Staff writer
Fire hydrants are looking brighter, canopies more open, and streets cleaner in Hillsboro, all due to an extra effort on city workers’ parts to spruce things up.
“I don’t think it is necessarily because the Hillsboro Arts and Crafts Fair is coming soon,” Mayor Delores Dalke said. “Rather it is just a case of somebody doing something that looks nice, and others getting on board to make their areas look nice, too.”
On Tuesday, Hillsboro Water Department employee Tom Richards painted several fire hydrants bright red along Lincoln Street.
“I’ve done those from Third to A Street,” Richards said. “I’ve done some on D Street and Grand. I am just doing my part to make it all presentable.”
Dalke said that years ago fire hydrants in Hillsboro were color-coded to let emergency personnel know which hydrants had different levels of pressure.
“Now we have fixed a lot of those old water lines and the pressure situation is much better than it used to be,” she said. “Now we are painting them all red, and I think it looks nice.”
City Administrator Larry Paine said city workers were also trimming trees in several of the areas where newly reconstructed streets pass through.
“We have a number of projects finished now and it is good to go back and do the extra, maybe mundane things that make the town look nice,” Paine said. “Basically we are just trimming trees to make sure the canopy is high enough that we don’t clip onto them with other things.”