Before You Wake Up, They're Already Out There: A Day With Smithville's Public Works Crew

Most Smithville residents have never met Marcus Webb, Denise Trotta, or "Big" Earl Simmons. But they've benefited from their work almost every single day. We spent a week with the town's Public Works Department to find out what it actually takes to keep this place running.

It's 5:47 in the morning when Marcus Webb pulls his truck into the Public Works yard off Industrial Drive. The sun isn't up yet. The coffee in his thermos is. He's been doing this for eleven years, and he'll tell you without any drama that he genuinely likes the early hours — the quiet before the town gets going, the feeling that he and his crew have the whole place to themselves for a little while.

"By the time most people are eating breakfast, we've already fixed something," he said, not bragging about it. Just stating a fact.

Marcus is a crew supervisor for Smithville's Public Works Department, overseeing a team of nine that handles everything from pothole repairs and storm drain maintenance to park upkeep and emergency water line work. The department as a whole runs about 23 people across different divisions, all of them reporting to Director Patrice Hollingsworth, who has worked for the town in various capacities for going on 19 years.

The Work Nobody Sees

Here's a partial list of what Smithville Public Works handled in the last twelve months, pulled from department logs: 847 potholes filled. 34 storm drain blockages cleared. 6 water main breaks repaired, two of them overnight. 14 tons of road salt applied during winter events. Roughly 400 acres of public green space mowed, edged, and maintained across the warmer months. Bleachers set up and broken down for the Fourth of July celebration, the Fall Harvest Festival, and three separate community events at Riverside Park.

None of that includes the calls that don't make it into any log — the resident who phones in a downed tree branch blocking a sidewalk, the school that needs a parking lot pothole patched before buses start running, the flooded underpass after a heavy rain that requires someone to show up with a pump at 2 a.m.

"People don't know what they don't see," said Denise Trotta, who handles water and sewer maintenance and has been with the department for seven years. "And that's fine. That's actually the goal — if we're doing our jobs right, nobody's thinking about us."

Denise started in Public Works after a decade working for a private utility contractor in a larger city. She came to Smithville because her mother was here, and she stayed because the work suited her. "In a small town, you see the results directly," she said. "I fix a water main on Grove Street and I know that Mrs. Callahan three houses down has water pressure again. That feedback loop matters to me."

What Winter Really Means

If you want to understand what Public Works does, spend a night with them in February. Marcus walked us through how a winter weather event unfolds from the department's side — and it's considerably more complicated than most people imagine.

The process starts well before any snow falls. The crew monitors forecasts obsessively, pre-treats major roads with brine when conditions warrant, and stages equipment at strategic points around town. When a storm hits, they split into shifts to keep coverage continuous. Marcus described one night last February when they ran 18-hour rotations and still barely kept up with accumulation rates.

"The hardest part isn't the main roads," he said. "We can handle those. It's the side streets, the cul-de-sacs, the dead ends where someone can't get out. You're trying to get to everyone, and there's only so much equipment and so many hours."

"Big" Earl Simmons, who drives one of the department's two primary plow trucks and has been with Public Works for 14 years, put it more simply: "You eat when you can and you keep moving."

Earl got his nickname honestly — he stands about 6-foot-4 and has a laugh you can hear from the next room — but he's also known among his colleagues as the person most likely to stop and help a resident dig out a mailbox or push a stuck car, even when that's technically not in the job description. "It's Smithville," he said, shrugging. "What am I going to do, drive past?"

The Summer Side of Things

Winter gets the drama, but summer brings its own grind. The parks division — which overlaps significantly with Marcus's crew during warmer months — runs nearly nonstop from May through October. Riverside Park alone requires weekly mowing, regular trash removal, restroom maintenance, and ongoing inspection of the playground equipment. The department also handles the setup and breakdown logistics for every permitted outdoor event in town.

Park crew lead Yolanda Ferris, who joined Public Works three years ago after working in landscaping, said the summer schedule can feel relentless. "But then you see a family out at the park on a Saturday, kids running around, and you think — okay, this is why," she said. "We're the reason that space is usable. That's not nothing."

Director Hollingsworth echoed that sentiment when we sat down with her at the end of the week. She's proud of her department, visibly so, and a little frustrated that their work so rarely gets acknowledged in public conversation.

"Every time there's a budget discussion, Public Works is where people look first to cut," she said. "And I understand the pressure. But I always ask people: what does your morning look like if the water doesn't work? What does your commute look like if the roads aren't maintained? We're not a luxury. We're the floor everything else stands on."

The People Behind the Trucks

By 4 p.m. on the Thursday we spent with the crew, Marcus's team had patched three potholes on Birchwood Avenue, cleared a partially blocked culvert near the elementary school, and responded to a call about a broken park bench at Memorial Square. Marcus logged all of it, filed the paperwork, and started planning Friday's schedule.

He doesn't expect a parade. None of them do. But there's a quiet satisfaction in the work that's hard to miss if you spend any time watching them — the way Earl double-checks his plow blade before heading out, the way Denise traces a pipe diagram with her finger like she's reading a map she knows by heart, the way Yolanda stops to pick up a piece of litter near the park entrance even though she's technically off the clock.

Smithville runs because these people show up. Early, often, and mostly without anyone noticing.

Maybe that's worth noticing.