Superintendent of Public Works Robert ‘Bob’ Kowalik and the Village of Akron
Spend time in this charming upstate village of about 3,000 residents, have a drink of water, flush a toilet, or even flick a light switch and you will in some way connect directly to the village’s department of public works. Ever since the 1800s Akron has been supplying the village with its own electric power at a competitive rate, delivering its own pure-tasting water from the village’s 100-acre plus reservoir, treating its sewage, as well as providing traditional highway work.
You could say that Bob Kowalik, superintendent, wears a lot of hats.
First the roads, Kowalik explains, “Only about 25 percent of our total budget is represented by highway work. It’s a small village, about two miles square, so everything is paved. Most of the village streets have been resurfaced. The majority of them have curbs. Click for more...
Living virtually in the geographic center of the vast 6.1 million acres that make up Adirondack Park, residents of the town of Indian Lake relish a remoteness and solitude not easy to find in the hustle and bustle of the Northeast.
Here, the early morning quiet never yields fully to an afternoon cacophony of car horns, rumbles of truck engines and swarms of people scurrying to the places they need to be, like it does in Utica and Albany, more than an hour and a half away to the south. Click for more...
It’s hard to find the town of Barrington on a map, and that’s the way most local residents like it. Located in southern Yates County with the shores of Keuka Lake on one side and the “hill people” living on the other, Barrington has a population of just over 1,000. Click for more...
Many people can say they’ve watched their hometown grow and change over the years. Few people can say they’ve had a hand in the growth and change in their hometown for nearly their entire lives. James J. Dean, superintendent of highways in Orangetown, N. Click for more...
