October 9, 2020 | 12:42pm

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Stephen Yang

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G.N. Miller

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Matthew McDermott

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J.C. Rice

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Christopher Sadowski

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Christopher Sadowski

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James Keivom

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G.N. Miller

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Matthew McDermott

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Christopher Sadowski

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Matthew McDermott

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Charles Wenzelberg

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Helayne Seidman

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William Farrington

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Stephen Yang

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Christopher Sadowski

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Autumn is in the air, COVID-19 cases in NYC continue to rise: The Post's week in photos - New York Post

Paul Sullivan, Special to the Advertiser Published 9:12 a.m. CT Oct. 9, 2020

Open house on Oct. 18; A Pebble Creek resident can walk to the post office, YMCA, nearby churches, several dining options, and accompany a student on their walk to elementary school.

A home located at 1676 Pebble Creek Drive in Prattville is for sale for $389,900. An open house will be held at the property on Oct. 18 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. The stunning four bedroom and two and a half bath home includes more than 3,300 square feet of living space within two stories.(Photo: Contributed)

Pebble Creek Drive features patio and spacious family homes tucked off the north side of busy Cobbs Ford Road in east Prattville.

The property is in an ideal location.

A Pebble Creek resident can walk to the post office, YMCA, nearby churches, several dining options, and accompany a student on their walk to elementary school.

Pebble Creek is one light from popular Daniel Pratt Elementary School located off Shelia Boulevard.

Pebble Creek Drive is a short street with several cul-de-sacs, Realtor Lisa Lynn said. It is common to see families out walking and riding bikes.

Pebble Creek Drive also is just 15 minutes from Maxwell AFB as well as jobs in downtown Montgomery.

A large cluster of patio homes lines the east side of Pebble Creek Drive, as well as an adjoining cul-de-sac. The one-story designs offer smaller yards, less maintenance and driveways which serve the back of the homes.

The newer family homes across Greystone Way on the west side of Pebble Creek Drive also feature smaller yards than normally accompany such roomy homes.

A home located at 1676 Pebble Creek Drive is for sale for $389,900. An open house will be held at the property on Oct. 18 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m., Lynn said.

The stunning four bedroom and two and a half bath home includes more than 3,300 square feet of living space within two stories.

The home is beautifully landscaped and includes a two-car garage. The home was built in 2015.

The home is just like new, Lynn said. The kitchen features a gas range with a griddle, a huge eat-on bar, new dishwasher and walk-in pantry.

A separate dining room has attractive wood floors and pine ceilings, she said.

Double French doors open to the beautiful sunroom, Lynn said, adding that the laundry room includes a chute from the upstairs. The master bath has a huge walk-in, two-head shower.

A covered deck provides peaceful views and relaxing moments outside. A storage shed and sprinkler system add to the value of the property.

* Close to golf course, YMCA, churches

*Popular elementary school nearby

*Family, patio homes

* Newer construction

*Limited pass-through traffic

* At least five homes have been sold in the past year

* The homes were sold in a price range from about $275,000 to about $365,000

* At least one home is for sale

* The home is priced at $389,900

* Home for sale measures more than 3,300 square feet

*To view properties or to inquire about any future open house dates and times, contact Realtor Lisa Lynn at 334-657-9596.

Directions: From downtown Montgomery, travel north on Interstate 65. Take the first Prattville exit and take a left on to Cobbs Ford Road. Travel east on Cobbs Ford past Larry Puckett Chevrolet and take a right on to Greystone Way. Pebble Creek Drive will be on the left and right just past the post office.

Source: Realtor Lisa Lynn

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Life within walking distance at Pebble Creek - Montgomery Advertiser

But the club has been closed since March due to the pandemic, and its not clear when the state will allow it to reopen, says owner Phil Rizzo. Though his landlord has given him a temporary reprieve from rent, which costs $23,000 a month, that wont continue forever.

Rizzo is devising a business planto reopen, pending approval and guidelines from the state. The cost of doing so will be significant $40,000 to $60,000 to start and theres no guarantee anyone will come. His worst fear is that he opens and has to close down again, as some movie theaters and restaurants have had to do this year. That would be a death blow.

Im nervous about the future, nervous about the comeback of Manhattan, Rizzo said on a recent Friday from his home in Pennsylvania. Its not like the business took a dive; the business is gone.

