FIFE LAKE — The village of Fife Lake is moving quickly to fill two vacancies in its Department of Public Works after losing both its full-time and part-time employees within weeks of each other.
The village’s part-time DPW employee resigned between Christmas and New Year’s, citing other commitments. More recently, the full-time employee also decided to pursue other opportunities, though he has given officials a few weeks’ notice.
“We actually had posted for the part-time position already,” said Tawni Deike, village president. “We’ve received a couple resumes and applications for that position.”
Deike, who has held the position for about two and a half months, said officials are viewing the situation as an opportunity to restructure the department and create more depth.
“As a small village that’s responsible for the maintenance and in this case, the roads... having depth is important,” she said. “That way, if one employee goes down, there’s somebody who can step into that position.”
The DPW department accounts for about half of the village’s budget costs. The department is responsible for maintaining the entire village, including road clearing during winter months.
Village officials plan to review resumes at their regular meeting Monday evening and hope to conduct interviews early next week, with a goal of having someone in position “in about a week.”
The position requires a special-rated CDL to operate the snowplow. Officials said they are looking for “a hard worker who wants to do right by our community and service our residents.”
The village has reached out to Grand Traverse County as a backup option. However, county trucks are too large to fit down some village roads, making an in-house solution preferable.
“I’m optimistic that we can get somebody in the position,” Deike said. “Our full time gentleman who has decided to look at other opportunities has given us a few weeks to kind of look at options. So I’m hoping we can get somebody in place and kind of shadow him and learn the ropes a little bit before he leaves us.”
Deike acknowledged the demanding nature of the work.
“It’s a hard job. It’s a really hard job,” she said. “It’s early mornings and it’s, you know, in the summer, it’s beautiful. But in this weather, it’s tough.”
A link to the job posting can be found here