One of the main challenges we have encountered as City council members in Monroe is figuring out how to fix the city streets without any money in the streets budget. After last months meeting the topic was being discussed at the local pub (Jakes Place); A fellow citizen named Tim Gamber spoke up and said that before his career of being a truck driver he worked at a quarry for quite a few years. And after several back and forth discussions a date was set which was last Saturday June 6th 2015.
That morning Tim and Wayne drove the city dump truck into Sioux Falls and picked up 5 tons of recycled asphalt at a discounted rate from the old quarry that he had worked at. I had invited many people to the event but you never know how many people might actually show up. First there was Tim and his brothers Bill and Tom; Tim and Bill brought a rake and shovels and a propane weed burner. Tom came with his Navy wit and extra IQ points to make people laugh throughout the day. Wayne was driving the dump truck which was nice because he has clearly done that a few thousand times before in his life. Ben Visser our local fire chief came and brought a leaf blower which worked great for cleaning out the holes of small gravel and dirt. Ben also brought some accelerent to pre burn the holes to help clean them and warm them up a little bit. Mitch came bringing more propane from his camper to attach to a second weed burner that Ben Beil brought. And Mark our town board president came right after work to grab a shovel and work too. And yes I was there too leaning on a shovel trying to make myself look busy – lol.
The asphalt cost was about $60 and we will be refilling the two propane tanks as well to give an approximate cost of $80 for the day. Everybody volunteered their time free of charge for the day. At one point Ben Beil (our 3rd council member) said to me that he was very happy to see the citizens on Monroe coming together to work on the potholes in our town. Ben is actually the council member that is in charge of fixing the streets but he was not given enough money in the budget to do anything. So seeing this being done was a very happy day for him. So I would like to give a big thanks to the Gamber brothers and their neighbor Wayne Tiejie and Fire Chief Ben Visser for taking a day off to fix the major potholes in our town.