Rizzo is one of thousands of club owners pleading with Congress for a financial lifeline to help them to hold outuntil they can welcome music fans back whenever that is. A bipartisan group of senators hassponsored the Save Our Stages act, which would provide six months of financial support to venues. Rather than offering the reliefas a loan, which venues would need to repay, the bill would providegrants.

Yet bailing out strugglingbusinesses has been held up by gridlock. While the House of Representatives has passed a new coronavirus recovery act that includes provisions from Save Our Stages, itremains at odds with the Senate over the size of the bailout. The Senate has said its waiting on direction from the president, who is busy with hisre-election campaign and pushing for a new nominee to the Supreme Court. On Tuesday, President Trump said hewouldnt negotiate a recovery bill until after the election, though he later softened his stance.

Meanwhile,more owners are giving up altogether. Hundreds of establishmentshave already called it quits, and about 90% of independent venues say they will be forced to close without government intervention, according to AudreySchaefer, spokesperson for the National Independent Venues Association.

Havingto wait until after the election would bedevastating, Schaefer said. Businesses are folding every day as they wait.

And venues are taking on more and more debt. Theyve signed personal guarantees, Schaefer said. These music venues arent like coffee shops and restaurants that you see open and open. Once these are gone, they are gone.

Few industries have suffered more during the last year than live music, which was among the first sectors to close and will be among the last to reopen. Live music thrives on the very situations a large group of people, possibly drunk, packed together deemed least safe by doctors during the pandemic.

While outdoor activities like theme parks and sporting events are resuming in many states, major concert promoters have said they dont expect live music to pick up again until next spring or summer at the earliest. Major music acts wont tour until they can put together multiple shows in numerous states or countries. In the meantime, agencies, management companies, promoters, ticket sellers and venues have all had to fire staff or close up shop because of the pandemic.

Live Nation Entertainment Inc., the worlds largest concert promoter,has access to enough capital to ride it out. Artists can make money from their recordingsor brand deals.But independent music clubs have few alternatives. Like restaurants, they operate on smallprofit margins. They dont collect much of the ticket revenue from a concert, instead relying on selling alcohol and merchandise.

Yet while restaurants can deliver their food at home and offer outdoor seating, most music clubs cant replicate the live experience at home. Selling tickets to online livestreams isnt a sustainable business model for thousands of venues.

The streaming thing is very cool, Rizzo said, but if you are a live-music person, a stream just doesnt do it.

Venues, promoters and artists have tried to come up with alternatives. Some are staging socially distanced shows. Others are giving up on music altogether at least for now and converting to a bar and restaurant.

But these options arentpossible for manyvenues, said Farid Nouri, the owner of the Eighteenth Street Loungein Washington. The spacehasno kitchen, and he cant rely on alcohol alone to fill a 10,000-square-foot venue with a capacity of 499 people.

Nouri opened the club in his adopted home city 25 years ago to promote electronic music at a time whenfew venues offeredit. Nouri DJs in his spare time, and has programmed a wide range of music at his club, including jazz, reggae and salsa.

But after a few months of waiting for the chance to reopen, Nouri realized he might not be able to do so anytime soon. Most clubs cant open fully until a vaccine is available, so Nouri decided to close the club for good.

My landlord was breathing down my neck for full rent.I had IOUs from vendors and staff waiting to get paid, he said. I didnt see any kind of revenue for I dont know how long.

Rob Mercurio is hoping to avoid a similar fate. Mercurio is the bassist in Galactic, a jam band,and the co-owner of Tipitinas, one of New Orleanss most famous clubs. He and his bandmates bought the club in 2018 after years of performing as its house band. Their group had formed in New Orleans, and they were upset seeingthe place sufferfrom years of neglect under previous ownership.The bandtook a small-business loan to make a number of investments.

The venue was eking out a profit before the pandemic, but now Mercurio is at the mercy of banks.

Werereaching the end of our rope, Mercurio said. The venue, which holds 800 people, is too large to function as just a bar. The bankhas allowed Mercurio and his partners to defer payments that have helped him keep his full-time staff, which includes a general manager and a talent buyer.But the money they received as part of the Paycheck Protection Program an earlier federal relief effort has been depleted.Real costs are about to hit, he said.

