Wakefield council hears reports from city officials

By P.J. GLISSON

[email protected]

Wakefield — Two city officials provided annual updates to the Wakefield City Council on Monday evening.

Public Works Director Michael Singleton and Water and Electric Lead David Semenac delivered the reports.

Semenac said that flooding in the spring of 2023 posed challenges for his crew, which had to deal with water sampling, water boil notices, etc.

He said his crew likes to average the installation of 15 new electric poles each year.

“We were able to do 18,” he said of the past year. “We had a great crew this year.”

Overall, said Semenac, his four-man department had a highly productive year, thanks in part to a five-person summer crew to which he gave high praise.

He described them as “a good group of kids that learned really fast” and concluded, “There wasn’t much that these five could not do.”

Overall, said Semenac, his department addressed general service calls, as well as special needs such as Christmas lights and routine work like meter reading and brushing.

“We haven’t had an outage directly caused by our system in a long time, and that has a lot to do with brushing,” said Semenac.

He added that, when his staff was not engaged in other tasks, they filled time with GIS mapping, which involves “an incredible amount of work.”

Singleton said that his Public Works staff engaged in numerous paving and patching projects throughout the past year, along with sewer improvements and other miscellaneous tasks.

His staff also painted the deck that holds Nee-Gaw-Nee-Gaw-Bow, the Chippewa Indian head statue next to the Wakefield Visitor’s Information and Gift Center by Sunday Lake.

Singleton, who is also the town’s fire chief, said that the mild winter prevented the Volunteer Fire Department from holding its annual ice fishing tournament, but he said a “Family Day” at VFW Post 9084 proved to be an equally “fine day for the whole community.”

In relation to related fundraising, he said, “Financially, we did great — almost equal to what it would have been in a normal year.”

The council’s next regular meeting will be on March 25 at 5:30 p.m. in the council chambers of the municipal building.