Now that warmer weather has officially arrived, residents will begin seeing some of our city’s critical employees begin working on various projects around town.

This week, which is National Public Works Week, we want to celebrate these worked all they contribute to making Winchester and Clark County a great place to live.

In Winchester, city employees do a lot of work — like road repairs, paving, planting, cleaning and more — to keep the community’s infrastructure safe, clean and in working order.

Throughout the warmer months, it is not uncommon to see Public Works employees out and about repairing roads, caring for curbs and gutters, watering downtown plants and greenery, mowing rights of way, removing or trimming trees, or painting pavement markings.

They remain busy year-round, particularly in the winter salting roadways and removing snow.

Public Works is responsible for ensuring the safety maintaining conditions of all city streets, alleys and rights of way. That includes street maintenance, like paving and milling, crack sealing and street sweeping; stormwater management, leaf collection, snow and ice removal, sign maintenance and facility maintenance.

The work they do is valuable and critical, but often overlooked.

While we celebrate Public Works this week, we are thankful for their work year-round. Their contributions are integral to our community’s success.

These city employees work closely with city government, business owners and others to help make our day-to-day environment the best it can be.

They also help make events like the Beer Cheese Festival, Christmas parade, Daniel Boone Pioneer Festival and more happen by assisting with setup efforts and ensuring the city streets and areas are left as clean and accessible as it was before these special events.

Other agencies, like Winchester Municipal Utilities and the Clark County Road Department, fit under this umbrella as well.

We thank these employees for their efforts in the planning, building and management that keeps our city running smoothly day in and day out.