I wrote this on The Newburyport Blog back in November 18, 2007:

“It must have been about 4 or 5 years ago during one of the winters from Hell that we had, I called the DPW (Department of Public Works) (the DPW is now combined into the DPS, Department of Public Services) and asked if there could be anyway that they could send a plow to re-plow our small street.

In a very short time a big plow appeared and did one heck of a spectacular job.

I wrote the DPW a thank-you note, saying how much I appreciated their extra care and consideration.

When I talked to whoever at the then DPW a little bit later, they said, I believe, that my “thank you” note was the only one that they had ever received, and that they put it up on the bulletin board as a morale booster for the folks that had been working so hard.

Wow.

Apparently, Newburyport city employees often do not get thanked for a job well done.”

They sure don’t. I wish people would thank them more, and complain less.

And it is my opinion that the DPW (DPS) is incredibly under-staffed and under-budgeted. They are so important for the safety, welfare and in this case, in the winter of 2015, after a crazy amount of snow, sanity of our city.

Yes, I understand that every department is understaffed, and that we as a city “have no money” (I often tell people we have $8,000 for 8 million dollars++ worth of stuff that needs to be done). We seem to be screaming for money for our schools, I believe we need to start demanding more money for the DPS.

And as a btw, these folks are still not treated with the respect they deserve. I still try to thank them and tell them how much I appreciate all that they do when I see them. And I’ve still been told repeatedly, that attitude is unusual, mostly they just seem to be yelled at. And yes, at the moment, after all the snow storms, the streets are really bad in places, but they’ve been literally working around the clock, and are given the equivalent of teaspoons to try and remove an unprecedented amount of snow.