Congratulations to the I.V. High School wrestling team state champions!. They put Cave Junction in the spotlight and demonstrated that good things come out of our rural area! Sorry for the late recognition. There were some technical difficulties with my end of February letter.
February was a busy month for City Hall and the Public Works Department. A new utility clerk, Katheryne Bell, has been hired and you should start seeing her soon at the front desk. Please say hi and welcome her to the new job.
Our Public Works Department has had extra work piled on (literally) with the multiple snow events in Cave Junction. Please be patient and understanding. This is not an every year event and our equipment is not high tech. Snow blades have to be manually attached to the front of two city trucks. The city has the responsibility for about 21 lane miles of paved street and does not plow areas that are county property. Our guys are out there even on days off if necessary and yes, the process is not perfect. You can help by shoveling the sidewalks in front of your home.
Congratulations to Mike Milner who graduated from trucking school after putting in 160 hours of training and passed the state test. In Oregon the commercial driver license (CDL) is required to operate vehicles with a gross weight over 26,000 pounds. This describes a lot of city equipment.
SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) equipment updates have been completed at reservoirs 3 and 4. Updates for river intakes – well No. 4 and reservoir No. 1 – are scheduled for around mid-March. Our new sewer camera trailer is up and running. A sewer camera is a very small, flexible camera attached to a cable, much like a drain snake. It saves our public works team a whole lot of time and headache identifying clogs and or breaks. Our aging sewer and water plants continue to challenge us with ongoing, intermittent repairs. Kudos to our terrific Public Works Department for keeping up with the challenge.
The Rockydale Well Restoration project has come up a lot recently. This project will activate an important new water source for the city. There was a pre-bid meeting, and some questions arose about the bridge crossing Highway 199. Our public works team is getting answers to the questions, and it should be going back out to bid soon.
Stay warm and dry!