Latest news with #DPW
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
City signs 'Turf Tank' agreement to improve athletic field maintenance
PLATTSBURGH — The City of Plattsburgh's new autonomous 'Turf Tank' robot will make painting athletic field lines more cost effective and less time consuming going forward. 'What this does is this gives us the ability to take our man hours for painting fields and cut it down, probably, to about a third to a fourth,' DPW Assistant Superintendent Andrew Durrin told city councilors at their work session June 4. 'Basically, program it with all your field layouts, push a button and one person stays with it to paint all the fields.' According to its website, the Turf Tank Two is a 'robotic field painter designed to mark all types of sports fields easier, faster, and more efficiently.' Durrin clarified that the robot will allow DPW employees to focus and allocate their time elsewhere during the busy summer months. For instance, Durrin said there is a lacrosse tournament Father's Day weekend and there are 12 fields that need to be painted by four to six workers over an entire week. He estimated it would normally take $21,000 worth of time and material to paint the fields themselves. With the robot, they're already saving money and time, he said. It would likely take just a day and a half for one person to use the robot and finish the fields, he estimated. 'The rental for this Turf Tank is $16,000 a year,' he said, which doesn't include the first year start-up fee of $1,700. 'So already you'd save $4,000 just on the lacrosse tournament, not counting soccer fields that we paint, baseball fields, football fields.' Councilors approved the rental contract for a Turf Tank at their meeting June 4. The contract runs for three years and will cost the city $16,000 per year, plus an initial $1,700 set up fee for a total of $49,700. There is $3,000 worth of paint also included in the rental agreement. Durrin said the city can opt out of the contract at any time, There's also a clause to extend the contract another three years at the same rate, he added. 'From what it was explained during the work session, this is going to save the city a considerable amount of money,' Ward 4 Councilor Jennifer Tallon said before voting to approve it. 'Yes, and if it doesn't, we can get out of it,' Mayor Wendell Hughes said. 'That's the important part. We do have an out.' Among the benefits of the robot, the Turf Tank can also paint lines on pavement. 'If we repave a parking lot, we can actually put everything into the robot's data collector, and then paint all of the line strips and the parking lot,' Durrin said. 'Then we don't have to have another company come up and pay them to paint the lines.'
Yahoo
09-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Powder Mill Road to get a full rehabilitation
SOUTHWICK — The DPW let the Select Board know last Monday it will start applying for state grants to do a complete renovation of Powder Mill Road, one of the town's most degraded roads. 'The road does need some work,' DPW Director Randy Brown said on Wednesday about the road's condition. 'It's a multiphase and multiyear project,' he added. The road, which is nine-tenths of a mile long, has been on the DPW's priority list of road rehabilitation projects for several years. That list is used by the Select Board when deciding which projects will be funded using money allocated during Town Meeting each year. In 2022, the town was awarded a $115,500 grant from the state's Rural and Small Town Development Fund for the redesign of the road, Brown said. The design, which was done by Westfield-based Tighe & Bond, was completed in 2024, he said, and has been waiting for state grant opportunities to become available, he said. The redesign, which is estimated to cost $1.86 million, is comprehensive, which Brown called a 'big price.' He said once the project is completed, it will connect the regional district's schools, the Southwick Recreation Center, Whalley Park and the rail trail with sidewalks. But before the sidewalks are installed, Brown said the road needs to be realigned. A portion of the current road is not in the center of the town's right of way, and if it isn't shifted, the sidewalks would be built on private property, which is not an option for the town, he said. Also included in the rehabilitation will be new drainage and an upsized water line. Hesitant to provide a time frame for when the project might be started and completed, he said it was dependent on the grants it could secure from the state. Two of the grants Brown said the department would be applying for is a Safe Routes to School, which is a state program, as is the Complete Streets Funding Program. When the town's Stormwater Coordinator Jon Goddard informed the Select Board that the DPW would be seeking the Community One Stop for Growth grant to cover a portion of the project's cost. Read the original article on MassLive.
