Longtime street, parks supervisor finishes the way he started: hard at work

Mother Nature refused to let longtime Cloquet street and parks maintenance supervisor Les Peterson coast into retirement. Rather, she dumped more than 15 inches of snow on the city in less than a week.

As a result, Peterson was out plowing alleyways in Cloquet Monday morning, his last day with the city after 18 years.

Not a shy guy, Peterson was both behind the scenes and played a public role in creating and promoting some of the activities in the city parks. From designing a hay bale maze for little kids at Veterans Park to donning an Easter Bunny costume for a photo shoot, Peterson seemed like he was constantly adding to his job duties.

That just kind of happened naturally, said Peterson, who started as the street maintenance supervisor and added "Parks" to the title not too many years later.

"A couple of years into it, our staff was dwindling because of [less financial support] from the state," Peterson explained. "I think the parks had four or five people but by the end Dean Levinski was the only one left. How does one person do all those things?"

So Peterson took over and the two departments became one.

"That was fun," he said. "I'd been involved in streets before, but parks was new."

It was nice to hear people talk about things they like, rather than the often sometimes-negative feedback about streets and potholes.

"We all hate potholes -they're like wood ticks, they just show up," he said. "But with all the changes in temperature here, trying to build roads or things that last, geez, it's difficult. We see conditions from 25 below zero to 90 degrees. How can things stay together at those extremes?"

Speaking of extremes, Peterson said the weather has changed over the past 18 years.

"I think we see far less snow," he said, noting that the city-run tubing hill hasn't opened for more than a handful of days over the past few years. "And I remember the rain when I was young - now it's torrential."

Now that he's retired, Peterson finally won't have to watch the weather forecasts as closely as he has for the past 18 years, particularly in preparation for any winter weather.

"When they say we're going to have snow and we actually believe them, we start getting ready," Peterson said.

The night before snow is due, they get the trucks ready with plows, sanders and salt brine, he said, to help the sand stick. The city has four plow truck routes, plus two grader routes to do Cloquet, Doddridge and Carlton Avenues, and all the hills that are difficult for the trucks. They also have one loader with a plow and a wing that takes care of the Sunnyside neighborhood.

If 2-3 inches of snow has fallen by the next morning, the city crews get in at 2:30 a.m. and start plowing at 3 a.m. to try to beat the traffic. Other staff begin clearing certain popular sidewalk routes in town, city parking lots and ice rinks (as well as the new skating ribbon). City staff also groom the ski trails at Pine Valley, usually after all the roads have been taken care of.

In addition to plowing street and sidewalks in the winter, his crews help maintain the streets and city parks, and keep the city vehicles - from cars to giant trucks - well maintained and running. They do the same for the Cloquet Area Fire District.

"Equipment is a huge expense," said Peterson, "so you try to make it last as long as possible, whether that's by purchasing a snowplow truck made of stainless steel so it won't rust or just taking really good care of what you have."

The longtime city employee declined a farewell party (although he did gather with fellow staff members at the Northeastern last week), mostly because he didn't want to spend the day in Council Chambers eating cake.

But Peterson leaves - future plans include "drowning minnows" and spending time with his best catch ever, partner Claire Bouska - with many fond memories of working in Cloquet.

Peterson said it's been really nice to see Cloquet Avenue get a makeover, and all the work that was done over the past few years on the city parks. He will miss all the support city crews got during the holiday season - even though putting up and maintaining the ever-growing collection of light displays, again, added to the workload. He loves seeing people drive through Spafford Park to look at the lights Cloquet purchased from his hometown of Virginia, Minn., and all the other displays donated to the city by Nathan Bentley, whose precursor display to Bentleyville started at his home in rural Cloquet.

"Duluth may be the Christmas City, but dang it, we're trying hard to be No. 2," said Peterson with a chuckle.

Then he left to go see how many alleys still needed to be plowed.