Wednesday, May 16, 2018 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
9
Public Works crew hard at work
By Sue Stafford
Correspondent
Keeping Sisters streets and
public restrooms clean and
landscaping maintained is
the responsibility of a group
of dedicated City employees
who do their jobs seven days
a week in the freezing cold of
winter and the broiling heat of
summer.
This crew, part of the
Public Works Department,
consists of five field staff and
one seasonal worker. Public
Works Director Paul Bertagna
hopes to add another full-time
person next fiscal year.
“The seasonal position is
difficult to fill because the
City wages are not competi-
tive with private landscape
maintenance companies,” said
Bertagna.
Public Works is respon-
sible for maintenance of the
city streets, starting with the
sweeping up of cinders and
debris left from the winter to
chip-sealing and striping in
the good weather. They also
handle the signage on all city
streets.
Spring cleanup of the city
in preparation for tourist sea-
son takes eight weeks in April
and May. There are 220 street
bulb-outs throughout town
that require raking, weeding,
and applying bark for that all-
summer-long tidy look.
Prior to Memorial Day,
60 hanging flower baskets
from C & C Nursery will be
installed along city streets.
Most of the pots have auto-
matic drip irrigation but there
are some that require hand
watering. The pots are planted
with wave petunias which
don’t require deadheading
(the removal by hand of spent
blooms).
Bertagna credits the sea-
son-long beauty of the baskets
to Robin Bentz, who he refers
to as “a guru” when it comes
to the petunias.
An unpleasant part of the
crew’s job is cleaning up
after dogs. This spring the
bulb-outs were full of dog
waste that had to be removed;
that despite the 10 (plus two
more coming online soon)
dog waste stations located
throughout town and in every
City park. During the summer,
the stations are refilled with
bags every week, calling for
over 20,000 bags a year. Each
dog waste station costs $110
to install.
“I was amazed at the
amount of dog waste we
have found in the bulb-outs,”
said Wanda Braughton,
public works maintenance
supervisor.
Mowing of all lawns in
City parks and other City-
owned properties is done on
a four-day cycle during the
summer.
“We are very fortunate to
have Gus Johnson on staff,”
Bertagna said.
He used to work on the
golf courses at Black Butte
Ranch and is highly skilled in
all facets of turf maintenance,
which Bertagna describes as
“a science and a fine art.”
Johnson is the lead in
charge of the parks and over-
sees the irrigation, fertilizing,
and mowing. In addition,
Johnson is a jack-of-all-trades,
skilled in a number of areas
like carpentry and concrete
work.
“It’s nice to have specialty
people in a small organiza-
tion,” said Bertagna.
In the fall, it takes the crew
four weeks to “put the town to
bed” for the winter. Bertagna
told The Nugget there are
plans for next fall to cut back
all the native grasses and con-
duct one last weed patrol to
hopefully make cleanup easier
in the spring.
A majority of the bulb-
outs have been converted to
subsurface drip irrigation to
PHOTO BY SUE STAFFORD
Josh Stotts, who grew up and attended school in Sisters, is one of the
hardworking members of the Sisters Public Works maintenance crew .
more economically water and
reduce evaporation. Through
capital improvement projects,
all lighting and irrigation on
town streets is now on the
City’s grid, allowing for better
control of resources.
“I can’t say enough about
our crew,” Bertagna empha-
sized. “They take such pride
in the way the town looks.
They have the right mentality
and they work hard.”
That sentiment was con-
firmed by Bentz, who said,
“We’d do it (beautifying the
town) without the tourists
coming. We live here and we
take pride in the city.”
The safety of the work-
ers out among traffic is what
keeps Bertagna awake at
night. Drivers are reminded
to watch for their equipment
and bright reflective vests and
give them a wide berth.