Yahoo
07-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
'Garden of Love' making a comeback after city's removal
Slowly but surely the garden in front of the house on Ontario Avenue in Niagara Falls is beginning to grow again. The occupants of the house — Kenneth Johnson, Justine Burger and their three children, ages 2, 4 and 15 — are now looking forward to full bloom, the time when their flowers blossom and their raspberries, corn, green beans, zucchini, bell papers, cherry and Roma tomatoes ripen to the point where they are ready to be picked. They've added a few new touches this year. Four raised garden beds were donated by the Niagara Beautification Commission. Multi-colored lights to brighten up the space at night. A wooden 'welcome' sign, donated by a friend of Burger's grandmother. Burger said she's also working on a special touch of her own, a sign that will describe the space for what it is today — a 'Garden of Love.' It's intended as a nod to the outpouring of support Johnson and Burger's household received after city workers, acting on April 21 in response to Clean Neighborhood violations, removed all remnants of the garden they grew and tended in the front yard last year. 'We're getting there,' Burger said. 'We are.' Following media reports from multiple local news outlets, including the Niagara Gazette, hundreds of people from across the city and around the region, and even a couple from other parts of the country, reached out to offer their support. Some of those same people donated money to a GoFundMe account established to help Johnson and Burger cover the fines the city charged them for the cleanup. Thanks to their generosity, the couple managed to raise the full $2,296 to pay the bill, which they said they intend to do soon. 'The community and our neighbors have been outstanding,' Burger said. 'I'm so thankful to everybody who donated money for us and for even just the words of encouragement,' she added. 'The money isn't even that big of a deal. We're working people so we would have figured it out. But just receiving words of encouragement from people we have never met in our lives, that we cannot appreciate enough.' Mayor Robert Restaino's administration, in a nine-page press release, defended the city's actions, saying they came in response to complaints about the condition of the property and that the DPW documented multiple violations of the clean neighborhood ordinance on site. The ordinance allows the city to penalize residents and property owners for failing to address various violating conditions, which can include yard waste, overgrown grass and unregistered vehicles stored on the property. In its release, the mayor's administration said that following a review it concluded that the DPW handled the matter appropriately and within enforcement actions covered under the ordinance. The administration also insisted that, at the time of the DPW crew's visit, the couple's front yard looked more like a neglected lawn full of logs and bricks than a well-tended garden. During the cleanup, crew members removed logs, painted bricks and cinder blocks from the property, including those planted into the ground along the public right-of-way, the space between the sidewalk and the street. City officials said the items posed tripping hazards and, therefore, warranted removal. In addition, during their visit to the house, city workers removed several items from the side of the house and the backyard, including a refrigerator with a door on it that city officials said posed a potential hazard to children. Burger and Johnson are confining their new garden to the area between their front porch and the sidewalk, heeding the city's advice to keep the right-of-way free from logs, bricks and plantings. The couple said Mother Nature is proving less cooperative and sunflowers planted near the street edge are growing again. 'I honestly don't know what to do with it because everything is coming back up. There's sunflowers that are straight-growing. I can't stop that,' Johnson said. Neither Mayor Restaino nor City Council Chairman Jim Perry have contacted the couple in the weeks since their story went viral. They did receive personal visits and help in fixing up the property in front of the house from several other local political figures, including Falls Councilman Donta Myles, council candidate Noah Munoz and two candidates for Niagara County Legislature, Donte Richardson and Sean Mapp. Johnson and Burger say they're trying to get past the politics of the situation and are instead focusing on making sure their garden looks good this year. 'I'm just happy that we were able to bounce back,' Johnson said. 'That's what I'm happy about.'
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Water main break impacts residents on George Street in Holyoke
HOLYOKE, Mass. (WWLP) – A water main break is impacting residents' water service on George Street in Holyoke on Thursday. Two arrested in Holyoke traffic stop connected to shots fired incident The City of Holyoke's Department of Public Works (DPW) states that the break has caused an unplanned water shutoff for most residents on George Street. The DPW anticipates that the water will be back in service within the next four to six hours. WWLP-22News, an NBC affiliate, began broadcasting in March 1953 to provide local news, network, syndicated, and local programming to western Massachusetts. Watch the 22News Digital Edition weekdays at 4 p.m. on Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Milwaukee potholes; city works to address ongoing problem
The Brief Milwaukee DPW officials are working to fix potholes across the city. Crews say how busy the street is and how hazardous the pothole is will determine the response time. It's an issue Milwaukee drivers know all too well. MILWAUKEE - A roller coaster ride – that's how some drivers said they feel when navigating Milwaukee's potholes. Right now, patching crews are working on fixing the streets. What we know The City of Milwaukee Department of Public Works (DPW) said at this time of year, response time is slower. But they are bringing in other city staff to help. FREE DOWNLOAD: Get breaking news alerts in the FOX LOCAL Mobile app for iOS or Android Waldemar Rivera's National Auto Tech & Towing is in a convenient spot, depending on how you look at it. His shop is surrounded by potholes near 7th and National. "There are cars you see, they hit one, their tire goes," Rivera said. "The holes just sink. And they are making big potholes." He said he gets roughly 10 customers a month dealing with pothole damage. Dig deeper DPW crews are in full swing, filling about 100 potholes a day. Street services manager Tom Wangerin said because there was less freezing and thawing this winter into spring, requests for pothole fixes are down almost 40%. "We're sitting in a much better place when it comes to our backlog and keeping up with the influx of requests," Wangerin said. There have been approximately 3,200 pothole requests this year, per the DPW. Last year at this time, that number was around 5,200. At 5th and Mitchell, crews patched up an entire block of potholes on Thursday morning. Crews say how busy the street is and how hazardous the pothole is will determine the response time. "We're averaging about 4.5 days to close out a service request," Wangerin said. "Weekday overtime right now is in full swing." What you can do Back at Rivera's shop, he encourages you to keep your car in good condition, so pothole patches don't cause more bumps in your road. "Invest in the cars to keep good parts on it," he said. "Because if it has a weak part and hits a pothole, it is just going to go." SIGN UP TODAY: Get daily headlines, breaking news emails from FOX6 News If you have car damage from a pothole in the city, you can file a claim at the clerk's office. Those are reviewed case-by-case. The city is encouraging residents to report potholes, either through the city's mobile app or by calling 414-286-CITY (2489). The Source The information in this post was collected and produced by FOX6 News.
