Submitted by Bruce Dammeier, Executive.
We have a new addition to the team, and I’m delighted to introduce you to Vacsquatch – one of the most unique “employees” at the County.
You may remember we just finished a public truck naming process and Vacsquatch was the winner by a landslide!
As with all our Planning & Public Works (PPW) equipment, it takes a skilled operator and often a team of employees to get the work done – and Vacsquatch is no different. In this case, it takes a two-person crew – and sometimes flaggers — to keep them safe on the roadside. While still new to the work and honing their skills, they have already made quite a mark!
I recently had the chance to meet Vacsquatch and try my hand at sucking up litter. Check out this latest edition of Inside Pierce County.
My thanks to Jordan Hatch, Charles “Cletis” Heaton and Gary Resnik for showing me how Vacsquatch cleans up our roadsides. I will tell you that it’s much more difficult to operate the vacuum truck than you might imagine. The vacuum head is behind the operator, so the operator is controlling the vacuum with the joystick, while looking in the mirror, coordinating with the ground crew, and driving the truck! Cletis and Gary are getting up to speed quickly and ridding our roads of a tremendous amount of garbage.
Since starting on February 29, the crew has traveled 73 miles across unincorporated Pierce County and have removed 11 tons of garbage from our roads! Those are impressive – and depressing – numbers! I am sure a social scientist could tell a lot about some people in our community by looking at what Vacsqatch collects. And I believe that keeping our roadsides clean, makes people less likely to litter, and promotes pride in our community!
While I wish the truck wasn’t necessary, I am thankful our Vacsquatch team is stalking litter on our roadsides!
Enjoy the long weekend – but be sure to take a moment to remember the brave men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice to keep us free. The 80th anniversary of D-Day is only two weeks away.
Thanks for reading.
Bruce Dammeier, Executive,
You are an amazing Pierce County Executive, your mother, who I was friends with would be proud of you, as I am. Thanks for the well-done video message on combating litter.
Littering is an unnecessary public violation, but it goes on daily mostly by thoughtless non-caring citizens. I have informally adopted various roads around my Lakewood and Delaware homes by carrying a grabber and a 5-gallon trash bucket. After cleaning up the roadway, when I return in a day or two, there is always more litter.
If any smokers read this comment, I wish to help Bruce Dammeier by asking you to either be a responsible smoker by using your ashtray or stop smoking. Our roads are littered with cigarette butts that cause grass fires, brush fires, forest fires destroying homes and businesses, injuring and killing citizens and first responders. For any smokers who are not motivated by my and Bruce Dammeier’s message, please understand a police officer can give you a ticket for throwing your lit cigarette out as litter. I know, because I issued a number of the burning material littering tickets which carried a price tag of $1,075 a decade ago when I was in law enforcement. Stop littering, please!
One last comment. Bruce, you do such a wonderful job, I suggest you run for President!
Joseph Boyle
Mike Rowe would be proud.
That’s leading from the front.