Business at the Bitter End was slowing down before the coronavirus due to the emergence of an entertainment scene in Brooklyn, said Rizzo, who started working at the clubin 1991 after bartending down the block. He became a manager at the Bitter Endand acquired a small stakein 1993. A few years ago, the clubs majority owner, Paul Colby, sold his stake to Rizzo.

The Bitter End has been luckier than most because of its history. Rizzo has raised close to $100,000 from two campaigns on GoFundMe. The first $12,000 was for his staff, which he had to let go, and the second campaign, which has raisedmore than$85,000, is for reopening costs.

But all of that money will go to paying insurance, maintain a sprinkler system and restocking liquor. The club relies on young college students, working professionals and tourists visiting New York. Its not clear when people will return to the office en masse, or how long it will take for travel to pick up again. For now, a lot of smaller clubs will need money from the federal government to get back open and stay open.

Even 9/11 we jump-started everything pretty quick, Rizzo said. But this time I dont know if the public will be ready and willing to come back fully.

Read more:
The Bitter End and other concert venues say they won't survive without a bailout - Crain's New York Business

CONNECTICUT - Residents are going through a period of extraordinarily high water high usage, and there is a significant lack of rain in the forecast. The State Department of Public Health said Wednesday that things are about to get ugly, especially in southwest Fairfield County.

On Monday, the Connecticut Interagency Drought Workgroup announced a Stage 3 drought for Hartford, Tolland, Windham, and New London counties. A Stage 3 drought is an "emerging drought event potentially impacting water supplies, agriculture, or natural ecosystems."

Now, a couple of days later, DPH is calling out residents of lower Fairfield County specifically those living in Darien, Greenwich, New Canaan, Norwalk, Stamford, and Westport to reduce their water usage by 20 percent due to drought conditions as well.

Fairfield county as well as the entire state of Connecticut was placed on a Stage 1 drought declaration in June. While Fairfield County remains in Stage 1 drought, water conservation measures are critical to reduce usage of the drinking water supplies that supply the southwest portion of the state.

"Connecticut has been in a drought for some time, and every resident especially those in lower Fairfield County can do their part to reduce demand on some of the public water systems and conserve this vital resource," said acting DPH Commissioner Deidre S. Gifford. "We are experiencing a combination of dry weather, lower than normal precipitation this summer, and likely because of that higher than normal demand for water due to outdoor water use."

Taking simple actions to reduce demand on the public water supply in the region could help stabilize the reservoirs that feed into the regional water system, according to a news release from the DPH. Regional water supplier Aquarion is asking customers to reduce nonessential water usage by 20 percent in addition to its mandatory, twice-weekly irrigation schedule.

The DPH has put forth the following guidelines it says could help in preventing a third drought trigger being hit, and further watering restrictions from being enacted:

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CTs Gone Bone Dry: Heres What You Can Do About It - Patch.com

By Jack Mayne

The City of Burien will be getting $780,000 from the state, with $380,000 earmarked for small Burien businesses as relief from the effects of COVID-19 pandemic.

Burien City Manager Brian Wilson told the Council at its regular virtual session on Monday night (Oct. 5) that the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, the CARES Act, has provided the city, via the state, with a second round of money.

Direct economic helpThis federal legislation was passed to provide fast and direct economic assistance for American workers and families, small businesses, and preserves jobs for American industries The CARES Act provides fast and direct economic assistance for American workers, families, and small businesses, and preserve jobs for our American industries.

Burien businesses to get the grants must be commercial enterprises with a Burien city business license, 10 or fewer employees, have been a for-profit business for 12 months or longer, and have a 25 percent or larger drop in their revenue. Grants up to $5,000 are available, said Wilson.

Ventures Nonprofit of Seattle will administer the funds, and this will be the second round, Wilson said. Ventures says it builds businesses and changes lives by equipping low-income entrepreneurs with training, support and access to capital.

The application period started Oct. 2, and will close on Oct. 15, 2020.

Wilson said there was an earlier grant of $385,000 directed to human services, with a good percentage of that (for) human services.

Vacated Annex hit by copper wire thiefThere has been extreme damage done to the Annex building, now closed and awaiting to be demolished, said Wilson.

There have been real problems with theft and with burglary inside that building to the point where the whole electrical system was compromised. That turned out to be an extreme safety concern, he said. We also had the fire sprinkler system and the water access damaged to the point where we had severe flooding that occurred within there and we have had continued problems.

