This week is National Public Works Week.

The theme of this year’s Public Works Week in Knoxville is “People, Purpose, Presence.” At Monday night’s Knoxville City Council meeting, a proclamation was read by Mayor Hatch which stated, “ public works professionals focus on infrastructure, facilities, and services that are of vital importance to sustainable and resilient communities and to public health, high quality of life, and well-being of the people of Knoxville; and, these infrastructure, facilities, and services could not be provided without the dedicated efforts of public works professionals, who are engineers, managers, and employees at all levels of government and the private sector, who are responsible for rebuilding, improving, and protecting our nation’s transportation, water supply, water treatment and solid waste systems, public buildings, and other structures and facilities essential for our citizens.”

Knoxville City Manager Heather Ussery says she is thankful for all the Public Works Department does for the community.

“For Public Works Week they went to the fifth graders at Northstar a week ago and talked to them about what they do. That includes our water reclamation, our street shop, and cemetery. It just gives them some opportunity to get some information and knowledge about what our public works staff does. We appreciate everything they do. It’s not always glamorous work but they keep a lot of things running in our community.”

Hear more from Ussery on today’s Let’s Talk Knoxville.