Elgin Public Works open house fun for the family

The Elgin Public Works Department does more than pick up snow and leaves.

If you attended its open house Saturday, you also learned its workers make street signs, clean sewers, repair water mains and use real-time radar that alerts them to precipitation.

Elgin capped off National Public Works Week with a three-hour, family-friendly open house at its facility at 1900 Holmes Road. About 700 people were expected to attend the open house, now in its 11th year.

It would not have been possible without $5,300 in donations from local businesses, said Cyndy Fowler, one of the event’s organizers, who also is an administrative assistant for public works.

The free event included free giveaways, rides on snow plows and street-cleaning machines, facility tours and a sandbox loaded with hidden toys for keeps.

“We have it just so we can promote what we do and have people come in when it’s not in crisis mode,” Public Services Director Dave Lawry said. “This kind of gives them an idea of what we do and how we do it — in a more festive environment.”

For many, the highlight of the open house was a quirky basketball competition between a pair of front-end loaders.

The vehicles had a basketball attached to the loading part and wove in and out of several cones before dropping the ball into a large container at the end of the course.

Aside from entertainment, the competition offered some lessons, Barb Frushour of Elgin said.

The tight turns the vehicles made during the shootout helped her envision how they operate on the city streets, she said.