Wilson said the Burien Police have identified a suspect in the act at the Annex on Sunday night and that person is in custody for burglary.

The burglars intent, said Wilson, was to get copper wire for sale.

Photos courtesy Burien Police / King County Sheriffs Office

Burien Police said that over the last week, they had received complaints of someone breaking into the Annex building and stealing copper from pipes and wiring.

Burien Police/King County Sheriffs Office Special Emphasis Team (SET) detectives monitored the property on Sunday, Oct. 4 then caught the burglar in the act cutting fences, breaking doors and digging up underground utilities in his search for copper.

He was arrested and booked into jail for burglary.

Face masks donated to Highline Public SchoolsIn other business, The city manager told Council the city has donated 5,000 face masks to the Highline School District for their students. The masks were donated to the city and we are happy to redistribute those masks to the Highline School District.

Three citizens honoredThree local people were unanimously proclaimed 2019 Citizens of the Year, an honor usually awarded earlier in the year, and a proclamation, both postponed from May due to the pandemic. The awards were cited by Mayor Jimmy Matta and City Manager Brian Wilson.

The first was for Grace Stiller who is a longtime board member and current interim board president for the Burien Arts Association whose mission is to enrich Burien with arts and culture.

Stiller founded the nonprofit organization Weed Warriors (now known as Nature Stewards) in 2008 as as a way to help youth enrolled in Highline area schools complete their community service requirements through projects that connected them to the natural world; and Stiller and her organization Nature Stewards is involved in the establishment and operations of two community edible gardens in Burien.

Pastors honoredThe two women honored together were Pastors Jenny Partch and Lina Thompson continue to advocate for the most vulnerable in our community, The two Pastors Jenny Partch and Lina Thompson worked with the Ecumenical Leadership Circle to organize emergency financial support for residents of the Fox Cove Apartments, who faced displacement because the building was being sold; and Pastors Jenny Partch and Lina Thompson witnessed the hardship suffered by people experiencing homelessness and those living at risk of losing their housing and felt called to action and organized a diverse coalition of community members and leaders to advocate for renter protections in Burien.

Council followed with a proclamation also originally slated for May but postponed because of the onset of the pandemic. The original Affordable Housing Week Proclamation noted the city found 1,115 people in southwest King County sleeping outdoors without shelter in January of this year, and two in five households in Burien are considered cost-burdened, because they were spending more than 30 percent of their income on housing, and the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated many existing financial constraints for low- and moderate-income households.

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City of Burien to get federal pandemic funds to aid local businesses; copper thief arrested at Annex - The - The B-Town Blog

The fire was started in the back west corner of the store and spread very quickly

by: Joe Gorman

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) Fire investigators say a young child is responsible for a fire last month that destroyed a Mahoning Avenue dollar store.

Capt. Kurt Wright of the Youngstown Fire Department Fire Investigation Unit said the child set fire to wrapping paper and gift bags in the back corner of the store.

The blaze at the 3003 Mahoning Ave. store that broke out about 1:30 p.m. Sept. 24 heavily damaged the store. Heavy smoke flowed from the back west corner of the store, where the fire was set, out the front door. Firefighters had to call in an excavator to knock the back walls down so they could get to spots in the ceiling where it was hard to get water into to put the flames out.

The store is expected to be demolished at some point.

Wright said the fire caught very quickly because the materials that were set afire are very flammable and the store did not have a sprinkler system because of its size. Once the fire spread to the ceiling, it was out of control.

No charges are expected to be filed, Wright said.

Wright said the child set the fire with a lighter they got off of one of their parents. Both of the childs parents smoke, Wright said.

No one was injured in the fire, but the thick smoke, heat and the fact that some of the flames were inaccessible until the excavator was called in caused a second alarm to be put in.

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Investigators say child started fire that destroyed Dollar Tree on Mahoning Avenue - WKBN.com

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A 45-year-old woman was charged Wednesday with damaging her hotel room in Anaheim with a butane torch while caring for a toddler.

Christy Michelle Meteer pleaded not guilty to one felony count each of arson, vandalism and child abuse and endangerment at her arraignment in the jail courtroom in Santa Ana. She was ordered to return to court for a pretrial hearing Oct. 21 at the North Justice Center in Fullerton.

