employees of this division also maintain city-owned street and parking lot lights, conduct traffic counts, stripe the lines in the street and install the banners, flags and Christmas decorations.
They run diagnostics of all traffic signal equipment, detect underground electrical cables for the signals, work in conjunction with Washtenaw County to resolve traffic flow problems and provide data to the state for trunkline services.
DPW is also in charge of all 2,548 storm drains and manholes in the city, whether they are owned by the city, county or state. Besides repair and maintenance of these and the catch basins, this involves cleaning out the drain lines and treating the drains with larvacides to prevent the spread of viruses such as West Nile.
"It doesn't take much standing water for a mosquito to breed," Bohlen said. "Keeping everything free-flowing helps the health of everyone in the area."
DPW is alto in charge of the thousands of city trees along streets and in parks. Due to the recent Emerald Ash Borer, city workers have had to remove over 300 ash trees and carefully dispose of the wood. This past fall, the department replaced 63 of those trees with maples sycamores and oak. The majority of the replacements went in front of homes where ash trees had been removed.
"The infestation of the ash trees was a tragedy," Bohlen said. "It will be a long time before the streets look right again."
The city's recycling program is another division of the DPW. Four people and one supervisor operate the recycling center on Rice Street and the curbside pickup program. They also run the brush and yard waste pickup program, maintain the compost area and run the chipping of large brush material and Christmas trees.
Other "incidental" responsibilities include storm water management, managing the garbage removal, handling all city work orders and sidewalk restoration. Of course, administrative duties have to be dealt with, too. "We never lack for work," Bohlen concedes.
Yet, because of budgetary restraints, the city's 2008-2009 solvency plan calls for cutting two more workers from the force. "We'll do what we have to do," Bohlen says, "but people will probably see a difference in service. We can only do so much."
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