The City of New Westminster is celebrating the contributions that its workers make in keeping city services up and running 365 days a year.
Mayor Patrick Johnstone has proclaimed May 21 to 27 as Public Works Week in New Westminster. The proclamation states it is in the public interest for citizens and civic leaders in New West to gain knowledge of and to maintain a progressive interest in the public works needs and programs of the community.
“Public works infrastructure, facilities, emergency management and services are of vital importance to sustainable communities and to the health, safety and wellbeing of people of New Westminster,” said the proclamation. “Such facilities and services could not be provided without the dedicated efforts of public works professionals, who are responsible for and must plan, design, build, operate and maintain transportation, water supply, wastewater systems, solid waste collection, public buildings and other structures and facilities essential to serve our citizens.”
Mike Antoniali, operations coordinator – engineering operations, said Public Works Week is a great time to highlight the work that staff do to keep the city’s services running, including water and sewers. In addition to a staff appreciation luncheon, he said a group of students from Fraser River Middle School will once again visit the works yard where workers will demonstrate some of the work they do and give students an opportunity to take part in interactive activities.
Due to the popularity of last year’s event, Antoniali said this year’s May 24 open house for students has been expanded from two to 10 classes from Fraser River Middle School.
The day’s fun includes a visit to the city’s sign shop, a road-patching demonstration from the roads crews, an equipment display featuring garbage trucks, mowers, backhoes and other vehicles, and displays and information about waters, sewers, park maintenance, animal services, electrical, emergency management, recycling and more.
“Towing will do a rollover demonstration,” Antoniali told council. “Recycling will highlight our new recycling and contamination remediation plan and do some outreach. And then we’ve got electrical, and then Emergency Management display as well. So we’ve got the mobile command unit, scheduled to come in as well and do like a sort of a mock-up emergency management display.”
Coun. Daniel Fontaine said his 20-year-old son really enjoyed attending the public works open house when he was younger.
“It’s a great experience, in particular for younger kids in the community,” he said. “And I also think … it’s a fantastic HR recruitment process as well to get younger kids exposed and excited about public works and as excited about asset management as all of us are.”
During her onboarding process as a new councillor, Coun. Tasha Henderson said she was continuously “in awe and just so proud” to learn about all the different ways city workers keep the city going.
“You can take a message back – that certainly their work is valuable,” she said. “We understand the role that it plays in keeping the city going.”
Fast facts about public works services in 2022 (supplied by the City of New Westminster):
* 1.7 kilometres of sewer separation completed
* 1.3 kilometres of water mains replaced
* 6.5 kilometres of pavement installed
* 605 metres of sidewalks repaired/rehabiliated
* 735 street occupancy permits granted
* 2,942 parking permits issued
* 49,851 Q to Q ferry trips
* 409 Grade 6 and 7 students trained in cycling skills and safety
* 300 animals received care
* 97 pets adopted
* 14,466 decals and signs fabricated
* 78,235 square metres of facility condition assessments completed
* 1,792 metric tonnes of recycling diverted from the landfill
* 5,315 metric tonnes of organics diverted from the landfill
* 626 graffiti tags removed
* 2,261 SeeClickFix requests received
* 50 catch basins adopted