Police were called after the sprinkler system was activated about 3:30 a.m. Tuesday at the Extended Stay America at 1742 Clementine St., according to Anaheim police Sgt. Shane Carringer. The defendant is accused of using a butane torch often associated with illicit drug use to burn various parts of her hotel room, he said.

A toddler-aged girl to whom Meteer is related was in the room with her, Carringer said.

Woman Accused of Torching Anaheim Hotel Room with Toddler Inside was last modified: October 7th, 2020 by Contributing Editor

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Joe TaschlerMilwaukee Journal Sentinel

Members of the board that oversees Miller Park approved a plan Tuesday to spend $1.8 million to upgrade the system that controls the ballparks retractable roof.

The Southeast Wisconsin Professional Baseball Park District boards finance and operations committees voted unanimously to spend the money to improve the system as part of the 2021 maintenance and improvement plan for the ballpark.

The roof panels are moved by a complex system of motors and drives that haul it along a track.

Much of the controls for the system as well as various parts of the drive system have become obsolete and have reached their usable life after 20 years, said Kristi Kreklow, associate director of the district.

In 2018, workers removed and inspected one of the 10 bogies that haul the roof panels into place. The bogie was making unusual noises but was deemed not to be faulty in the $900,000 project.

The spending for the latest project is coming from whats known as the districts segregated reserve fund to which the district and the Milwaukee Brewers each make contributions.

Improving the roofs drive and control system has been planned and is not a surprise. Original plans for the stadium called for the systems to be replaced once they turned 20 years old.

The expectation is that the upgrade, once complete, will last another 20 years, said Mike Duckett, executive director of the district.

Board members also voted Tuesday to spend $1.3 million to replace the ballparks fire detection system.

The roof-control system and the fire-detection system are the most expensive that the board members considered on Tuesday.

The fire-detection system also is 20 years old, Duckett said, and replacing it was also part of the long-term plan for the upkeep of the ballpark.

The ballpark has about 1.2 million square feet of finished space that the fire detection system covers, Kreklow said.

The fire detection system was put to use in July 2014 after a middle-of-the-night fire broke out in a restaurant area in the left field area of the ballpark. The system triggered the ballparks sprinkler system and alerted Milwaukee firefighters, who responded and extinguished the blaze.

The funds for the upgrades will come, in part, from proceeds of a 0.1% sales tax levied in Milwaukee, Waukesha, Washington, Ozaukee and Racine counties. That sales tax, collected since 1996, was stopped in March. The funds were placed into an escrow account and are being used to maintain the stadium.

The state law that created the tax allows the proceeds to be used only for costs related to the ballpark.

Among other spending items, members of the board also voted to spend $130,000 on a female locker room after the first female coach in Major League Baseball, Alyssa Nakken, began coaching this year for the San Francisco Giants.

The San Francisco Giants first base coach Alyssa Nakken jogs to first base during the second inning of an exhibition baseball game against the Oakland Athletics in San Francisco, Tuesday, July 21, 2020.

LEDs will light field

Meanwhile, the process of converting the lights that illuminate the playing field to LEDs has begun. The new LED lighting system has been delivered to the ballpark and installation will take place this off-season.

The new lights are expected to be ready for Opening Day 2021. The project has qualified for a $90,000 Focus on Energy rebate due to the energy savings that the new LEDs will provide, according to the stadium district. That money will be used to help offset the project cost.

Name change in full swing

The Milwaukee Brewers ballpark will be renamed American Family Field, beginning on Jan. 1, 2021, when American Family Insurance takes over the naming rights.

Thousands of signs must be changed at the ballpark, which has been known as Miller Park since it opened.

State law prevents the stadium district from incurring any expenses related to the name change, Kreklow said.

Rent deferral?

The Brewers pay a $1.2 million annual rental fee to the stadium district, and board members are expecting the ball club to ask for some form of rent forgiveness as a result of the pandemic-shortened MLB season in which fans were not allowed to attend games.

During the teleconference meeting on Tuesday, board members asked whether rent forgiveness or deferral was allowed under the lease agreement with the team.

While there is no specific clause in the lease that mentions a pandemic, there are other portions of the lease that likely address such a situation and would allow some sort of rent forgiveness or deferral, Duckett said.

