City manager gives special recognitions.
After the July 14 storm, city staff went out to inspect to determine how stormwater systems worked. They found a problem with the Eastside Canal. On the south side of Laura St. the canal goes underground and goes for two blocks to discharge into Cooper Pond. “There was something blocking that drainage tunnel,” City Manager Bill McDaniel said. “We could see something in there. We needed to get it out. That meant somebody had to go in there….We gave it the alligator test; we put our hand in and pulled it out and our hand was wet, so we knew there were alligators in there. Tom Benjamin said, ‘I will do it.’”
Benjamin pulled a strap 75 feet into the tunnel through chest-high water and attached it to a shopping cart that had trapped logs, a couple of boxes of squash, and a quite nasty decomposed whole chicken. “That’s our job,” Benjamin, Streets and Stormwater Crew Leader 2, said. “That is what we do every day. We clear canals and ditches so the water can move out of Plant City. That is what they pay us for.”
On August 12, another city employee took action. “Somebody ran into my office and informed me that a car was on fire in the city parking lot, and that my vehicle was in danger because it was parked right next to my vehicle,” McDaniel said. “As I walked close, I saw this enormous cloud erupt around the vehicle, and I thought, ‘Well, there it goes.’ Then I saw Assistant Finance Director Jennifer Forsberg walk out of that cloud, fire extinguisher in hand. It was a citizen’s vehicle. She saved it from further damage when she put out the fire, and she saved my vehicle.”
“I was downstairs on the first floor talking with utility billing folks, and a lady came in and said, ‘My car is on fire!’” Forsberg said. “We grabbed the fire extinguisher, and we were walking out there and they asked, ‘Are you going to do this?’ I said, ‘Okay.’”
“When an employee does something that comes to my attention that’s above and beyond, I have a way of recognizing them,” McDaniel said. “I go out and I present a City Manager’s Challenge Coin to them, along with a certificate related to what they did. In the case of Tom, it was a demonstration of his willingness to do what it took to get the job done. He did something that I don’t think a lot of people would have the nerve to do. You are walking into a very dark, enclosed tunnel that is a waterway….I give him a great deal of credit for his willingness to take on that task. He really was demonstrating a can-do, get-it-done kind of attitude, and this exemplifies it. And I was told by his supervisors that is representative of who he is.”
“Jennifer does a great job for us,” McDaniel continued. “The recognition for her is for her quick thinking and her willingness to act in the midst of an emergency situation. She saw something happening. She didn’t hesitate, she didn’t ask what she should do. She realized the problem. She grabbed the fire extinguisher, and she went out there and dealt with it. That is the kind of person you want around you when things are going off the rails.
