Utilities facility hosts Touch-a-Truck event

CLINTONVILLE – For the first time, Clintonville Utilities held its annual Touch-a-Truck event at its newly constructed facility.
The event, which has been held for around five years, was held Oct. 9. The event was not held last year due to the construction of the facility.
While the event provides children with the opportunity to get up close to the vehicles and equipment used by the different city departments, this year’s event also provided the public with the opportunity to tour the new facility.
“We actually did tours of the new building, showing them (public) more or less where their (money is going),” said Clintonville Utilities Manager Dave Tichinel. “We get paid by rate payers, water and sewer and electric bills goes into what we do in the communities.”
Regarding the impressions of members of the public after touring the facility, Tichinel said, “I’ve heard positive reactions. I haven’t heard any negatives. Everybody thinks the building, obviously, was needed.”

While the 100-year-old building Clintonville Utilities used to be housed in is still located across the road from the new building, Tichinel said the new building was needed because the old one wasn’t safe anymore. The old building was not ADA compliant. Also, employees were eating their meals where exhaust fumes were when vehicles were running.
“The safety was the biggest factor,” Tichinel said.
The cost of the new facility was around $7 million. Employees moved into the new facility in March.
“It’s not a high-dollar building,” Tichinel said. “It’s just actually what we needed. Not what we wanted, but this is what we needed. We wanted to keep the cost low because of the community paying for it through the rate pay.”
He said the staff of the utilities are happier being able to work in a safe facility.
While the public was able to tour the facility at the Touch a Truck event, children were busy running to and from each vehicle and piece of equipment in the shop area. They were allowed to sit in the seats and blow horns.
Tichinel said city staff enjoy interacting with children and showing the public what their jobs entail.
“It’s more or less to draw people in for the future,” Tichinel said. “A lot of us when we get older, these kids are our future generation, so we’re hoping to spark an interest that when they get older, they’re going to want to do these jobs.”
The Touch a Truck event has usually attracted 200-300 at past events, but Tichinel said the attendance was higher this year.
“We usually get a really good turnout with the community kids,” Tichinel said.“This is our biggest one (in attendance). Maybe it’s because of the new building, I’m not sure.”