Board members said they would take up the issue when and if the Brewers formally request it.

Call Joe Taschler at (414) 224-2554 or jtaschler@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @JoeTaschler or Facebook at facebook.com/joe.taschler.1.

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Drive system on Miller Park roof to be replaced as part of planned ballpark maintenance, board members decide - Daily Reporter

A battlefield historian, an anthropologist, and an archaeologist: That's the unique team that monitors underground utility assets for Consolidated Utility District of Rutherford County (CUD).

"Imagine a ratepayer decides to install fencing or a sprinkler system, but no underground assets have been marked by CUD," said Matthew Whitten, GIS/GPR Technician for Consolidated Utility District (CUD) of Rutherford County. "While digging holes, the ratepayer hits and breaks a six-inch PVC pipe, or an 18-inch ductile iron pipe. That person would be responsible for time and damages incurred, and the community would be impacted as services are turned off for repair.

"It's absolutely critical to know exactly where underground water lines are located," saidWhitten, who has a background in archaeology with the Tennessee State Historic Commission, Middle Tennessee State University, and the Rutherford County Archaeology Society.

"We serve CUD and our ratepayers by keeping all our water line maps current," said Pam Sykes, GIS Analyst for CUD. "From line locating to helping inspectors out in the field to locating a leak, that all helps us reduce costs and improve water loss prevention."A Rutherford County native, Sykes holds a degree in anthropology from MTSU and spent more than three years working in the state parks of California.

"As the GIS coordinator, I'm the gatekeeper of the data,"Bethany Hall said. "For our ratepayers, I'm like Google. I research and provide options for solving issues. GIS is becoming one of the core departments at CUD. That's happening through the creation of dashboards and web applications."

Before joining CUD, Hall worked for Rutherford County and the City of Murfreesboro in GIS (geospatial information systems) capacities and earned degrees from ITT Tech, American InterContinental University, and MTSU. Though Hall leads the GIS Team at CUD, her previous experiences carried her to distant battlefields overseas."

Hall's journey into GIS began by accident. Her father worked as an electrician and a plumber, and she learned to read blueprints and help him install wiring or plumbing. Through the years, Hall looked for opportunities to use her interests and skills in drafting, geography, and history.

"In 2008, I enrolled at MTSU in the Public History program as a master's degree student," Hall said. "I started doing some training on battlefield GIS. I have a fascination with 20th century warfare, and later I did a study abroad in 2009 with MTSU to the islands of Peleliu and Palau."

A member of Hall's grandmother's family fought in World War II with the First Marine Division at the Battle of Palau and was buried near Pearl Harbor. Hall traced his deployments through the war.

"Palau is tiny -- only two and a half miles long and about a mile and a half across," Hall noted. "It's largely an undisturbed World War II battlefield and still has unexploded ordnance. When I was there, I jumped over a root of a banyan tree, and landed on something metal. I figured my legs were about to be blown off. But what I had landed on were smoke grenades underneath the leaf litter."

Hall would later work on a project with MTSU that would be titled "The Blue Raiders of Vietnam." Sixteen men who attended MTSU during Vietnam died while in service there. Researching the efforts of those soldiers led to Hall's Master of Liberal Arts degree.

The GIS knowledge Hall honed during her education became vital at CUD. "They needed somebody with the GIS background. We're developing a vision for our information, and we can deploy operational dashboards and data-collecting technology to find our underground lines so our field crews can easily locate them."

"Plus, I helped bring in a drone program for mapping and preliminary site design. I've got 30 hours of manned aviation experience and FAA certification. Using drones allows us to check the physical state of our water storage tanks so we don't have to send out a crew in safety gear."

Visit Pamela Sykes' workspace, and you'll see her love of science fiction. Talk to her, though, and you'll hear about her appreciation of science fact.

"My background originally was in physics due to my love of Star Trek," said Sykes. "I went through (MTSU) as a physics and biology double major, but I've always been interested in anthropology, too.

"I really enjoy maps because of orienteering and doing outdoor work. Because of my background in physics, I like the idea of mapping the universe."

After returning to Tennessee, Sykes was approached by a friend about an opportunity with CUD. The role would require GIS capabilities a skillset she had not used in about five years. Fortunately, the knowledge returned to her quickly, and the technology had improved, too.

