The plight of Public works

Department buildings hit the end of the road

By Dustin Block

Burlington Department of Public Works Streets and Parks building Photos by Scott Anderson

Here’s how it goes for a mechanic with the Oshkosh Public Works Department.

He gets a job, loads up his truck at the main office, drives a few blocks to a second office where the trucks are stored and gets to work. If he forgets something, he has to weave his way through a tight parking lot crammed with vehicles to make his way back to the main office.

That mechanic’s routine might not seem like a big deal, but it takes a toll. It’s a daily grind of wasted time, work left undone and endless annoyance.

“Our needs are so large right now because we don’t have a proper work facility,” said David Patek, Oshkosh’s director of public works.

Oshkosh isn’t alone. Dozens of communities in Wisconsin are considering multimillion-dollar upgrades to public works buildings that have been neglected for decades.

Though not as glamorous as city halls or fire departments, modern demands, bigger equipment and concern for employees are pushing those upgrades to the forefront of capital budgets.

“We have done studies on facilities where mechanics were literally on their backs, working on a sheet of ice,” said Patrick Beausoleil, business development manager for Gundlach Champion, a Michigan-based engineering firm. “They work for months on a skating rink.

Routine maintenance, cleaning and storage takes place in the Burlington Department of Public Works building’s main truck and plow garage.

“Many of these buildings have outlived their useful life.”

With communities spending $200,000 on a single truck or snowplow, it only makes sense that they’d want to protect their investment. That’s where Gundlach and SEH Inc., an Eau Claire-based consulting engineering firm, fit in.

The two firms teamed up on 85 public works projects in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan. They worked together to help Washburn County build an $8.9 million facility in 2004 and are working with Polk County on plans for a $12 million building.

It’s a safe bet there will be more to come.

Watertown

When Rick Stanton started working with Watertown’s Public Works Department 33 years ago, it had just moved out of a building designed to house horses. The decrepit structure was so old that it predated the automobile.

Now, the city is ready to leave behind an equally outdated home. Watertown is planning to build a new public works building and move out of the 104-year-old former foundry the city outgrew long ago.

Burlington Department Works Supervisor Larry Gobel points out the workspace department engineers use for their offices. Several employees share a subdivided room filled with desks, a plotter, a few computer monitors and racks of area maps and files.

“It’s like an old dungeon,” said Rick Schultz, the city’s streets supervisor.

Employees stack equipment in the 45,000-square-foot building in a staggered pattern that leaves only inches for mechanics and drivers to walk through.

The city is bidding out a new $6.5 million, 69,000-square-foot building to open next year. Stanton said his employees are excited.

“Spirits have raised,” he said. “We’ll have modern functions. It’s something to look forward to.”

Burlington

It’s decision time for the city of Burlington. The public works building needs an investment in its heating and air conditioning systems, and some other needs are on the horizon.

The older building, modified to begin with, is showing signs of wear, and the one-stall mechanics bay, with no hydraulic lift, offers little room for maintenance on city vehicles.

A study suggested combining the city’s public works and sanitation departments. Combining the departments would save money on construction, but it would still require an investment.

It’s a choice communities have faced with their public works departments for years: Make changes now or hold out for a few more years.

Larry Gobel, Burlington’s director of public works, said upgrading his department’s facility would be a smart move.

“But if that’s a long-range or short-range goal,” he said, “I don’t know.”

Waupun

Space and layout are a problem with Waupun’s public works shop.

Richard Flynn, the department’s director, described a complicated system that had employees moving vehicles to various sites depending on the time of year and conditions. That leads to confusion about what’s where, and it wastes a lot of time.

“We’re trying to get everything centrally located,” Flynn said, “so we’re not running around everywhere.”

The mechanics also have limited space in the 30-year-old building. When it’s time to put snowplows on the trucks, the limited space disappears. That only leaves room for employees to use forklifts instead of hoists to lift the heavy equipment.

“It’s a lot easier to use the hoist,” Flynn said. “There’s just not enough room.”

The city is putting together bids for a new building. Work could begin next year.

Polk County

Residents in Polk County will vote in February on a new $12 million public works facility.

A new building would mean all of the county’s equipment could be stored indoors, and noxious fumes would be ventilated from work areas.

Crews also could turn the water off in the winter because the facility would be heated. Right now, employees have to run the water to keep the pipes from freezing.

The referendum is scheduled for Feb. 19.

Oshkosh

Back in Oshkosh, city employees are making do playing a truck-sized version of Chinese checkers. But instead of jumping marbles into place, workers maneuver triaxles and tandems worth hundreds of thousands of dollars through small doors into tight spaces and around street sweepers and graters.

Add snowplows into the mix and it’s far from a game.

“It’s dangerous for the guys,” said Bob Knaup, central garage supervisor for the city. “They try not to, but it’s inevitable they’ll hit something.”

The work of simply parking the vehicles weighs on employees, he said.

“Coming to work here, it gets frustrating,” Knaup said. “People come in from the outside and ask, ‘What type of maze do you have here?’”

At least the workers now can breathe without a shiver or a cough. Oshkosh made a critical improvement to the department’s building last year by installing a ventilation system in the garage.

For years, employees would get sick every winter breathing in noxious fumes that could only be vented by opening doors. In the middle of winter, that meant heating the neighborhood while releasing the fumes.

“By the time you got the heat back up,” Knaup said, “it’d be time to vent again.”