New public works director starts in Hill City

Travis Kettner started as public works director in Hill City in January.

Kettner comes to Hill City after spending six years in the military, managing his family’s lumber company for 15 years and then doing electrical work.

“We love the Hills — me and my wife,” Kettner said. “We have been coming out here about once a month the last few years on vacation, and I’ve been coming out here to hunt since I was about 18. We just love the area.”

Since taking over the department, he has worked hard to learn about Hill City, its history and its needs.

His duties, he said, are broad, taking care of everything in town from wastewater to lights, streets to public buildings.

There are a lot of duties that public works and its employees perform, too, that the general public does not know about, he added.

So far, Kettner said his time in Hill City is going well. There are some big projects in the works, he said, and he and public works are working together to make Hill City a better place.

The biggest issue facing Hill City right now from a public works perspective is the water infiltration, Kettner said.

“We are treating a lot of water that doesn’t need to be treated, and that’s costing us a lot of money,” he said. “We just had a meeting with rural water, and we are going to start doing some cameras and video taping of the lines...to try to find where the infiltration is coming in and get that knocked down, save the city a bunch of money and allow the wastewater treatment plant to take in more when it comes to the busy seasons and stuff like that.”

As the city progresses and works on projects, Kettner said he wants to see projects worked in congruence with one another so that new roads are needed it won’t be followed by work under the roads which would cause them to need to be removed.

With the new attainable housing development, too, a new water tower is going up to serve the growing population of Hill City.

“We have a bunch of good guys, and we’re getting ready to hire another one to help us out,” Kettner said. “Right now we’re keeping up on the maintenance of equipment and getting ready for spring to get here, and we’re just working on things for when the busy season gets here.”

He also said he wants public works to update with the times.

So far, Kettner said the people of Hill City have been “super nice.”

In the position that he’s in, Kettner said that everyone is watching and there have been a lot of people coming up to him and thanking him for the work that he’s doing.

“Hill City is a great place,” Kettner said. “It’s a neat place to be part of. After learning the history of it I’m proud to be a part of it and help make it a better place. Not that it’s a bad place, but to improve it, I should say, I guess.”