"The tech became friendlier, thanks to smartphones," said Sykes. "Being able to help our guys in the field use the tools and software, it's all been part of a fun learning curve. As soon as our guys collect data, I'm editing it. Thanks to cell reception, the work moves pretty fast."

Shooting aerial photography and video using CUD's drone gives Sykes yet another avenue to use the latest technology. Like Hall, Sykes is an FAA-licensed drone pilot, having earned her certification in 2019. Part of her work involves flying the drone over worksites for pipe installations or structures for STEP systems (Septic Tank Effluent Pump). The data provided by the drone indicates the exact points where infrastructure has been placed which is vital for inventory control and management.

Sykes has a particular vision in mind for her drone work. "Hopefully, we can start to do some three-dimensional analysis with virtual reality. It would be awesome to see what's underground without having to dig underground. Especially if something is in the road or close to the road that would cause some problems. The thing is, I love technology, and I'm a gadget person. That's part of why I'm here."

Matthew Whitten started as an intern with CUD and learned about GPR (ground penetrating radar) as a method for locating possible submerged walls. That data provides CUD with an idea of where to plot and excavate. The GPR also identifies submerged pipes that were installed throughout the county prior to satellite imagery being taken.

Unearthing the past comes naturally to Whitten since he's fascinated by archaeology. His collegiate career included work for museums, cemeteries, and an American Indian cultural center. He later gained professional experience developing historical maps and analyzing geographic features.

"I believe that even from childhood we're all explorers," said Whitten. "That just kind of bled over from history into archaeology, showing places on a map, indicating movement of peoples, mapping out a dig site. That transitioned me into my GIS work."

Even Whitten's first connection with CUD related to archaeology. "I met Bethany Hall when I was working a dig in Eagleville in 2014. At the time, I was the vice president of the Rutherford County Archaeological Society. One of the projects was cleaning and restoring the Old City Cemetery, which is now about 200 years old. While working for Rutherford County GIS, Bethany and I went plotting all the cemeteries throughout the county, and we ended up finding new cemeteries."

Today, Whitten uses his archaeological skills in ways that benefit CUD and its ratepayers. "For a recent example, a contractor wanted to cut a drive into a new subdivision. However, the contractor noticed that a main service line ran across where the new drive was to be located. Our team determined that the blueprints did not agree with a true location. We used our ground-penetrating radar to locate where the line ran, which was roughly six feet off from the blueprints. That way, we helped them avoid a mistake."

At Consolidated Utility District, our mission continues to be to provide safe drinking water for all residential, industrial, and governmental agencies, meeting and exceeding all federal and state standards at the lowest possible cost with high quality, efficiency, and integrity.

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How 3 explorers serve CUD and its ratepayers - Murfreesboro Voice

My grassman career started 25 years ago when my dad decided I was old enough to push a lawnmower. Once I mastered the art of keeping the hallowed home lawn in venerable shape, I was promoted to taking care of neighbors' lawns. I mowed, raked, fertilized, and sprayed chemicals with a fastidious concern for perfection. Fast forward a couple decades, and here I am, taking care of those same lawns as owner of Organic Lawn. The only difference is my definition of perfection.

Recently, some friends of mine were lamenting how the Joneses lawn next door was more perfect than theirs. The Joneses watered daily, meticulously mowed, and voraciously stamped out diversity in their sea of Kentucky Blue. My friends just bought their home last summer and dont have an underground sprinkler system and spend most of their time biking and trail running instead of moving sprinklers. Their lawn had gone dormant and turned brown. Not only that, it had a couple dandelions. They were living in shame, avoiding eye contact with the Joneses, shopping for a company to install a sprinkler system, and weighing the pros and cons of spraying chemicals to kill the weeds.

Why were my friends trying to keep up with the Joneses? The Joneses are everything that is wrong with lawn care. Watering too frequently, mowing short, and nuking the soil microbiome with chemicals are the last practices anyone should desire to emulate. Allowing for natural diversity, taking care of the biological communities in the soil, and managing in a way that limits water use are far more important. Brown grass in late summer and the occasional dandelion never killed anyone, but glyphosate certainly has. The Joneses should be keeping up with my friends.

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Excerpt from:
Lawn care is more than watering and killing 'weeds' - The Bozeman Daily Chronicle