One of the many benefits I have working for my current employer is the opportunity to work with other staff members who excel in their profession. And even though they impress me on a daily basis, this week I was totally blown away by the awesome job our city planner did on his report toRead… Read more »
Day 29 Automatic Meter Reading Research For about a year we’ve been researching automatic meter read (AMR) systems. Because our neighboring communities to the north and south have also been going through this process, we decided to combine our efforts and collaborate on the research. So as a group we’ve met with several vendors overRead… Read more »
Day 28 Utility in our Right of Way with No Permit Today I spent a little more time looking into the utility that was placed in our right of way with no permit. We went out into the field to measure how far off the road the concrete handholes were poured. For most of theRead… Read more »
Day 27 Road Project Now that our road project is substantially complete, we’ve been working on getting out a pay estimate. The project engineer prepared the estimate late last week and gave it to me yesterday. So this morning, I spent some time checking over the final quantities and comparing them to the original quantitiesRead… Read more »
Day 26 Coding payouts I started the day going through some emails. Then the other engineers and I went over some recent pay requests and the budget line items to make sure we were coding everything correctly. We wanted to do this because our finance department has gone though and organized our funds into aRead… Read more »
Over the last year, there’s been a significant increase in the use of social media by those of us working in public works. Some of us are using it for work to enhance communications with citizens or other professionals. Others have started using it only to interact with personal friends and relatives. But even thoughRead… Read more »
Day 25 Water Main Extension Most of the first half of my morning was spent working on a cost estimate for the water main extension I have designed. I also filled out all the IEPA permits for the project and had our water superintendent sign them. Then I filled out the EcoCat to determine ifRead… Read more »
Day 24 Safety Meeting Today was the first Thursday of the month and that means safety meeting day! The whole public works staff attends the monthly safety meeting, and the topic today was backhoe safety. If I get a chance I’ll put up a post on it later this week because it was interesting andRead… Read more »
Day 23 This morning we had our regular engineering staff meeting. It was a pretty typical meeting with GIS sharing what they were doing and then our engineers and technical staff letting us know the status of all the projects. After our meeting, we started driving the roads to determine their condition. We also spentRead… Read more »
Day 22 Parking Lot Planning This morning a couple of us discussed the parking lot we are planning to build in our downtown. The project engineer for the job submitted the necessary documents to our planning department for the planning commission hearing we will have Sept. 8th. I also talked to a landscaper who willRead… Read more »