DPW vet to ride off on roads he helped maintain

Richard Tedesco

When Edward Kotarski started working in the Village of New Hyde Park Department of Public Works in the summer of 1973, he didn’t think of it as a career move.

But 37 years later, Kowarski will be taking early retirement next month after serving as DPW administrative assistant for the past 15 years.

“I never dreamed the job would turn out the way it did,” he said.

Kotarski recalled how he started in the department as a sanitation man making $3 an hour through his six-day weeks. He eventually got a commercial driver’s license and became a part-time truck driver.

But nothing much changed in his routine until a fellow named James McCloat – also soon to retire – took charge of things.

“He was like a breath of fresh air,” Kotarski recalls. “He said ‘Show me what you can do’.”

And Kotarski did, moving into the village Highway Department after recovering from a back problem and doing assorted jobs, including road repairs, tree trimming, snow removal and street sweeping. He remembers driving “archaic” snow removal trucks in years past, trucks equipped with plow blades that required the operator to get out of the cab to manipulate a mechanical lever that raised and lowered the blade.

He recalls a Labor Day weekend in 1985 when a freak storm struck the area, forcing him and his colleague to work from morning until dark, removing large trees that had been uprooted all over the village.

“It was a disaster. When I saw the street I said, ‘Call the National Guard’,” he said.

But it was Kotarski and his mates who did all the heavy lifting. It was also Kotarski who conducted one of the first comprehensive surveys of all the roads in the village, measuring cracks in the roads, and reporting where repairs were most urgently needed, examining the thoroughfares “street by street, inch by inch,” as he puts it.

He became an automotive service assistant in the late 1980s and then became the department’s auto service and learned to overhaul the street sweeper.

Back problems he suffered as a mechanic prompted him to ask McCloat for an inside job when one opened up, and he took on the job he’ll shortly be leaving. As DPW administrative assistant, he conducts inspections, responding to residents’ requests for street repairs or trees to be trimmed. He’s weekly filed a survey of those complaints over the past 15 years, scheduling the work to be done and notifying residents as to when it will be done.

“Basically I’m talking to people all the time,” he said, estimating that he’s personally interacted with one-quarter of the 10,000 people who inhabit the village. “In a small village, we deal with people more personally than you could in a larger municipality.

Since the late 1980s, Kotarski’s been an officer in the Civil Service Employees Association, serving as president of that union local for the past 10 years, negotiating two full contracts and two six-year contracts for the workers in his department in the process.

He’s also in charge of code enforcement, a job where he also fields plenty of complaints about summonses residents are issued.

But he’s enjoyed his work, particularly the unpredictable nature of it, and the opportunity to help people out.

“Every day is something different. You never know what to expect. When you know you’ve been able to do something for somebody, you feel good about that day,” Kotarski said.

He recalls advice his father gave him years ago: “Never do a job just good enough. Do it the best you can do.”

Kotarski said it’s troubled him that he’s had to tell residents lately that certain work can’t be done because of budget limitations in the current economic climate.

“It hurts when have to tell people you can’t do something,” he said. “Right now there are budgetary constraints and we can’t do everything we want to do.”

He’s taking early retirement with mixed feelings, but Kotarski said he’s looking forward to having more time to play golf and attend his nephew’s high school basketball games.

“I’m his biggest fan,” he confides.

When Kotarski departs soon, taking a little vacation time he’s stored up, he’ll be leaving more than a few local fans of his efforts behind.

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