Lewiston Public Works equipment operator Jacob Dostie, 35, plays a big role in keeping the city’s roads open and drivable, the sidewalks clear, parks maintained and a host of other physical and aesthetic things.

Perhaps the department’s landing webpage spells it out best in that it is “the only city department that actually affects every individual who lives, works, visits, or passes through the city every single day.”

Dostie is one of the 10 full-time department employees it takes to keep Lewiston running, and he says he loves it.

Where are you from and what do you do? I live in Minot and I grew up in Auburn. I was a just a regular laborer for Lewiston Public Works when I started December of 2020. I am an equipment operator now, a position I got just shy of a year ago. I worked for the town of Minot for two years before that.

Many say the department is often the unsung hero of the city, so what is it about Public Works the public should know? Even though people don’t see us all the time, we are out there working, whether it’s something as simple as cleaning storm drains off before rainstorms come through to prevent flooding, or in the major projects that we just ran into with the (Dec. 18) storm as far as getting trees off the roads, getting roads closed down for the police department. We work hand in hand really well with the police and fire department to get roads closed down, and make sure we can get out there in a timely fashion to get the roads opened back up. Sometimes it may take a day, but that last storm we had, it took us about two weeks to get all the debris cleaned off the roads out of the ditch lines and get roads opened back up. We do the best we can to keep everything as least chaotic as possible.

What equipment do you operate and what do you do to get things ready? Anything from backhoes to roll-off trucks at the dump to our excavators. I mean, I’ve operated pretty much everything. The only thing I haven’t operated is our dozer, but that’s kind of a unique piece of equipment only used for certain occasions. I just got a new plowing route this year, so I plow with our grader, but also use one of our 10-wheelers. (I just took one) out to East Avenue, Savannah Street, Grove Street and roads out in that area.

We prepare months in advance. We started prepping in October, getting all of our sanders put in the trucks, checking out our equipment, making sure there were no malfunctions with anything.

What types of things does Public Works do that people probably don’t know about? That would probably be our parks areas. We do a lot of maintenance on like Simard-Payne, Kennedy (parks). As far as for the highway department, we do a lot of catch basin cleanings, keeping the debris off so they can take in water. This time of year, we’re dealing with a lot of ice conditions from . . . constant sanding and plowing and prepping . . . to water draining from homes onto lawns, which leaks onto the sidewalk and then onto the roads. That’s a (big issue).

Do you ever have multiple projects going at once, constantly changing where you are? Any given day we can start out with one project and something else might arise, so we’ve got to switch gears over to something else. I’m on a crew of 10 and there are times where we’ve got five guys off on one project and five guys off on another project or whatever it may be. Really, there’s not a single day where we have all 10 guys on one project. Most of the time we’re split up between doing different things here and there.

Most of the accidents are taken care of by the police and fire departments, but if the road needs to be shut down and there’s extra debris left over, we’ll shut the road down, and then we’ll clean up the leftover debris.

What would you say is your favorite part of the job? Being out in public, being outdoors, holding conversations with residents on concerns that they may have, or just even touching base with them. They check in with us, you know: “Oh, how’s your day going?” Interacting with the public and being outdoors really is the best part about it. We’re not stuck in an office, we’re out enjoying the fresh air.

What do you enjoy doing when not working on Lewiston roads and parks that would be interesting for folks to know? My personal life consists of hunting and fishing and sports with both of my boys. One’s 13 and the other one’s 9. So, between (the boys’) hockey and hunting and fishing, we’re pretty much busy all the time. It’s good for them. I enjoy watching them play their sports quite a bit.

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