Effort spruces up area, officials say
By Jennifer Eisenbart
Staff writer
If you’ve been over the Milwaukee Avenue bridge near Veterans Terrace or in Echo Park at all since Friday, you’ll have noticed a few changes.
Namely, about a dozen or so overgrown trees are gone from the islands at the bottom of the dam in the park.
In part because funds and manpower were available and in part because Veterans Terrace may have future improvement plans for the area, the City of Burlington took down those trees and cleaned up the islands and river of dead wood late last week.
What remains are a few well-trimmed trees and the islands themselves.
City of Burlington Department of Public Works Supervisor Dan Jensen said Tuesday that the work took about six hours, and came out of budgeted funds. While the request for the work came from Mayor Bob Miller and City Administrator Kevin Lahner, the DPW has extra funds because the summer has been so dry – allowing monies normally allocated to mowing, etc., to be put to other use.
“When one thing goes down, we go on to things that need to be done,” said Jensen.
The City needed to go through the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to make sure they could do the work, but when all was said and done, the overgrowth and dead wood that had gathered at the base of the dam and the spillway were gone.
“Anything that had gone over the spillway (was cleared),” Jensen said.
The result is a much more open space, one that has interest from Veterans Terrace, though nothing specific yet.
“They are planning something,” said Miller, who added that no one wanted to discuss specifics yet. “It was a dual purpose (in clearing the islands).”
It will likely be at least a month before any plans are announced. In the meantime, the dam itself will be inspected, which Miller expects to result in little to no work left to be done. The spillway was cleaned up and fixed already this year, as was the top of the dam. Repairs were made to the dam itself.
Lahner said that spare time and money, as well as the request from Veterans Terrace, created a good result.
“As we looked at it more, we realized, ‘well, what if we really clean it up?’” Lahner said. “We think it looks pretty good.”
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Don’t understand
-It too The City Dept of PW 6 hrs right
-They are On Salary , right?
-They are Not a Private Business to be paid seperately, Right?
-So How can it cost More, than what it costs to pay them anyway?
-Isn’t their Salaries/Costs to Employ them and Pay for PW Dept Included in the Annual Budget?
The story does not say that it cost more. The story clearly states that money was available through the regular budget. It was available for this project because less has been spent on mowing this summer. It is called reallocation.
THANK YOU BURLINGTON CITY CREWS!!
This clean-up made a HUGE improvement to the park.
Anything to help beautify our city is always appreciated.
Thanks again!
I don’t see how cutting down trees is an “improvement”. So what have you got now? A bare piece of dirt in front of a concrete wall.