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BY DAVE SCHULTZ
Bill Ball said that when he and his employees started moving into the former Star Engineering building, they wondered if it was going to last.
"We were wondering if we were going to have to go back to the old place," Ball said, laughing as he talks about it.
It might not be heaven, and it might not be Iowa, but the Bluffton Street Department's relocation to the site at 1205 S. Wayne St., certainly is a significant step up from its former location. Much of that building, just around the corner on Spring Street, has been torn down.
Ball, superintendent of the Street Department since 2003 and an employee since 1975, is very happy in his new digs. There's room for whatever needs to be done, and when you're repairing streets in roads in a city of about 10,000 people, there's a lot to be done.
He walks through the sign shop. "All of these blades were up in the air at the old place," he says. "We had to climb up a rickey old ladder to get to them."
Now the signs are close at hand, sorted below eye level. Much better.
The building is 40,000 square feet. It's insulated and heated. It has room, and that is what was required.
Maintenance of equipment is an ongoing need, and the new structure fills that need.
"The building is high enough to actually permit us to work on the dump truck — when it's lifted in the air," Ball said. "Each truck has its own area, with the salt spreaders. We can keep them with the truck it belongs to."
The advantage to the workers is obvious. The advantage to the city's taxpayers will be demonstrated as the years go by in the new structure, Ball said.
"Everything is right here," he said. During the winter, he said, the plow and salt spreakers will be right there. "They can come in and within 10 minutes, everything is hooked up and ready to go."
Is anything else needed? Ball contemplates the question and smiles. Knowing the increasing demands for city services, he'd prefer to wait and see.
"You will probably have to come back in another year and ask me that," he said.
For now, however, he and the other Street Department employees are quite happy with their new facility.
daves@news-banner.com